My dog cost $80 and the fee included all health stuff as well as an RFID chip. Adopt a dog (or cat), fuck buying from a puppymill.
•
Adopted from the pound, they threw that stuff in for free. (I threw money at them anyway)
dog tax included
•
Yup, I’ve noticed there are a bunch of similar looking black dogs like ours. I guess it’s the final form of the mutt 😍
Adopt a dog before buying from a reputable breeder.
It doesn't matter how good a breeder is. There are a hundred dogs of the exact breed you are looking for being put to death today because there are too many pets.
That's such an americentric statement. There are other countries in the world, you know?
In Germany we have such a small amount of stray dogs, or ones getting surrendered to shelters, that shelters have to import dogs from other countries to fulfill demand. And there have been tons of cases where those turned out to come from puppy mills abroad.
So yes, there are cases where buying from a reputable breeder is a much more ethical option than getting a dog from a shelter
The answer is still to adopt. The dogs are coming either from a shelter or a mill and both are good sources for adoption.
The former means it's still giving a dog a home. It is still a dog that needs a home regardless of which country it originated from.
The latter seems completely nonsense if the German shelters are paying full price and still giving the dogs up for adoption at reasonable rates. They'd be losing a ton of money. And if they're taking the leftovers from the puppy mills for cheap or free, then those are still losses to the mills and are discouraging more breeding. Also, those are still dogs that need homes regardless of source. Just because a dog was born in a mill doesn't mean it deserves not to be adopted.
In either case the answer is still to get a dog from a shelter.
There are 3 million dogs in US shelters and German shelters are getting their dogs from foreign puppy mills instead of the US?
The problem is that 2.9 million of them are Pitbull or Chihuahua mixes, even though the shelters try to pass them off as other breed mixes like they’re keyword stuffing Alta Vista in the 90s. True strays are from unneutered/spayed dogs, and the majority of people leaving their dogs intact, at least in my area, are assholes with “Pitties”.
There are also a lot of dog adoption services that are feel a lot more like revolving clearing houses for puppy mills.
They “shut down” a mill, rescue all the dogs and then a month later do it again. Someone is still making money with petfinder fees.
Damn! The shelters around here want $600 for a mutt with no manners. The last city we lived in had an S.P.C.A. though, and we adopted a little pretty princess for -i think- $79.
The adoption fee at my shelter is $150 for dogs. Dogs are chipped, fixed, and up-to-date on vaccines. The day my wife and I adopted our guy, they were taking a hundred bucks off the adoption fee for large dogs. We walked in expecting to adopt a small dog, but the one we wanted to meet was adopted out and left ten minutes before we got there. So we went and looked at the other dogs. And then we stumbled across this big guy in the back of his cage, head cocked to the side, ears way too big for his head, not making a sound. My wife tells the staff she wants to meet him. We spent a whole 90 minutes trying to coax him out from under chairs. He was terrified.
Naturally, we took him home. And here he is an hour after getting there.
He stayed under my desk for the next three days.
He goes to the park once or twice a day, daycare once a week, and was in weekly group training for four months. He is so so so much more confident now. It's been just the most rewarding thing watching him come out of his shell.
Bonus: Here he is a couple weeks ago being murdered to death by one of the puppies at the park.
We've had him for about a year. He turns 2 in a few months.
His name is Sherlock. Here's a different post of him. He's mostly Pit Bull, but he also has some Chow Chow, Boxer, German Shepherd, and Husky.
being murdered to death
Is this an EpicNate reference or something you came up with? Anyway, nice one and lovely story you have there :)
I have a feeling OP posted this as bait, so people would post cute pics of their rescued dogs.
And I commend this effort. Moar doggos pls.
I spent $25 to adopt my cat from my local humane society and now he’s my best friend in the whole world.
He’s the sweetest cat I’ve ever met. He loves to snuggle with me and he follows me around my apartment wherever I go. And he loves pets and belly rubs.
