Tag: Shelter Dogs

ot all of us are made of the stuff that can pull a child from a burning building, give CPR to a severely wounded victim of a car accident… have the knowledge and administer vital medical care to a patient…the list goes on.   But how many of us own dogs?…. There are atleast  78.2 million owned dogs in the United States alone.  21% of those dogs were adopted from animal shelters.  I’d love to see that number increase and I ask all my readers to consider visiting your local shelter before you bring home your next pet.  Consider this…. There are eight to 10 million homeless animals in shelters across the country and the cold, hard reality is that approximately half of them — four million — will not find homes and have to be euthanized.

 My Dane Ben,  was purchased at a Pet store.  I have bought from breeders before…and I  wasn’t looking for another dog at the time… I just fell in love with that face in the window and felt sorry for him, being in that pet store environment, searching faces of the people gazing in.   Ben has a deformed toe, an injury to his foot when he was a young pup kept in a wire cage, in a puppy mill.   How do I know this?  When I bought the dog from the pet store, I asked if he was from a reputable breeder, not a puppy mill.  They said oh yes, we only buy from breeders.  That means nothing.  On his papers, I saw his “breeder” name out in the midwest.  I tried to contact the man. There is no listing, no e-mail no way to contact the “breeder” to ask questions.  Not only that, there is no record of Ben’s lineage.   Ben came from a puppy mill.  I will never again buy from stores who sell puppies from puppy mills.  This, below,  is what you are supporting when you do.

I can’t help but notice there is a dog just like frasier in this picture below…bottom left cage.  Not only that, there are dogs just like my Bailey in the bottom right cages.  Bailey also came from a pet store.  Yes, I did this twice, not knowing what I was condoning. 

  Responsible breeders do a wonderful job caring for their dogs.  I personally wish there could be a moratorium on breeding dogs for five years so that we could find homes for the thousands and thousands of dogs that are euthanized each year for lack of an adopter.  I know I’ll gain no friends in the dog breeding world for saying this.  But it would be a solution to this horrendous problem.

• Get a complete history of the animal that you are considering.

• Age (Although sometimes there is no way for the shelter to know for sure), breed, gender

• Where the dog came from

• What was his previous living situation

• What is his medical history

• How has he behaved since being at the shelter

• Ask if the dog has any ongoing medical issues (cancer, diabetes, intestinal parasites, heartworms, etc.) and if the dog is on any medication.

• Ask what follow-up services that shelter provides, such as obedience training, consultation for behavioral problems, medical services.

• Ask about their return policy. It’s important to know if you can return the dog if the adoption does not work out.

  Important to know – A good shelter is clean, smells good, friendly, and very knowledgeable. Often shelters will have a veterinarian on staff, as well as a staff behaviorist. In these cases, you can expect all the animals ready for adoption have received the proper medical care that they need and the behaviorist has evaluated his/her temperament and worked out any behavior issues.

 Frasier, my newly adopted shelter dog… is the most loving animal I have ever owned.  He’s housetrained, well-mannered, gets along with everyone, human or animal…. follows me everywhere.  His gratitude for a better life is palpable.   I’m as grateful as he.