Very happy to see this on HN. I have never understood why people are willing to purchase dogs. Between the conditions of large-scale breeders and the amount of animals waiting in shelters, it's just absurd.
My wife and I adopted a Lab two years earlier from a humane society. When she went through puberty, she started acting "off". As in she'd be playing, stop, have no depth in her eyes, and bite you if you got near her. 40 seconds later she was fine and she didn't even know what happened. She even bit the last trainer when she had one of her "seizures." The rest of the time she did every trick and voice command perfectly. After we that, we decided we had to put her down. We spent probably $2000 on training in the year-ish we had her not including the hours calling universities and whatnot for advice.
After many hours of researching, we found out her dad "might have been" a German Shepherd used in dog fighting that had other issues. That dog was shot like a coyote because it kept on tormenting cattle. Would have been nice to know that ahead of time.
We didn't want to go through that again. So we paid the $800, drove 6 hours, saw our new dog get corrected by its father, and be genuinely rambunctious. Now when we go on vacation people argue for the rights to take care of him instead of saying no way.
It's amazing what knowing the family history can do to your stress levels.
I've had four Brittany spaniels, two from early puppy stage, and two from adult stage. The two that I had from a puppy were wonderful dogs for me and my family. The two that were adopted as adults had acquired a variety of odd behaviors; one of them we were able to put up with, the other one was too destructive and eventually we had to relocate to a farm with more space than we had in the suburbs.
I now have an almost 2-year-old border collie that I first saw when she was 5 weeks old. Border collies in general have some particular tendencies that I'm still working on with her, but in general her temperament is very good.
For what it's worth, I did peruse the local shelter for a while before adopting a puppy from a farm.
Large-scale breeders and shelters are not the only two choices; I adopted my most recent dog from a family on a farm.
Perhaps in an ideal world, no more dogs would be born until all existing dogs have a permanent home. But that seems unlikely to happen. If nobody adopts the new-born dogs, then would not they just end up in a shelter? If the blame belongs anywhere, it's on those who (at a large scale or at a small scale) breed their dogs, not on the people who adopt them.
As for your own experiences, I can't speak to those. I've had good luck adopting from shelters even over a year. Old dogs can still learn new tricks. And when getting a young dog, there is no guarantee that you're not going to get one with any of various neuroses.
I did not summon my dog into existence; had there been no dogs available directly from (reputable) breeders, I would have either found an agreeable candidate at a shelter, or not adopted at all.
Absurdly, tjr.
Sadly, certain breeds of dogs are considered a status symbol, are trendy, or buyers think they can sell the offspring of said dog to recoup the costs (and then some).
Remember the glut of Dalmations at shelters after the '101 Dalmations' movie came out? Every kid wanted one, parents bought them, and after realizing they can be very difficult dogs to live with, they were sent to the shelters.
With cats, not so much. Most people want kittens, which there are always plenty of at the right times, and the variation in cats tends to be a little more interesting to the average cat owner. I've personally never owned 2 similar cats - other than two brothers who still were very different.
Because we wanted a shiba. Because we wanted a dog where we knew it had parents without serious genetic defects, health or temperament problems. Because we wanted a puppy so we could be sure it hadn't had a chance to have behavioural problems created through bad training, abuse, etc.
>Between the conditions of large-scale breeders
What does that have to do with anything? You can purchase a dog without getting it from a puppy mill.
>the amount of animals waiting in shelters
There were 3 dogs at our local shelter, 2 at the one 45 minutes away, and 2 at the one a half hour away. I asked a woman at the local shelter when they last had to euthanize a dog for space reasons, and she responded "I don't know, I've only been here for two years". The amount of animals at shelters does not appear to be an issue here.
The numbers really don't agree with you there. Your anecdotal evidence really doesn't mean much. With 6 to 8 million animals entering shelters each year and 3 to 4 million being euthanized, the amount of animals is most definitely an issue.
http://www.humanesociety.org/animal_community/resources/qa/c...
Yes it does. I would not be able to solve the mythical overpopulation problem even if it existed. The question was how can I feel justified in buying a pet. The question is thus entirely about my impact. So my personal circumstances are in fact the only thing that is relevant. The fact that many dogs are killed in the southern US has no impact on me in canada.