Pretty sure my dog belonged to someone else. He ran into our yard one day and stayed for almost 2 weeks. No one came looking for him after a few posts to social media.
He wasn't chipped / fixed at all when we took him to the vet. After the first two weeks we ended up just keeping him hoping the owners would eventually turn up.
who made this meme trying to imply there aren't equally dumb cat people spending multiple thousands on a "purebred" cat?
if anything should be banned it's the AKC and whatever the cat version is
I don't endorse these websites, but an example of some really expensive cat breeds.
Regardless of pet, don't buy designer pets unless they are rescues.
don't buy designer pets
All my cats are designer pets. They redesigned the couch, the stair carpet, the back of my chair. Very good designers.
What is it with cats and stair carpet? It's like a super shitty scratching post? I had one cat that refused to scratch anything but the top two stairs to the point where he pulled the carpet pad off
I got some of those corrugated scratching boards and popped one onto the second step from the bottom and another onto the top of the stairs and he never deviated from the scratchers after that.
Yeah mine love the top couple steps too. We set up cat trees and scratching posts and redirect them to those now. It's really helped.
Cats can be very peculiar when it comes to scratching posts. My cat wouldn't even look at a scratching post. I got my cat a corrugated scratching boards and she loves it.
My cat also loves to scratch the couch. I threw a blanket over the arm and my cat won't even touch it now. You have to use the environment to redirect cats behaviors.
As someone who wants a cat but is really allergic, I'm not looking forward to shelling out for a Bengal or sphynx when the temptation gets too high...
I watch shelters around here constantly, and only one of them has ever come through.
It was adopted in about 10 seconds
Do not buy a sphinx if you're allergic to cats. People who are allergic are generally allergic to the oil (sebum). Sphinxs are awful for people who are allergic.
If not bathed regularly, they'll cover your furniture in that oil too.
Ah, thanks for the info! A lot of the articles I was looking at said that they were good for people with allergies, including one from a vet service, so that's good to know.
The whole hairless thing is also super unsettling to me so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My ex thinks they are cute.
But I guess some people think naked mole rats are cute too. Or mangy bears?
At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.
if you groom your cat fastidiously you'll be fine. the allergen is not in the hair, it's in the saliva.
i am allergic but have a long haired cat. it's fine as long as i brush him out regularly. when he bites me i break out in hives though.
This might not be feasible if you're in the states but if you have access to good healthcare, go to an allergist and get the shots! I've always had cats and been allergic to them , I survived with an inhaler and prescription pills. Since I finished my shots last year I've felt 100x better. The only time I need my pills now for cats is when I visit my mom who has 5 of them, with one long haired orange boi that just needs to sit on your head.
Had a friend who had two bengal kittens. They could leap up an entire flight of stairs in two bounds. Even ignoring all the issues with breeders, don't fuck with bengal kittens. You'll need to turn your whole house into a jungle gym.
#AdoptDontShop and don't support breeders/puppy mills.
No such thing as a "pure bred" dog anyways.
Plus, mutts have far fewer health problems. "Pure breeds" are largely inbred and products of incest.
LOL, that's hilarious. I waited a year for a dog to find me and tell me he's part of my family, but it never happened, so we went and told one that he's part of our family. He was pretty excited about that.
Pretty sure the shelter paid us to take our current cat lol. Or at least all the chipping and medical fees were waived. She'd been there for months and months and had already had one failed adoption.
She's ornery as hell and never wants us to pet her but somehow mysteriously happens to be in the same room as us all the time. And she sleeps on us at night. Deep down it's clear she loves us in her own cat way. 🥲
Also despite her...odd... temperament she is a beautiful cat! No clue why anyone would pay for an expensive breed when there are so many cuties like ours just wasting away in shelters.
Our shelter did this, but they didn't fix the cats. When we went back to get them fixed at the shelter, they said they'd kill our cats if we didn't pay them.
It's almost like even the god of blood is unhappy about this proceedings and committed against the sacrifice of felines. Powerful stuff.
