It's the holidays! And, honestly, who can resist the idea of a cute puppy in a little red ribbon?
Let me make one request, don't make the dog "surprise" a surprise. It may seem like you're taking some of the fun away, but trust me it will have a much happier ending if you include the future pet owner in the search!
There are so many animals behind cages at shelters waiting to rescued, and you can have the pick of so many wonderful new additions to the family. Still, just as people's interests are very diverse, don't pretend that you can pick the perfect animal for someone in your life, regardless of how well you know them.
You never know what is most important to them - should the dog be calm or playful, big or small, young or old, do they want to save one that has struggled to get get adopted in the past? Most importantly, how will they (and anyone else in their life) interact with the animal? Even if you ask the right questions, you won't find out how they feel about the animal until "game day."
Some shelters won't allow pets to be adopted and given as gifts, and for good reason, it's almost inevitable that the animal will come back to a shelter. If the person keeping the animal and caring for them day in and day out, isn't the person deciding on the animal, dozens of things can go wrong.
Perhaps the person thought a dog would be great, but didn't really think about how it might impact their travel schedule, or they figured it would be easier to have their cat get along with a dog, but it isn't happening. Regardless of the reason they might not be the right fit for that household, it's pretty common that pets given as gifts aren't the perfect fit for the person receiving the gift.
So rather than put the person you love through having to live with a pet that isn't a good fit for their family, or even worse having to make the decision to bring the pet to a shelter - just invite them into the rewarding experience of adopting a shelter pet.
Tell them you'll cover the costs and then enjoy a little time searching for their perfect fit with them.
You know that feeling you get when you know you've found the "it" gift for someone - something they will love beyond measure and you found it for them? Well, this will feel even better!
Enjoy and happy rescuing!
December 22, 2011
December 06, 2011
Lessons from a Pound Pup
I met Elliott when he had been in a cage for six months, give or take a few days.
A beautiful bronze-colored Chihuahua mix with huge ears that stuck straight up, people came in to the shelter and awed at how cute he was, but everyone ended up walking past him in the end.
Maybe it was the fact he had been returned to the shelter twice: once by a young woman who realized a dog was too much responsibility for her, and another time by a guy who tried to grab him too roughly and got a caution bite. Maybe it was because he didn't like big dogs. Maybe because he was five years old. Regardless, it was starting to look like Elliott's home might always be the shelter.
I started taking Elliott home a couple nights a month just to get him out of the shelter. Each time he became a little more at home and from the very first moment, he would snuggle in tightly at night, staying warm under the covers.
He loved being out of the shelter - he'd sprint across the lawn, play fetch endlessly and sit in our laps every spare second; he met big dogs and he liked them, and he never stopped wagging his tail - he took it all in.
Brandon and I eventually decided to foster Elliott. At this exact moment he's at home, proudly carrying around a pink boa constrictor stuffed animal - throwing it in the air every few seconds to entertain himself while I type.
After almost a year in a shelter, he has been in our home for two weeks and you would never know that he had lost 1/5 of his life to a cage.
In the first day as our foster, he learned to sit, lay down and roll over. He greets us excitedly when we get home, he never stops playing, he empties the toy box like it is his job, and he still never stops wagging his tail.
My message isn't only that shelter dogs are the best dogs - that you can save a life and find an incredible, loyal, amazing dog ... but also that perhaps we as people, should learn a thing or two from these incredible animals.
I can't help but think that if I were under those same conditions and stresses of shelter life that Elliott faced for a year, I wouldn't have recovered so quickly. I would be resentful to the family that dropped me off at the shelter, I would feel entitled to something incredible for the pain I endured.
Not Elliott.
Elliott is like many shelter pups I've seen and holds a strength in his soul that I hope to some day gain the wisdom to have.
He is grateful for every second he has.
He loves the good people in his life.
He forgives and and forgets the bad people who were in his life.
He takes time to play, to snuggle, and to run around like a crazy man.
He empties the toy box, but then figures out what he wants.
He lives for the moment.
Mostly, for everything he has been through, he just loves his life.
A beautiful bronze-colored Chihuahua mix with huge ears that stuck straight up, people came in to the shelter and awed at how cute he was, but everyone ended up walking past him in the end.
