We often talk about rehoming with good intentions.

“He’ll be happier somewhere else.”
“They’ll find her a better home.”
“It just wasn’t the right fit.”

And sometimes, those things are true. Life changes. People fall sick. Situations become unsafe. Rehoming can be an act of care.

But very often, rehoming doesn’t begin with cruelty — it begins with overwhelm.

The chewed furniture.
The constant attention.
The barking.
The feeling that your life has suddenly been taken over by a small, demanding creature who doesn’t understand your stress, your schedule, or your exhaustion.

That moment — when someone quietly wonders if giving up their pet would be easier — is more common than people admit. I’ve written about my own experience with that feeling in an earlier post (The Puppy I Nearly Gave Up), and it’s a reminder of how thin the line can be between commitment and collapse.

But what’s important to understand is this:

To a human, rehoming is a decision.
To a dog, it is a disappearance.

Dogs don’t understand why.
They don’t understand “temporary” or “for your own good.”
They only know that the people they were beginning to trust are suddenly gone.

When a dog changes homes, they don’t just lose a place to sleep. They lose the smells they’ve learned, the routines they’ve started to rely on, the voices that made them feel safe. Their entire world resets overnight.

And trauma doesn’t always look like fear.

Some dogs shut down.
Some become hyper-alert.
Some become clingy.
Some become reactive or aggressive.

We often label these as “behaviour issues,” but what we are really seeing is a nervous system that no longer trusts stability. A dog that learned, once, that love can vanish.

The first few weeks in a home are when dogs build their sense of safety. It’s when they learn who feeds them, who protects them, where they belong. When that bond breaks, it becomes harder — not impossible, but harder — for them to believe in the next home.

This is why so many “difficult dogs” are actually just rehomed dogs.

Not broken.
Not bad.
Just uncertain.

This isn’t a condemnation of people who had no choice. It’s a quiet reminder that pets are not accessories or phases. They are relationships. And relationships deserve patience, especially when things get hard.

Dogs don’t need perfect homes.

They need permanent ones.