Adoption Process
Please carefully review our adoption process before submitting an application. Our goal is to find the very best homes for our dogs so they can learn to trust, feel safe, and thrive for the rest of their lives.
To Adopt from NOGSR, You Must:
Be a responsible adult over the age of 21
Be able and willing to provide training, medical treatment, and proper day-to-day care
Be up to date with vaccinations and monthly heartworm preventative with any current pets.
Pay an adoption fee to help cover rescue costs
Provide accurate information on all forms and communications
What Happens After You Apply?
Be as detailed as possible in your answers. Do not skip any questions. Once your application is submitted, please allow 2–3 weeks for processing, though many applications are reviewed sooner. During this time, we will contact your veterinary and personal references and schedule a home visit if your application meets our initial criteria. Please notify your references in advance that someone from NOGSR may be reaching out. After these criteria have been met, we will contact you and you may start meeting dogs. All members of the family must be at the meet and greets including your other dogs. You may schedule multiple meet and greets if you’d like. You will not take the NOGSR dog home with you immediately after the meet and greet. If it goes well and you do decide to adopt the dog, we will send you the contract to sign and you will pay the adoption fee. After that, you may take your new friend home!
Important Notes
-The welfare of the dog is always our foremost concern. NOGSR reserves the right to refuse adoption to anyone. No dog will be adopted to applicants who mislead or fail to provide accurate information on the adoption application or associated forms. All dogs will be spayed or neutered PRIOR to adoption.
-We do not place dogs on a first-come, first-served basis. Dogs will be carefully matched with a family where they will be most successful. If you don’t get the dog you apply for, there will be others.
-For everyone’s safety, we typically do not place dogs in homes with children under 5 years old.
-All dogs will be spayed/neutered at time of adoption. If, due to age, a dog is not yet spayed or neutered, the adopter will pay a $300 deposit in addition to the adoption fee, and agree in writing to a timeline when the dog will be altered. Once we are able to verify that the dog is spayed/neutered and within the agreed upon timeline, the $300 deposit will be returned to the adopter.
-All puppy adopters, and some adult dog adopters, will be required to enroll their shepherd in a training class with an NOGSR-approved positive reinforcement trainer.
NOGSR is rooted in positive reinforcement-based, force-free training and handling, and this ensures that consistency continues in the dog's new home. Puppies have a short window of time to develop key social and behavioral skills. We don’t want to miss that window and this will set them up for success from day one.
We will never recommend the use of aversive tools in dog training.
About Adoption Fees
Adoption fees help cover vetting, food, and spay/neuter surgeries. Very often, our expenses for an individual dog exceed the adoption fee, but the fees remain the same. Adoption fees currently run from $350 for an adult dog to $450 for a puppy under 6 months.