Are you looking for a dog?
Looking for a dog?Here are some of the ways to get one:
Print and online ads. You'll find a lot of ads, but there's no guarantee of what's at the other end.
Pet stores. Pet stores usually only sell purebreds (dogs of just one breed) so it costs more. A hidden cost of buying from a pet store is that you may not know the dog's family background.
Reputable or "hobby" breeders. Professional breeders (as opposed to "back-yard" breeders) cost more. It's worth it. My uncle is paying a breeder for a puppy that hasn't even been born yet!
You can also get a dog from a shelter or a rescue. Our family has gotten a dog from both. For more information, read this article to learn more about rescues and shelters.
Close People get dogs for a lot of different reasons. Some people want:
- Guard dogs to make them feel safe or take care of their property;
- Service dogs to help them cross the street, carry things or get in and out of wheelchairs.
Police officers want dogs to sniff out drugs and rescue lost people.
Most people just want dogs for pets. That is my family's reason.
Our experience with a shelter
This is an adoption board showing pictures of all the people that adopted animals.
Here's Peanut Butter!
My whole family went together the day we picked up Peanut Butter. Read the rest of the story to find out who Peanut Butter is.
Close About three years ago my dad searched Petfinder online until he found a list of dogs that might work well for our family.
We wanted to look at dogs from local shelters because our family believes in rescuing dogs from shelters. The adoption prices are particularly low, and that helps too!
Local SheltersWe went to a pet store first because different shelters bring dogs for adoption.
We were a little worried because some of the dogs were completely different than the website had described.
After that we went to one of the local shelters. We looked at a lot of dogs there.
Close We ended up getting an American bulldog named Pinky. Pinky was a year and a half old and they couldn't tell us anything about his background.
He seemed pretty nice and the adoption fee was $45 so we got our house ready and we brought him home...