Maybe it was the fact he had been returned to the shelter twice: once by a young woman who realized a dog was too much responsibility for her, and another time by a guy who tried to grab him too roughly and got a caution bite. Maybe it was because he didn't like big dogs. Maybe because he was five years old. Regardless, it was starting to look like Elliott's home might always be the shelter.
I started taking Elliott home a couple nights a month just to get him out of the shelter. Each time he became a little more at home and from the very first moment, he would snuggle in tightly at night, staying warm under the covers.
He loved being out of the shelter - he'd sprint across the lawn, play fetch endlessly and sit in our laps every spare second; he met big dogs and he liked them, and he never stopped wagging his tail - he took it all in.
Brandon and I eventually decided to foster Elliott. At this exact moment he's at home, proudly carrying around a pink boa constrictor stuffed animal - throwing it in the air every few seconds to entertain himself while I type.
After almost a year in a shelter, he has been in our home for two weeks and you would never know that he had lost 1/5 of his life to a cage.
In the first day as our foster, he learned to sit, lay down and roll over. He greets us excitedly when we get home, he never stops playing, he empties the toy box like it is his job, and he still never stops wagging his tail.
My message isn't only that shelter dogs are the best dogs - that you can save a life and find an incredible, loyal, amazing dog ... but also that perhaps we as people, should learn a thing or two from these incredible animals.
I can't help but think that if I were under those same conditions and stresses of shelter life that Elliott faced for a year, I wouldn't have recovered so quickly. I would be resentful to the family that dropped me off at the shelter, I would feel entitled to something incredible for the pain I endured.
Not Elliott.
Elliott is like many shelter pups I've seen and holds a strength in his soul that I hope to some day gain the wisdom to have.
He is grateful for every second he has.
He loves the good people in his life.
He forgives and and forgets the bad people who were in his life.
He takes time to play, to snuggle, and to run around like a crazy man.
He empties the toy box, but then figures out what he wants.
He lives for the moment.
Mostly, for everything he has been through, he just loves his life.
October 12, 2011
What is a Puppy Mill?
You may have heard about puppy mills - or puppy farms - but many people don't really know what the term means or why it matters.
When you see a puppy in the window of the pet store or an ad online for puppies for sale, you can know with near certainty that the pup is from a puppy mill.
A puppy mill is a large-scale breeding operation, where "breeding stock" - rather dogs that are bred over and over again - are kept in cages their entire lives with little to no veterinary care, and then are killed, abandoned or sold when they are no longer fertile.
Puppy mills not only produce horrific endings for animals that are bred, but they tear puppies away from their mothers long before they should be. Purebred puppies are then sold in bulk to "brokers" and then those individuals sell the puppies (often with falsified purebred paperwork) to pet stores ... or sell them to laboratories for "research" - which I'm sure you can interpret intelligently.
In short, puppy mills are commercialized breeding and they are hiding in plain site in areas near all of us.
There are more than 6,000 commercialized breeders licensed by the USDA - our own government licenses these breeders, but they do not protect the animals or potential owners.
The USDA requires food, shelter and water ... but that doesn't translate to humane conditions. In fact, the USDA allows puppy mills - or commercial breeders - to own more than one thousand dogs, to keep all dogs in cages for years at a time, and to breed dogs as often as possible.
Even worse, there are thousands of puppy mills that are not licensed and have even more grotesque and unmentionable conditions.
Only four states (Virginia, Louisiana, Oregon, and Washington) have even limited the number of dogs that can be in commercial breeding facilities, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
Animals are not a mere commodity.
Perhaps that's a concept our government doesn't yet understand - or at least enforce, but I cannot imagine people would be so desperate for a puppy that they would knowingly purchase a puppy whose mom is sitting in a cage of her own feces with no veterinary care and who is impregnated and bred until she is useless to the breeder and then tossed aside like garbage.
Sometimes seeing the truth is the best way to truly understand it. You can search puppy mills and see thousands of pictures and videos, following is a video of a puppy mill rescue by the Humane Society of the U.S. that shows the animals being saved, but also shows the conditions of puppy mills: http://video.humanesociety.org/video/999193548001.
There is an entire glossary of lingo when it comes to puppy mills, which adeptly displays this industry - below are a few terms to give you a glimpse into commercialized breeders.
