It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that we love supporting our local animal shelter. It’s where we got Thunder right after we got married three years ago. And it’s also where we got Lyla, after Thunder died and we were needing a new dog to join our family. Anytime we want to adopt a pet, we head to our local animal shelter. Lyla is still a puppy, and we’ve realized that she needed some company. Almost a month ago, we headed to Utah Humane Society, and we found Millie.
We’re still working on training her, as her peeing on the floor is still an all too often occurence, but we’re so happy to welcome Millie into our home. I’ll be honest, there are days that I want to rip my hair out, having two dogs. Millie has had a cold since we brought her home. And although she’s been on an antibiotic and it’s gotten better, there is snot all over our house. And the girls are constantly playing, so it sometimes feels like we’ll never get a break from their playing. But it’s easy to see that they are both so much happier than they were before.
One of the things things that I am most passionate about, is adopting pets rather than paying breeders or going to puppy mills. I know that I’ve talked about this before, when we adopted Lyla I made a post about it. There’s a local puppy mill, here in American Fork, named the puppy barn. And my heart breaks every time one of my friends or someone I know posts about them or gets a puppy from them.
You shouldn’t support puppy mills
Not only are they spending THOUSANDS of dollars on a puppy, but that puppy has a huge chance of having parvo, development issues from being taken from its mother too soon, and dozens of other health issues. Adopting a dog doesn’t mean your dog won’t have issues(Lyla ended up with worms and Millie has a forever cold, it seems), but the medical cost we had to cover was so much more manageable because we spent less than $100 on the adoption fee.
When you choose to adopt a pet, you are saving a life. I can’t even begin to share how passionate I am about this subject.
One of the things that I hear the most from people who are in support of puppy mills, is that they want a puppy. They want to be the only owner of that dog, and puppies are so darn cute. Boycotting puppy mills doesn’t mean you can’t get a puppy, though! You may have to wait a few extra weeks or months, but isn’t that worth it? I know that at the Utah Humane Society, they have puppy litters frequently, with a variety of breeds. Just in the past few months, I’ve seen pitbulls, german shepherds, chihuahuas, and a bunch of mixed breed pups. What I’m trying to say, is, you can get the puppy of your dreams, for a fraction of the cost. Without supporting an institution that mistreats their animals.
You can adopt a pet, and still get the puppy you want
The best way to stay aware of when your local shelter has puppies, is to subscribe to their email list! I get an email every single morning with all of the new dogs that have been added to their database. Even though we’re no longer in the market for another dog, I can’t get myself to unsubscribe.
Another argument I want to debunk really quickly, is the idea that if you don’t buy the puppies from the puppy mill, that they’ll just be euthanized anyway. This isn’t the case. When a puppy gets too old, then they get taken to where? The local shelters. So there really is absolutely no benefit in shopping or going to a breeder(dog breeders also mistreat the mama dogs, which is another reason to not buy from a breeder).
If you have any questions about the process to adopt a pet, please let me know!