Do I need to surrender my Lab?

We strongly encourage you to seek professional behavioral and/or training assistance with your dog to achieve a successful lifetime relationship. Surrendering your dog can be a difficult decision. Often, people believe they must give up their dog because they do not know how to handle a particular issue; however, most issues such as time allocation, housing options, allergies, and behavioral problems can often be addressed and improved or corrected with the assistance of a professional. 

Asking for help does not make you a bad pet owner. On the contrary, there are typically people out there that have gone through something similar to what you are faced with and they can many times offer a great recommendation to assist you if you are willing to accept and implement their recommendations.

If you feel that you are able to provide a good home for your Lab, want to keep them but need some assistance at understanding why your Lab currently has issues and are willing to listen and implement a correction plan, please contact us or a qualified behaviorist or trainer in your area. Most Lab owners will tell you that adequate exercise and rules/discipline along with follow-up rewards for a job well done are keys to a great and lasting relationship.

Please visit our Education Section for additional behavioral and training information and suggestions.

L.E.A.R.N. Surrender Process

The surrendering process could realistically take several weeks. The timing of our intake process is dependent on a few factors: the number of Labs we currently have in foster care, the number of active foster homes we have, and the particular needs of your Lab. Therefore, if you need to surrender your Lab immediately, today, or within the next 48 hours, we are not an immediate solution for re-homing your Lab.

Note: L.E.A.R.N. cannot accept any dog that has bitten, displays aggression or is unfriendly with other dogs.

The first step is to complete and Surrender form. L.E.A.R.N. will need information about your Lab, as well as photos for consideration. You can email photos to: learndogs@labadoption.org. We do accept Lab mixes into our rescue; however, we do require that all Lab mixes look like a purebred Lab and have the typical Lab features, personality and interests. We do not accept Lab mixes with guard breeds per the desires of our adoption base. If you are surrendering more than 1 Lab, fill out 1 form for each Lab. The more information you provide about your Lab will ensure a better match in a new forever home. We understand that this is a very emotional time. 

Since we are an all-volunteer organization, one of our intake volunteers will get back to you as soon as possible after receiving your intake request, vaccination records, and photos. After reviewing the information you provide, we will contact you to set up a time to assess the dog in person. We cannot commit to helping your dog until it has passed a L.E.A.R.N. behavioral assessment. After a successful assessment, we will then attempt to find a foster home for your dog. If a foster home is found, we will contact you to make arrangements with you to surrender your dog. At the time of surrender, you will be required to fill out and sign a surrender form, a release form, and provide us with copies of your dog’s veterinary records. We request a tax-deductible donation to help defray some of the costs associated with surrendering your dog – Veterinary, additional training or other associated costs. In 2019, our average cost per dog while in L.E.A.R.N.’s care was $500.00.

We cannot advise you of any information on the Lab or placement once you have surrendered your dog. No additional information will be provided to you and you will not be contacted or communicated with further on the dog.

L.E.A.R.N. makes every effort to respond to every intake request whether we can take the Lab into our program or not. If you have submitted an intake request and have not heard from L.E.A.R.N. you can follow up via email at learndogs@labadoption.org. If you are emailing L.E.A.R.N. to follow up on your intake request, please be sure to include your name, city, state, and Lab’s name in the email. Due to the volume of requests L.E.A.R.N. is working on at any given time, it is hard to identify a request with only partial information.