If you want to help stop puppy mills know that puppies sold online and in pet stores are almost always puppy mill dogs; increase awareness with the people you know - sign the ASPCA pledge against puppy mills, send a note to your legislators, don't shop at pet stores that sell puppies and support those that feature adoptable animals.
As long as we allow puppy mills to exist by continuing to buy puppies from pet stores and breeders, millions of animals will continue to die in shelters simply because there are not enough homes for them.
Know about puppy mills and tell people about it ... you will make a difference, and you can be the change.
Learn More:
http://www.aspca.org/puppymills
http://www.nopetstorepuppies.com/
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/puppy_mills/
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/puppy_mills/qa/puppy_mill_FAQs.html
When you see a puppy in the window of the pet store or an ad online for puppies for sale, you can know with near certainty that the pup is from a puppy mill.
A puppy mill is a large-scale breeding operation, where "breeding stock" - rather dogs that are bred over and over again - are kept in cages their entire lives with little to no veterinary care, and then are killed, abandoned or sold when they are no longer fertile.
Puppy mills not only produce horrific endings for animals that are bred, but they tear puppies away from their mothers long before they should be. Purebred puppies are then sold in bulk to "brokers" and then those individuals sell the puppies (often with falsified purebred paperwork) to pet stores ... or sell them to laboratories for "research" - which I'm sure you can interpret intelligently.
In short, puppy mills are commercialized breeding and they are hiding in plain site in areas near all of us.
There are more than 6,000 commercialized breeders licensed by the USDA - our own government licenses these breeders, but they do not protect the animals or potential owners.
The USDA requires food, shelter and water ... but that doesn't translate to humane conditions. In fact, the USDA allows puppy mills - or commercial breeders - to own more than one thousand dogs, to keep all dogs in cages for years at a time, and to breed dogs as often as possible.
Even worse, there are thousands of puppy mills that are not licensed and have even more grotesque and unmentionable conditions.
Only four states (Virginia, Louisiana, Oregon, and Washington) have even limited the number of dogs that can be in commercial breeding facilities, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
Animals are not a mere commodity.
Perhaps that's a concept our government doesn't yet understand - or at least enforce, but I cannot imagine people would be so desperate for a puppy that they would knowingly purchase a puppy whose mom is sitting in a cage of her own feces with no veterinary care and who is impregnated and bred until she is useless to the breeder and then tossed aside like garbage.
Sometimes seeing the truth is the best way to truly understand it. You can search puppy mills and see thousands of pictures and videos, following is a video of a puppy mill rescue by the Humane Society of the U.S. that shows the animals being saved, but also shows the conditions of puppy mills: http://video.humanesociety.org/video/999193548001.
There is an entire glossary of lingo when it comes to puppy mills, which adeptly displays this industry - below are a few terms to give you a glimpse into commercialized breeders.
- Buncher: A person who takes puppy mill rejects—dogs not up to breed standards—and/or dogs advertised as "free to a good home" and sells them to Class B dealers, who will in turn sell them to industrial research laboratories.
- Culling: The killing of puppy mill puppies who, for various reasons, are considered unacceptable (twisted leg, coat or eye color not up to breed standard, misshaped ears, etc.).
- Debarking: A controversial procedure in which a dog's vocal cords are severed so that he is unable to bark. In puppy mills, this procedure is often performed by smashing a puppy's vocal cords with a pipe.
- Source: ASPCA Puppy Mill Glossary: http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/puppy-mills/puppy-mill-glossary.aspx
If you want to help stop puppy mills know that puppies sold online and in pet stores are almost always puppy mill dogs; increase awareness with the people you know - sign the ASPCA pledge against puppy mills, send a note to your legislators, don't shop at pet stores that sell puppies and support those that feature adoptable animals.
As long as we allow puppy mills to exist by continuing to buy puppies from pet stores and breeders, millions of animals will continue to die in shelters simply because there are not enough homes for them.
Know about puppy mills and tell people about it ... you will make a difference, and you can be the change.
Learn More:
http://www.aspca.org/puppymills
http://www.nopetstorepuppies.com/
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/puppy_mills/
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/puppy_mills/qa/puppy_mill_FAQs.html
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