Pet Adoption is the Only Option

**In honor of the NBC’s Petside.com Pet Net Adoption Event, I am posting about the importance of pet adoption and why you should always go to a shelter for a new fur baby instead of a pet store, the Internet, or a breeder. This event is meant to raise awareness of shelter pets and adoption and why they’re the best option.**
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Raise your hand if you bought your dog from a breeder, pet store, newspaper ad or the Internet.

If you raised your hand, then you have personally contributed to the pet overpopulation problem in this country, perhaps without even knowing it.

The pet overpopulation problem is perpetuated by backyard breeders, pet shops and Internet breeders because there are millions of homeless animals living in shelters, foster care, and rescues across the country; and every time you buy a dog from a breeder or pet store, one of the rescue pets loses the chance to go to a “forever home.”

Dogs in pet stores and advertised in newspapers and online especially come from puppy mills, mass dog-breeding operations where life is nothing more than a steel cage not even big enough for the dog to turn around in usually.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, several hundred thousand puppies are shipped all over the country every year to be sold in pet shops, but many are sold via newspaper classifieds or the Internet. They’re often accompanied by false claims such as, “We’d never sell puppies from a puppy mill” or promises that the puppies are “home raised,” farm raised,” or “raised with kids/grandkids.” “The ploys of the puppy mill are designed to dupe a well-intentioned family into buying a puppy and keeping the engine of cruelty working overtime,” it says on the HSUS website.

To avoid carrying on this horrible practice, you should always, “adopt, don’t shop.”

Many people think animal rescues are places where the pets are banged up, imperfect, unwanted. And many of them are. But in reality, rescue pets end up being the best kind to have because their little souls have seen so much in life that they would do anything to make you happy and to be loved in return.

Running an animal rescue is hard work. Most rescues are funded by donations only and are run on a volunteer basis. If not for the big hearts and open wallets of people who run these facilities and volunteer their time and money, hundreds of thousands more pets would die each year.

Amy Weitzel, Founder of Multiple Breed Rescue in Elyria, Ohio is also the Ohio State Representative of Jack Russell Rescue. She runs two shelters from her home and family farm.

“If you are willing to find the RIGHT dog and not just the first dog you see then the puppy mills and backyard breeders would not exist,” Amy said. That’s the whole reason she got involved. She bought a cute little Jack Russell Terrier (JRT) from a pet store a few years back. She was uneducated about the process, and was horrified after she researched where the puppy really came from.

“Do you know not ONE pet store clerk asked if I had experience with JRT’s? Not one pet store clerk asked if I had any other dogs. Did you know female JRT’s do not get along with other female dogs 90% of the time?” Amy recounted. “Not one person said a thing. I was some young kid with a credit card. Heck they didn’t even ask me how old I was. I look young and to this day get carded to buy alcohol. I highly doubt I looked 18-years-old at the time.”

Pet stores and backyard breeders do not really care about the dogs themselves, they care about making money off of them. And as Amy so eloquently put it, we are in a society of “I want it now,” hence the reason pet stores are so successful.

Therein lies one of the challenges of running a dog rescue.

“Adopting a pet takes a little effort. You have to find a pet that interests you, complete an application, meet the dog, etc.,” Amy said. “All of this takes time. Usually a week or two. People don’t want to wait that long. Unfortunately our society treats dogs like they treat a new CD that was just released. GOT TO HAVE IT NOW. Go to the store, buy it and when they get bored with it throw it away and get a new one.”

Thus Amy began her crusade to save animals from untimely deaths. It’s not an easy job. She doesn’t get paid. She doesn’t get reimbursed in any way. Most of the time she ends up in the red. Many times she spends tons of money to recuperate the dogs, have them spayed/neutered, get them their shots, only to have someone scoff at her $100-$200 adoption fee.

Mindy the Rescue

“Normal adoption fee is between $100 for a dog I get in that is already fixed and $200 for a dog that I had to get everything done and pay a pull fee for,” Amy said. A pull fee is a fee that pounds charge Amy to save a dog that is on death row. Yes, they actually charge her to save a dog’s life. “If it is in an older dog and even though I have a lot of money into the dog I will adopt it out for $100. I might have put $300 into the dog but it is 10-years-old. I am just lucky to find it a home.”

That’s the whole purpose of Amy’s Multiple Breed Rescue – to help all the “mutts” and all the “hard to adopt” dogs from the shelters. 

“When I say ‘hard to adopt dogs’ I am speaking of the dogs that might require more medical attention due to skin allergies, broken bones, eye infections, etc.” she said. “There are rescues out there that, although I think they do a great job, stick to the easy to place dogs, leaving the dogs that really need help at the shelters to die. I personally like to take the leftovers, the dogs no one looks at twice, they usually turn out to be the best dogs!”

The Jack Pack

Amy placed about 180 dogs in loving, forever homes in 2007. She saved 180 lives. She takes in anywhere from two to 20 dogs a month, depending on how much space she has in her home and in foster homes. (The majority of the dogs stay at her home)

Amy has adoption events at places like PetSmart every month and has a whole slew of volunteers and caring foster parents who help her. She thinks the biggest hurdle is getting the word out about adopting. It’s hard to educate people about adoption because they don’t listen or don’t care.

“Animal rescue isn’t a moneymaking business so it isn’t like we have money to spend on advertising. Most of the media don’t care about pet adoption because again it isn’t a moneymaker,” Amy said. “I dream about having billboards and large news paper ads with statistics and facts about the pet overpopulation problem and about the adoption option vs. the pet store or backyard breeder advertising in the newspaper or on the telephone poll.”

Don’t we all?

All of this brings me to the main point of this post: pet adoption is really the only viable option there is. Even if you want a purebred dog, go to that breed’s local rescue chapter, for example Amy’s Ohio State Jack Russell Rescue, and save one’s life.

Every time you buy a dog from a pet store, another dog dies in a shelter somewhere.

To follow Amy’s everyday life, visit her compelling dog rescue blog, A Dog Rescuers Life.

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Please visit Petside’s Pet Net Adoption Event page to find more blogs posting about adoption today and for additional information.