How We Treat Pets in America

I agree, if we're talking about puppies. There's no reason to buy a puppy. But an adult dog? I adopted an adult dog from a shelter, and I will never do so again.

I realize that the rescue community does its best with the animals, but as an owner of a shelter dog, I really wish somebody had explained to me that the dog you see in the shelter might not actually be the same dog once you take her home. In the course of a few weeks after I adopted her, my laid back, amiable companion had turned into a hyperactive, sometimes-fearful, sometimes-aggressive terror.

My point is that with an adult rescue dog, you are not getting only a dog. You are getting a dog and all of its history. For instance, my dog has a deep fear of manhole covers, tall grass, and a dozen other things. I have no idea why she's afraid, and I never will, because I wasn't there when whatever triggered that fear happened. She's also absolutely terrified of firearms. If I even touch a firearm around her (I've never discharged one around her), she runs away whimpering. I have to preemptively crate her on range days, just to get my guns to the car.

I've been working with her for 2 years, and she's slowly gotten better with some things, but even now she's still afraid of a lot of the same things. And there is absolutely no way I can trust her around children. When my fiance and I get married and want to start having kids, I don't know what will become of her.

All of this to say, I completely understand peoples' hesitancy to adopt an adult dog from a shelter. You can't be sure what you're getting, and while neither can you be sure of what you're getting (in terms of temperament) when you adopt a puppy, at least with a puppy you know that no other messed up human has done bad things to your dog.

Edit: to clarify that I haven't shot my dog...

Yes, and many vets recommend horrible things like declawing. Being a vet does not come with any requirement to be moral or ethical, nor to care about animals at all. Notice how many vets refuse to euthanize animals hit by cars and brought to their clinic? Because the $6 matters more to them than the suffering of the animal.

>but should note

Yes, vets do have an unfortunate financial motivation that is often at odds with the best interests of the animals.

>As to your dog, assuming it's adult what does early age neutering have to do with the situation?

He's not an adult, he's 9 months old.

That sounds logical, but from my talking to various breeders it just isn't reality. They claim to barely break even or even lose money, despite charging ~$1000 per dog. Most of them seem to have other income that supplements their hobby.

Good breeders are motivated by love of the breed and not by money (which, to be fair the article pointed out).

As for your own experiences, I can't speak to those. I've had good luck adopting from shelters even over a year. Old dogs can still learn new tricks. And when getting a young dog, there is no guarantee that you're not going to get one with any of various neuroses.

My wife and I adopted a Lab two years earlier from a humane society. When she went through puberty, she started acting "off". As in she'd be playing, stop, have no depth in her eyes, and bite you if you got near her. 40 seconds later she was fine and she didn't even know what happened. She even bit the last trainer when she had one of her "seizures." The rest of the time she did every trick and voice command perfectly. After we that, we decided we had to put her down. We spent probably $2000 on training in the year-ish we had her not including the hours calling universities and whatnot for advice.

After many hours of researching, we found out her dad "might have been" a German Shepherd used in dog fighting that had other issues. That dog was shot like a coyote because it kept on tormenting cattle. Would have been nice to know that ahead of time.

We didn't want to go through that again. So we paid the $800, drove 6 hours, saw our new dog get corrected by its father, and be genuinely rambunctious. Now when we go on vacation people argue for the rights to take care of him instead of saying no way.

It's amazing what knowing the family history can do to your stress levels.