Dog's best friend

COEUR d'ALENE - It's like speed dating, or filling out a profile on a match-making site, except the partner you're looking for just got off death row.

Oh yeah, this partner isn't for romance, per se, but a best friend - the kind with four legs.

"I don't do, 'put to sleep,'" says Bonnie Whiting, the dog trainer and dog lover who started her own nonprofit, Alternative Rescue, that saves dogs from that euphemism euthanasia, sometimes minutes before the final curtain. "I don't do death."

Luckily for 300 dogs, and their matched-up owners, Whiting doesn't.

That's how many dogs she has taken in, and adopted out, in the four years she has been running the business at the Coeur d'Alene Pet Resort at 125 E. Hazel Ave. - a 100 percent success rate, she says.

"People think it's old dogs, or mean dogs," she says of the stigma associated with rescue dogs, like the ones she brings to Coeur d'Alene from shelters across the West. "Nope, it's puppies who get bored and run away."

Kootenai Humane Society has a no-kill policy at its shelter, but that's not the case everywhere. Whiting, from California originally, has contacts back in the Golden state and across the Northwest from shelters who don't follow the same rule.

So Whiting gets them out of there, and brings them to Coeur d'Alene, in the nick of time.

Not just any dog, but healthy, adoptable ones without personality disorders. And that's where the idea for Alternative Rescue came.

When Whiting worked for shelters in California she noticed she was sheltering adoptable dogs. Most, she said, were 2 or younger.

"It was mostly people getting the wrong dog," she says.

"Why do you get a border collie if you're not on a farm?" she asks, painting the picture of the natural born herder cooped up in a city apartment.

Who can blame the collie for wanting to get out and run?

Nobody, but it might land the collie in a shelter and forever attach that rescue stigma.

And that's where the second part of the nonprofit comes in.

Those who want a rescue dog just can't swing by and pick one up.

Think it's 'hello,' a drink, and some idle chit-chat, think again.

They have to pass the test. They have to be compatible.

"You just have to fit," Whiting says, so prepare for 20 questions if you swing by.

Don't get a lap dog if you're gone all day. Lap dogs need laps, otherwise they develop social anxiety issues. Hunting dogs over 3 years old can wait for you to come home from work, so long as a hunt - or walk - greets them at the end of the day. If they're puppies they'll chew on things while they wait. And German shepherds require a veteran dog owner's oversight, not a beginner's. They're smart, interactive and bred to be everywhere with their owners.

Whiting does charge depending on the dog, focusing on smaller breeds.

But prospective owners, don't rush. The dogs are fine waiting.

Escaped from death row, they're waiting at the Pet Resort, which is painted, decorated and pampered like a Club Med. Luxury doggie rooms have their own TVs (for background noise to sleep).

Just make sure you fit the bill.

Info: 667-4606