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Adopting vs. Buying a Dog or Cat
 Adopting
vs. Buying a Dog or Cat
by Dr. Craig Brestrup, Development Associate
The majority of households in the U.S. include
companion animals, and in the best of situations those animals
essentially become family members. They are loved, protected,
and provided for and, unlike pieces of property, are not considered
disposable. And when they pass on, they are mourned in much
the way we mourn the loss of other loved ones.
There are a variety of routes by which these
animals enter our lives. They are sometimes given as gifts,
which is generally not a good idea. Since the relationship
one develops with a dog or cat tends to become very important
to us, it is best that it begin as a choice we make after
meeting several. They are certainly not interchangeable and,
as with making friends, not everyone is our "cup of tea."
There needs to be a sense of rightness between the person
and a particular animal.
Probably the most common way animals come
to us seems to be at their initiative. One follows you home,
or you open the door and there he sits. Some of these are
strays and you help them return to their proper home. But
others seem to come out of nowhere (at least nowhere known),
and are truly homeless and in need. So you make space, and
they move in.
The final ways have to do with a choice we
make — we can go to a pet store or respond to an ad
in the paper from an animal breeder and we can then buy our
future beloved companion, ordinarily a "pure" bred
dog or cat. The problem with this route is the well-known
issue of whether the animal comes out of a puppy or kitten
"mill," meaning they are produced by people only
concerned with making money off them and are often unhealthy
and have been poorly cared for. In addition, they result from
deliberate breeding of dogs and cats, which brings these animals
into a world already over-populated with their kind and in
which millions are killed every year because no one is there
to give them a home.
The last, and I think best, way to find a
dog or cat is to visit the local shelter. There you can find
every possibility from classic mixed-breed mutts and cats
to purebred animals, young and old. They will have been strays,
the results of unplanned pregnancies, or creatures who were
brought to the shelter because their people wouldn't or couldn't
take care of them any longer. If you don't find exactly the
right match the first time you visit the shelter, wait a few
days and return. You will eventually meet Mr. or Ms. "Right"
and a great companionship will begin. And you may very well
be saving a life. By adopting a dog or cat from the shelter
you do yourself and your chosen friend a great favor.
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