Staffordshire Terrier Rescue SA: For the love of one of the most amazing breeds

10th Mar, 2023

Written by Katja Herr

Their big hearts, stinky farts, total loyalty and funny faces, strange sleeping positions, taking over beds and couches and the endless love and best kissers ever. “Once a Staffie lover, always a Staffie lover!” We simply love and support this breed and will do everything we can to help them.

After all, we are the humans and we need to help the innocent and misunderstood.

It began with an adoption…

It all began with adopting a rescue Staffordshire Bull Terrier (Staffie). It was then that we realised that this breed needed a lot of support in every possible way, especially when it came to caring for them correctly and rehoming.

We started with networking them. This grew into a Facebook page in 2013 where we could share posts from all over South Africa. We followed and joined as many rescue organisations and animal welfare pages and groups as we could in order to find Staffies in need of help by a rescue organisation which understands their needs.

We’re entirely volunteer-run. We all work in our day-to-day jobs and we don’t take money out of the NPC for our work, as there are simply not enough funds to support the Staffies in need. We run this purely to help Staffies in need.

Staffordshire Rescue South Africa aims to create awareness of the breed’s needs so that they’re properly cared for, which would reduce surrenders and improve adoption success rates.

We’re always absolutely flooded with dogs looking for new homes. Holiday season is particularly tough as people often dump their dogs at that time, and all our kennels are full with often two or three dogs to a run, thus increasing our kennelling costs. But the need is there all year around. There’s always another dog in need.

A Staffie needs its human as much as it needs air to breathe

Our way forward with the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is education. So many are surrendered because the owner just hasn’t understood the breed and what’s needed to keep a Staffie happy and smiling and getting along with other dogs or cats in the house.

This is a breed that needs lots of attention and guidance, training and a good routine – this is what they live for. They crave routine, commands, love, walks and mental stimulation. We want to create awareness that this breed comes with lots more than a big heart if they’re trained from puppy age with puppy and socialisation classes. These classes and the positive reinforcement of a puppy between eight weeks to eight months are critical for a Staffie’s development. They need plenty of quality time and not to be locked in the yard as a pretty feature and ignored – that’s when the problems come in later. Once bored alone at home they become destructive.

Many people are simply not aware of these needs, which leads to problems and, eventually, giving the Staffie up.

Training (for people and dogs!), positive reinforcement, and lots of exercise and mental stimulation such as playtime and challenges like hide ‘n’ seek or tug-of-war; behind each game is a reason. We endeavour to lend our support in building the relationship and the bond with the family.

Whenever we have the chance, we educate. And we receive the most amazing feedback if the effort is made. Happy Staffie, happy owner!

So many reasons to surrender

The list of rehoming reasons is endless but, contrary to popular belief, not all the Staffies we rehome are abandoned or unloved. In fact, more often than not, the dog is a much-loved family member, and a sudden change in personal circumstances is the reason behind giving up their beloved fur child.

We find it’s a very emotional moment if you’re left with only this one option to rehome your dog. It’s as traumatic for the human as it is for the dogs, who can feel their owner’s stress for many months and wonder why their beloved owner is so distressed. Very often, many tears are shed when the dog leaves for his or her new home. Even after doing this for 10 years, it is for us as rescue people as emotional as it is for the owners – many tears flow from our own eyes as well.

Assuming the dog isn’t rescued from bad circumstances, we see what we can do to help rather than just rehoming. When we’re approached by families trying to find a new home for their Staffie, we first try to figure out if there’s any chance that the dog can be kept. We’d like to help owners to hold on to their dogs rather than surrender them, and work with them to keep their dogs happy and stimulated. Sometimes it simply cannot be solved; that’s when a new home needs to be found for the dog to get a new and better life.

We’re pulled into many personal situations where we need to be very controlled and understanding, to support the dog and the family as well as we can and give the right guidance. It’s for us an emotional journey and can be draining. But, all that counts is the final result: to find the best matching home for THIS particular Staffie (and, let us tell you, not ONE is the same as the other; they all have their very own little personalities).

Adoption process

Our focus is the dog, and we’ll do what’s needed in the best interests of that dog. To protect the dogs and their humans, and to prepare the new family, we have important procedures; this ensures that everybody is taken well care of. This means that a very strict system has to be put in place.

Step one is to fill in our adoption application form that must be completed in order to move on to step two. If we feel the people and home situation are a suitable match, we move on to step two: personal meeting and a home check. If the home gets approved, only then can the “Stafford of the Heart” be met by the new family.

