@walkers60 just a thought. Have you tried the breed specific rescues? They are picky, I admit and screen like crazy especially for small breeds in my experience. But they are run by breeders of whatever breed you choose and I’ve gotten lovely dogs through them.
On the other thread, @walkers60 stated she has checked with breed rescues but like I found when dealing with ‘large dog rescues’, they won’t even talk to you once you tell them your property is not fenced w/ a secure preferably non climbable fence. She has an underground
fence which is a no go for all rescues I’ve talked to.
Heck my first GSD shelter dog scaled my 6 ft. privacy fence TWICE when I first got her. So I do understand that requirement.
Then you have age bias. I was told by a GSD rescue not to even ask about a puppy as they wouldn’t consider it (based on my telling them I was retired and home all day). Guess they believed I was too old and feeble. Sigh.
I watched the county shelters for possible dogs and moved fast when I saw one I wanted.
It helps to go weekly or semi-weekly to all the shelters around you as the desirable dogs don’t
last long.
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or…you could just drive down country roads. FOUR of our dogs were road dogs. (Two labs currently) Plus three others i found homes for.
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Which makes sense since it is not in the current events section of the forum… Though clearly it wants to have something that makes it belong there.
(I did not get to read the original OP, it was removed before I saw the thread.)
That’s how my local neighborhood is. It is a dumping ground for hound dogs and pitbulls especially. You can’t travel a quarter mile without encountering at least one loose dog…I am forever dialing animal control and trying to catch dogs and find owners. 9/10 times there is no owner to be found, no chip, etc. It’s super sad as we live (way set back off of) off a pretty busy road, and animals are forever getting hit out here. There is a trailer park about a mile away and it is full of a lot of rentals (and this is a slum…I’m not picking on trailer parks but this one really is a cesspool), and a lot of people when they get evicted leave their animals behind or let them loose. The feral cat population is even worse. For awhile our local shelter was doing trap and release and I was able to trap a few, have them fixed, and release them, but there are literally hundreds of cats around our area - it would take an army to get a handle on them.
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i recently wrote-up my foundling’s dog story on here, w/pics: Tell me about your Doggie DNA Test Results
That was a constant for a long time but not now, in fact a nearby neighborhood took in all these dropped off dogs. I haven’t seen one in years now.
My dad, who lived next door, took in two of them, one was an older girl, had heartworm and she got the treatment and lived five more years. One came as a puppy being chased by a pack of coyotes one evening and scooted under his car…“SAFE!” She was a pit. T The two labs i kept, and three others i found homes for. I have five dogs now. Three PWDs and the two foundling labs. We have room for more…i’m willing. Our old cat, who came here all on his own, has run-off every cat that has ventrued onto our farm…so we only have one cat.
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My neighborhood also! I can’t drive anywhere without seeing roaming dogs or carcasses on the roadside.
But one good thing, 3 years ago I found a Min Pin crossed with Chihuahua and Lord knows what else, roaming a the streets. I enticed him over with a treat and took him the the firehouse to report him lost, then to a vet to check for a chip. Nothing, so I kept him. Ha! What a Velcro dog he is and so good with horses!!!
He has literally gotten me thru this pandemic. I’m so glad I found him…
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OMG I can’t even imagine that! I don’t think I’ve seen a dog “roaming” since I was a kid in the 1970s, and certainly not in the last 20 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog carcass on the roadside, either, thankfully!
Not sure where you live - I am in NY. We have a high spay/neuter rate, and it’s hard to find dogs in shelters, and nearly impossible to find puppies. There are some rescues that specifically bring pregnant dams from the south up here to whelp so and adopt out the puppies because there is a huge demand.
Central Florida here. Lots of dumped dogs because where I live is semi rural. It’s almost like people think… I’ll let them go live on a farm push them out the car and drive away. My last FOUR dogs were all what I call “ditch dogs”. Dogs I found in a ditch and I am such a sucker I have to stop. They’re never chipped (I check)always intact or unspayed and 75% of the time HW positive. I generally need more dogs like I need a hole in the head but it breaks my heart. I probably see roadkill dogs several times a month. 
Remember the run on Dalmatians right after the release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians? And the remake? And the sequel to the remake? Everybody wanted Dalmatians.
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What a nice story about your Minchipin Mix. 
Thank you for posting it here.
NW FL here. Shelters have a lot of pit / lab crosses. Not too many puppies or small dogs. COVID def helped adoptions out, but the no kill shelter is full… I’m not sure if it’s due to the animals being less desirable or if the adoption requirements are super strict.
Puppy sales are quite strong.
Sure do. I always cringe for a breed of dog that becomes famous because of it owner. There will be a run them to purchase. 
Still looking for a young dog not a puppy not a pittbull.
So hard to be without a good dog especially now.
sad
Oh I’m in NC Triangle area
Seems like you’ve been in this predicament for a while now and have posted about it quite a lot here. Are you checking the online roster of adoptable dogs at municipal and county shelters near you? On a daily basis? Try the more rural areas where there aren’t as many active rescues pulling everything that isn’t pittie. You may have to work through some behavior issues or holes in training since the dogs are to some extent an unknown quantity, but it’s probably your best option if you don’t want a puppy.
Lee County (Sanford) has a cute ~7 month old male hound/lab mix right now.
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I actually visited area county shelters just to see the latest picked up strays. I found my last 2
GSDs this way. Saw them, committed to them immediately, had to wait the 3-5 day hold, they both got spayed (both had just weaned puppies) and got what I wanted. The key is consistently
searching. Everyday. By the time they would have been listed online, they would have been gone.
Have you checked on these RRs in NC? One requires a “FENCED” yard, the other one is at a
county shelter so they may be less restrictive.
https://www.petfinder.com/search/dogs-for-adoption/us/north-carolina/?breed[0]=Rhodesian+Ridgeback
