The best and worse place to adopt your next dog.

“The best place and worse place to adopt your next dog.”
By Julie Bjelland Lokhandwala
www.webDogTrainer.com


Want to know the best and worse place to adopt a dog? Adopting a puppy from a puppy mill tops the worst place to adopt a dog. If you buy your dog from a pet store or online there is a very high chance it came from a puppy mill. What is a puppy mill exactly? Having just watched a report with Lisa Ling on the Oprah show that took a hidden camera into the life of puppy mills, I was so horrified and shocked that I had to share what I saw. I knew they were bad but I did not know just how bad. If you didn’t have a chance to see the shocking video I will try to describe it for you. If more people actually knew where and how their puppy mill dogs came to be I am sure they would change their minds and stop buying dogs that came from puppy mills. If we instead adopted our dogs from shelters and rescue organizations we would be doing more than saving the life of a dog in need. Puppy mills are extremely inhumane and it is quite shocking we allow them to run.

Let’s take a virtual tour of a puppy mill together and find out where those puppies parents are. We come across a place where hundreds of dogs are kept in small rabbit-like wire fences with wire flooring. The dogs are dirty, covered in urine and feces, large patches of their fur missing, and skin covered with sores. Several dogs are kept in each small cage and the adult dogs do not even know how to walk because they never have been out of the cage! They spend up to 10 years or more in these tiny cages together with no medical care. The females are forced to breed every cycle producing hundreds of puppies each. The females are covered in tumors from over breeding. When the dog can no longer reproduce they are shot and killed. Some of the dogs have had a long tube hammered down their throat to damage their vocal chords so they cannot bark. The dogs are not socialized and have never had a human pet them. Many have chains on their necks that are so tight there bloody skin has grown through the chain.

Once these breeding dogs have there puppies the puppy mill owners take the puppies, clean them, fluff them up and make them look cute for us to adopt. If you knew this cute puppies mother was suffering for years in a cage to produce this puppy would you want to finance this operation buy buying it or would you want to do what you could to shut it down? If you buy a puppy that originates from this kind of place you are financing them to continue. If we stood together and never bought another puppy from a pet store or online, and instead gave a home to a dog in a shelter or rescue group you have stood up for what is right to improve this whole situation. These puppy mill dogs may be cute on the outside but they are over bred, which can cause major behavioral and physical problems that can end up costing you a lot of money and suffering down the road.

How can you know if a dog came from a puppy mill or a reputable breeder? If you still want to buy a dog then please only do it from a breeder where you can actually visit their location and see the condition of the mother and other dogs. If you buy from a breeder online where you cannot physically visit the area there is a good chance it is coming from a puppy mill. A good breeder will actually take back a dog even years later if needed rather then seeing it end up in a shelter. A reputable breeder also has extremely extensive adoption procedures because they want the adoption to be the best possible match. You get what you pay for too; so do not be fooled by a discount breeder.

So where is the best place to adopt a dog? If you are thinking about adopting a dog and trying to decide where the best place to adopt your dog is, look no further. Shelters and rescue organizations are the new “in” thing. People are educating themselves and realizing that there are so many really great dogs to adopt right in there local animal shelter or rescue organization! You can even find puppies and purebred dogs there too. They say education is freedom. Well, education is also freedom for dogs! Now, Americans are learning that most dogs in shelters and rescue groups are actually really great dogs, which would make wonderful family companions. Mixed bred dogs are often healthier too, getting the best traits out of the mix of their breeds, and you can have a unique dog like no one else.

Slowly we are abandoning the myth that all shelter dogs are there because of some behavioral problem. The truth is that most are there because of a mismatch in their past home not because there is something wrong with them. Also, oftentimes people adopt a cute puppy only to realize they didn’t know how hard it was to raise a puppy and it ends up at the shelter. If everyone decided to adopt their next dog at a shelter or rescue group we could prevent so much unnecessary death and shut down puppy mills!

I am a huge advocate of adopting adult dogs in shelters or rescue groups for lots of reasons. Millions of wonderful dogs are killed every year simply because there are not enough homes for them and yet puppy mills are generating new dogs every day. Why are we producing all these dogs in horrible conditions when we have perfectly good dogs needing homes in our shelters? Shelter dogs and rescue dogs make wonderful companions and with a little training we can really have the kind of dog we always wanted and feel great we adopted a dog in need rather than supporting grossly inhumane puppy mills.

What can ONE person do? Adopt your next dog from a shelter or rescue group and never again from a pet store or unknown breeder. Get your dog spayed or neutered to prevent the over population of dogs. Spread the word about puppy mills. Learn more; educate others, volunteer at a shelter or rescue group.

If everyone who is affected by this information tells someone they know and so on, maybe we can spread the word and educate more people and find ourselves saving the dogs we love. Dogs love us and depend on us, let’s work together! Let’s save more dogs lives and shut down puppy mills. Adopt from your local shelter or rescue organization!
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Julie Bjelland Lokhandwala is a Popular Dog Trainer and Writer. She has written an insightful dog-training book that is featured on her unique, interactive Dog Training Web site at: http://www.webdogtrainer.com/. The site allows dog owners to ask Julie any question about their dog through her personal, one-on-one live chat consultations.

Imagine life with a well-trained dog!