Mark’s Bark #1

This is the first in a series of editorials about dogs. I do not claim to be an expert, simply someone who is crazy about dogs, especially my own dog, Zelda. She is perfect. That said, onward to other musings.

The first thing I’d like to talk about is adoption from a shelter versus buying from a breeder. I go to my local dog run and am constantly meeting seemingly intelligent people who purchased their dog for thousands of dollars, from a reputable breeder. Now, for the most part, this is ridiculous. Because when I ask a few questions like, did you find this breeder online? How many pups did you see in the litter? Did you have to sign an agreement with the breeder to return the dog to the breeder if you weren’t going to keep it? and, most importantly, did you get references? The answers are often not in keeping with what I absolutely know are things to look for in a breeder and these people are, in many cases buying what are called puppy mill dogs. I won’t go into the whole story of how puppy mills work, but take my word for it; the process is mind bogglingly inhumane. And the new twist on it is this. You call the reputable breeder either online or from an ad in a dog magazine and they tell you that they actually have one puppy left and if you put a down payment on it right away they’ll hold it for you until you get there, or they’ll ship it to you from Missouri, or Maine, or Kansas. They send you a bunch of adorable digitals and you go visit, or worse, pay some ridiculous amount and let them ship it. What you get for $1000+ is a puppy mill dog that they bought that day for $100 bucks!

Well, they say, look how cute he is! He’s 6 months old and healthy. We don’t care, we love him. That’s fine, love him all you want but know that his birth mother suffered horribly so you could have him. Know that according to the Humane Society there were 6.2 million (please think about that number) dogs euthanized in 2007. So, if you don’t care if your dog doesn’t have ancestors dating back to the Vikings, why not just adopt one. If everyone did that, the supply and demand premise of puppy mills would just dry up and disappear. With a good spay and neuter program we actually might stop having to murder (which is what euthanize really means) millions of dogs each year. That dog you get from the shelter has probably had a pretty rough time of it. If you give them some love, care and affection hopefully they’ll stop thinking that any day you’re going to do the bad stuff that was done to them earlier. Trust me, they will love you like you’ve never been loved before. If you must have a particular breed, virtually every one now has a rescue society, filled with dogs that are the breed you want but badly in need of a home. It might cost you a couple hundred bucks instead of a couple thousand bucks, which is kind of a bonus, I think. And you’ll still be rescuing a very special dog.

That’s my bark for today. Let me know what you think. Or just go out and adopt a shelter dog. You’ll be glad you did.