It’s hard to ignore a “Puppies for Sale!” advertisement, especially when you’re currently looking for a dog for your home. If you’re looking for a specific type of dog, such as a Labrador Retriever, you may currently be searching for Labrador puppies for sale in your area. However, choosing to bring a dog into your home is a big responsibility, one that may require you to make some difficult choices. One of the most common questions that requires a quick decision is, “Should I adopt or buy a dog?”. There are many factors that can influence your choice.
Adopting a Dog
In general, adopting a dog generally refers to a dog that is adopted from an animal shelter. Dogs in animal shelters may be abandoned, given up due to lifestyle restraints, or the animals of former pet owners that developed allergies. Puppies in animal shelters may be from orphaned litters, or from litters of pet owners that weren’t able to find homes for them. Many puppies in animal shelters are the first to be adopted, since a lot of pet owners like to do the initial training of a puppy themselves.
There are many benefits associated with adopting a dog from an animal shelter. One of these benefits is that by adopting from a shelter instead of buying from a breeder, you are saving that dog from potentially being euthanized. Animal shelters have a limited capacity, and may need to euthanize dogs that have been there for a period of time. Another benefit is that dogs from shelters are often spayed/neutered, fully vaccinated and have received basic medical care. This means that you could save a significant amount of money in veterinary bills.
Buying a Dog
Buying a dog from a breeder may seem to be the simplest choice, but it can actually result in a significant amount of problems. Dogs from breeders may have genetic defects (due to inbreeding), and are usually not given any vaccinations or a spay/neuter operation. In addition to this, if you purchase a dog from a pet store, you may be supporting “Puppy Mills”, which do not take into account the health and welfare of their dogs. Even if you search for puppies for sale UK, you still run the risk of buying a puppy that has existing health problems.
So, Should I Adopt or Buy a Dog?
In general, adopting a dog from a shelter is your best choice. It is more economical in terms of veterinary costs, and also allows you to save a dog from potentially being euthanized.
4 Responses to “Should I buy or adopt a dog?”
Dog breeders are cruel. Every dog bred is another one dead. You may think that there is no harm in just allowing your dog to have one litter of puppies, but imagine if all of those new owners thought the same and did that too. Then those pupppies had puppies. And then those puppies had puppies. And those puppies had puppies and so on… One female dog could be responsible for millions of puppies a year and five to seven million a year in the USA are put to sleep. Things aren’t much better in the UK either. One dog per hour is destroyed by local authorities. One myth is that you can’t get purebred dogs in rescue. This isn’t true. There are breed-specific rescues for almost every breed and most dogs either are or resemble a particular breed. Another myth is that can’t get puppies in rescue. Pluupy, actually research has shown that genetic diseases can be found in ALL breeds of pedigree dogs. For a few examples, Pugs suffer from breathing problems because of their short noses, American cockers spaniels suffer from epilepsy and dogs with really short fur can suffer from sunburn. Most rescues will assess the dogs to make sure that they are good with children, cats and other dogs first. If one is deemed to be unsuitable for adoption, it will either be signed up for training, put up as a sponsor dog (where people pay a certain amount a month towards the upkeep of that dog and get sent photos and letters and can sometimes visit their chosen animal) or put to sleep.So if you rescue a dog, you will only ever end up with a suitable dog as there as they will check you thoroughly before allowing you to adopt the dog. Most rescue dogs are not handed up for reasons like that they’re bad dogs or that that they are aggressive. Most dogs are handed up for reasons like that the owners had to move abroad or other reasons that are not of their own fault. I know that there are some times when adopting a dog would not be the right thing to do, like if a child is autistic and needs a dog or for guide dog training and patnership, but a lot of people buy a puppy instead becaus ethey just don’t look at the pros and cons of this issue. Please adopt a puppy or dog instead of buying one from a breeder.
The writer is right about the adoption part, but what was said about”buy” only applies to petstores, so this article is unfair. Professional breeders have bred defects out of thier respective dog breeds. Unlike adopted or petstore dogs, who could come from god knows where, breeders have the parents of thier pups around. Breeder dog parents are bred and trained to have fine temperments are are hardly at risk to disease and defects.
I think you are referring to “reputable breeders” they should not be confused with “backyard breeders”. Unfortunately reputable breeders are few and far between. Most puppies that are being advertised in classified ads are from backyard breeders. Truly responsible breeders would not advertise for puppies that are already born, they would take deposits and sell the puppies before the dam is even bred. For small dogs they would take deposits on 6 or 7 dogs and turn 1 or 2 people away when the dam’s litter was only 4 or 5 pups, for a large dog they would do the same but they would sell 10 or 12. Of course the potential buyers would be told of the possibility they may not receive a puppy.
Nice post. Thanks
I totally agree that adopting a dog is the best choice. I hope more future dog owners would consider that thought