Found on the streets of South Dallas with glaucoma in her now surgically removed eye, happy as ever and would still fetch all day if she could.
The breeder fee is the cheapest part of owning a dog.
Food and vet bills will each cost far more over the lifetime of the animal.
Dogs: Goes to the vet every 6 months, dies at 8.
Cats: Lives to be 24, got shots once at 8 weeks old.
Anecdotal survey of 30 or so cat owners, thry dont get nearly the vet checks as dogs. Aside from maybe Maincoons since they have a whole mess of problems. Tabbys are absolute battle tanks.
Kosmo made it to 24 on her own terms going peacfully in her sleep.
My single orange brain cell does scare me some times. I get worried that he's the type to hide if he actually gets hurt or sick.
He's 12, and I have to play with him a lot, otherwise he'll start chasing his tail, including biting it and by the sound of it, very hard.
I've had many, many cats in my life and always the orange ones are f!cking weird. I went to search why that is but I think the researchers are wrong with the below. I want another one but I'm not sure that I have the energy for it now that I'm older. They're such goobers.
"The facts: Does being orange really influence cat behavior? The fact is, at least according to science, there is no such thing as orange cat behavior. “To date, no studies have shown any impact of coat color on personality in cats,” veterinary behaviorist Dr. Mikel Delgado tells The Wildest."
Yeah well, they need to science harder, because they haven't observed what orange tabby parents have observed for probably centuries.
For real, I have much faith in science, but not when it comes to orange cats. Those cats are dumb and weird and loveable as shit and no stupid science bitch is gonna tell me otherwise.
That's not true, they also get fixed at some point lol.
We lost our 19 year old kitty back in November. she was a fuckin' trooper :p
My friends wife bought one of those she would never tell us how much they paid for it. They ended up offering it to me for free a few years later but I already had a cat that was not receptive to the idea. It was a really cool cat though. It would play fetch with you.
Unless you're putting your animal in shows, why tf would anyone care about having a pure breed? Get a mutt that resembles what you want, and you should be good to go (and have a healthier animal).
Some people allergic, some breed made for those people to not get reaction. Maybe mixing make problem worse again?
That's kind of niche tbh and about the only way of breeding that sounds healthy to me. Not based on impossible aesthetic standards, I mean.
it's also not true. hypoallergenic dogs/cats are just marketing nonsense designed to appeal to rich weirdos who want to spend five figures on dog because they think nothing has any value if they pay less than that.
Aha. Well at least the idea behind it is somewhat better, didn't know about the feasibility.
Not good either. These are often bred in terrible conditions, separated from their moms way too early (to get that extra cuteness) and may have unchecked health problems.
and may have unchecked health problems.
That part's for sure. They were just some farm dogs.
My best girl was a rescue. She's legitimately one of the best behaved and cutest dogs. Did we get lucky? Fuck yeah. Would I ever buy from a breeder? Probably not. There are rescue organizations for specific breeds if that's what you want/need.
Reminds me of a joke:
-"Yesterday, I went to a zoo and the only exhibition they had was a single dog."
-"Oh wow, that sounds horrible!"
-"Yeah, it was a shitzu!"
Cat 1: adopted from someone on Reddit who had taken in a preggo stray.
Cat 2: adopted from a shelter, was found in a hoarder house.
Cat 3: adopted from a shelter, was found in a Penske truck.
Foster cat: appeared on our window ledge, theory is she was dumped with her litter outside the pet shop nearby.
I'm anticipating more rescues in our future because people are selfish assholes who think spaying is cruel, but are totally ok with overpopulating the world with cats that don't receive adequate care and often die lonely.
High as balls cat 3 (Fran) after her gabapentin fueled vet day.
I'm ashamed to say I paid 100 bucks a gram for a 300 grams scrappy tiny thingy. Ashamed but unapologetic 
Scrappy and tiny are the rarest and most coveted attributes of thingy, it will only go up in value.