I recently joined this forum looking for how to start a full flegded dog rescue. I am 19 years old and have 3 dogs. K.C. (my first and oldest) was a gift when I was a lil girl and have had her for 13 years. I love all my dogs but Echo (my first rescued stray) is my lil angel. She is about 1.5 years old and means so much to me. She was a stray in west virginia looking to be almost on her death bed, under fed, dehydrated, and covered in scars. As soon as I saw her she never left my side and I took her home with me. Since then she has traveled most of the east coast with me. Spaz the newest member is only 3 or 4 months old and was rescued from the pound (only minutes away from being put down). I realize what my purpose on this earth was the moment I laid eyes on Echo and have been doing everything I can for dogs in need. If anyone knows how I could start my own rescue I would greatly appreciate any advice.

I've been doing a little research on starting a rescue too. There is a lot of good info out there. Here are some links:

PetRescue.com - Lots of good stuff on how to find dogs and legal things that go into starting a rescue.

Start A Rescue - Another site full of information

Matching Dogs with People - How to match up potential owners with rescues.

There's a lot of work that goes into starting a rescue. Hopefully this helps you.

My advice to you is to just keep in mind that if it ever becomes too crowded the conditions for the dogs would not be good and that you would have to put animals to sleep. (I know that is an evil term to animal lovers!)
Keeping large groups of dogs in an area will require vaccines. You would have to make sure that each dog gets their rabies and DHPP shot (parvo vaccine). The DHPP shot has to be administered 3 times to puppies every few weeks. Adults usually get just two of them. Taking into consideration that there will more than likely be kennel cough the dogs would also need a bordatella(sp?) vaccine. A lot of those shots are ten dollars each or more. My suggestions would be to sell the dog and call the profit made off of each dog "donations" because the price on the dog would cover the vaccinations and care for it and maybe a little extra to help you out financially and other dogs coming in. Also, people willing to pay $50 for a dog are more likely to take better care of it then someone getting a freebie.
It will be expensive, especially when you start, but once you get everything straightened out and you advertise like CRAZY you may get a lot of service and help a lot of dogs. There are plenty of other things I could bring up, but I'm sure you know about them. I'm 19 too and wanted to make a rescue shelter for dogs as well. I still would love to do that. I work as a vet assistant right now and I LOVE my job. I live in the East as well. If you ever make a shelter perhaps I could adopt from you someday in the future!