How do you choose the right
one? Get that cute, cuddly teddy bear in the window of the pet store up
at the mall? What if after you buy cute little Fido, he develops a disease
or deformity because of puppy mill or backyard breeding? What if it gets
so bad that you have to put Fluffy to sleep a month after you become so
attached to each other? What about when Rover is great with your kids,
they love each other and then he gets hip displasia and can't walk? Can
you handle it? Would you figure, 'Oh, it was just that one. Let's get another.'?
Feel sorry for those poor
puppies at the auction? Go buy one. They were probably bred in a puppy
mill, or in the seller's yard or basement. Maybe they'll die soon too.
But when you buy from any
place but a shelter, you are encouraging breeding. Over 150,000 dogs are
put to sleep every year because of overpopulation, which breeders add to,
and not all those dogs are mean, or vicious, or sick, or old. They are
puppies, adults, purebreds, mutts, mixes, ... The kind of dog that would
live longer than that one from your neighbor, who promised to give you
a pup when his dog had puppies!
So what happens when you get
these dogs?
Brett J. got a mean looking Rottwieler to show off and scare everyone away. He had Bandit, unneutered, tied outside the house to a doghouse. He went out one day and found Bandit limping, without his collar on. Brett tied Bandit back to the doghouse, and the next day found Bandit dead in the street, trying to get to the female he smelled, who was in heat.
Kelly K. wanted a small dog for her three kids. After looking at all the breeds, she found a Dashound at her local Animal Shelter, and together all four of them trained Dash to sit, stay, play dead, fetch and roll over. Every day Dash would wait for the kids to come home from school.
Emily B. wanted a dog to decorate her apartment and bought a nice purebred Greyhound from a pet store. She had Andy for a day and her landlord told her that dogs weren't allowed. She 'forgot' to check with him about it. She abandoned Andy in the woods. He found his way to the highway and was hit by a car. When a shelter worker saw him, she picked him up and took him to the shelter. There he got adopted to a great family who renamed him Stormy. He lived with them for 10 years, until he got so old that he couldn't walk, and they sat with him while the vet gave him the shot to put him out of his misery, knowing he was loved the whole time.
Robert P. adopted a dog from a shelter, and opened the car door without holding the leash when he got home. Teddy was hit by a car after wandering around for 2 weeks.
Jan M. bred her dogs, not knowing how many dogs there already were. As soon as she found out that so many are put down each year, she had her dogs spayed and neutered.
Gary A. passed a sign every day on the way to work-'Purebred Lab puppies, $100 each' so he bought one. A few years later Sandy's hip displasia got so bad she had to be carried outside to pee, and couldn't get up the stairs to sleep on her master's bed. After not being able to watch her be in so much pain, he had her put to sleep at 3 years old.
The Jones family went to see 101 Dalmatians, and the kids whined so much for a Dalmatian puppy that the parents gave in. Their friend saw an ad in the newspaper, and Kate Jones bought one of the Dalmatian breeder's puppies. The family was unprepared for an out-of-control pup who ruined the carpet, chewed everything, peed anywhere he felt like, ran out the door when it opened a crack, ... and the whole family hated the little beast who was getting bigger and worse every day. Eventually they handed him over to a shelter, which was so crowded with Dalmatian puppies it didn't know what to do with them all.
Carl H. and his family wanted a dog who would lie by the fire on winter evenings, play with the kids during the day, and swim in the pool in the summer. They got a Lab/Retriever who had other ideas. Max would jump up on everything, knock over the kids, and wipe everything off the table with one wag of his tail. They built him a run, where he slept and listened to the laughter of the family through closed windows while they played with their new Yorkie, who eventually came outside with Max when the family got tired of him. Max was so hungry because he was fed 'if I feel like it', that he killed and ate Jake, the Yorkie, but the family didn't notice for a month that Jake was gone.
The smartest thing to do is adopt from a shelter or rescue, not a breeder. Don't worry about how much that puppy in the window costs! It won't live long enough to give you the worth of your money. If it does, you are very lucky! Pet stores won't let you bring a dog back after you find out that he's sick or deformed. Maybe they'll let you trade, but the other one will be just like the first! If your shelter won't let you bring a dog back after you can't care for it anymore, you shouldn't go there anymore.
Links:
Coventry-Rescued
From a Puppy Mill, read her sad story.
You
Don't Know What REALLY Happens at Auctions
http://hometown.aol.com/petpalsgc/PetPalsInc.html