There are several reasons we do things this way. First and foremost, we need to protect the dog itself from potential people who have not the best interest at heart; we also want to avoid stressing and confusing a dog by introducing it to many different people. A home check is done first to avoid disappointing people in the event that they may not be approved – for example, if the property isn’t suitable (low walls, not being enclosed, etc.). Once a home check is approved, you get to meet the Staffie.

By following this process, we ensure that it will be a good match and that a possible existing dog might get along with the new family companion. A meet-and-greet is always the final step to show if the dogs will get on like a house on fire or if a second meet-and-greet is needed. We don’t take chances in any rehoming if signs aren’t clear, in order to avoid setting the dogs up for failure.

After adoption

Once a dog is adopted, we make use of behaviourists if there’s an existing dog at the new home to ensure it will be a good match. Several meet-and-greets are set up in order to do a slow introduction.

We never want to just “dump” the dog in front of the existing family dog as it may not be impressed with the new situation. This could lead to fights and an adoption disaster.

All in all, the adoption process is pretty time-consuming and some people might not understand it. But we want to ensure that the home chosen is the best possible home for the specific dog, thus avoiding a return to kennels.

Surviving on the kindness of people

With our network of the MOST AMAZING FOLLOWERS AND SUPPORTERS, our call for help has been heard many times, and we’re forever grateful for the huge love of the breed and the support. We couldn’t do without you.

For many years, we used our personal money to help Staffies in SA. Sadly, many owners who give up their Staffie are in financial distress and cannot afford to pay towards their kennel costs or needed medical attention. But to do more without bankrupting ourselves we needed to raise funds – it would help nobody if we had to close our doors due to financial bankruptcy. And so we founded a Non-profit Company (NPC 2016/428858/08).

SRSA survives solely on donations from the public. At the end of each month, the sight of our bank account usually freaks us out with vet bills and kennel fees due for payment; there are many sleepless nights behind us.

But how do you justify which dog you help and which dog you cannot help? The number of shout-outs and pleas to HELP each and every Staffie are huge, and we need to pay for the absolutely amazing service we receive at our kennels and the vets who support us with special rates (we couldn’t pay normal rates as there’s simply not the money for it).

At the end of 2022, we almost had to call an END to Staffordshire Terrier Rescue South Africa due to finances. Too many dogs had been surrendered to us where owners couldn’t pay towards kennel fees, vet bills and food, leaving us with massive bills to pay.

But we will persevere. The need is simply too great to give up, and the greatest reward is the amazing happy smile of a Staffie in his or her new home!

A place of our own?

A few years ago, we were over the moon when we could open our own little rehabilitation camp on a private farm outside Cape Town, thanks to a very kind, animal-loving family who offered us a piece of their land. With donations, we put up a few runs, and the Staffies began pouring in.

Sadly, this little piece of Staffie Land no longer exists, as we had to leave the farm in October 2022; Staffordshire Terrier Rescue South Africa has been homeless since then. This means that we have no safe kennel space to take in stray Staffies or Staffies who aren’t social; nowhere to keep the dogs waiting for homes; nowhere to call our own. We rely on expensive kennelling or foster homes.

We’re on the lookout for a new home but, to date, are yet to find a suitable spot. If you know of something, please contact us to chat!

Join the people behind the scenes

As Staffordshire Terrier Rescue South Africa we consist of a handful of volunteers who work in our day-to-day jobs. We have our own families and we have our own dogs (mainly Staffies, of course). We put every free second into our rescue work and, if we can, we help any time.

Dedicated volunteers are always welcome. No matter your age, as long as your heart is in the right spot, you’re welcome and needed – and it’s not all kennel-based. We need volunteers for the following duties:

Home checks in all areas
Hands-on work with our adoption process, including admin work
Someone to answer our emails
We desperately need to create our website and have someone to service/administrate it
Do follow-up visits and calls on adopted Staffies
Regularly come and work with and love our Staffies in kennels

Note: We’re all volunteers and unable to pay salaries; you’d need to be prepared to use your own petrol and airtime/data bundle to help the Staffies.

You can help!

By supporting our work with your contributions, no matter how big or small, you really make a difference to these loving dogs.

We always need funds, which can be donated to:

First National Bank
Account name: Staffordshire Terrier Rescue South Africa
Current Account number: 62 65 03 20 478
Branch Code: 250-255 (global)
Ref. support Staffies

Wish list for our new kennels and dogs in foster care: