2012-01-16T20:35:00.000-08:00

The Gift of a Better Life

One of the greatest things a person can do is adopt an animal and give it a great life in their home. But when you are adopting a pet are you thinking of where they really came from, how they were treated before you saw them, and do you even care? About 60% of all homes in the United States own a pet. A lot of pet owners want their dog to be the best of its breed or want purebreds from puppy mills. But puppy mills are not the best thing for dogs.
No one wants to believe it, but puppy mills are really just caged areas where a female dog is forced to breed continuously from her first heat cycle until she cannot produce any more puppies. They then turn around and sell these puppies to different breeders or to pet stores around the country.

To me, those are horrible conditions, but the breeders obviously disagree. To treat an animal inhumanely is one of the worst crimes in my opinion.

So in reality, there are dogs being bred every 6 months at puppy mills while there are perfectly fine stray dogs left in shelters for half their lives. Some people do not want to rescue dogs from shelters because they think they are old or they just want a “fresh” and new puppy from somewhere else like a pet store.

If you adopt a dog from a shelter you will be saving that dog and another dogs life. Between 3 and 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized each year in the United States because there is not enough room in the shelters. It is a very hard decision that falls on the shelters shoulders’ to do this to the animals, but there is limited space. If you buy from a store you could be supporting puppy mills, and they will not close until people stop buying dogs from them. This is another reason why I strongly encourage people to adopt from shelters. The more you adopt an animal from a shelter, the more innocent lives you will be saving.

Working at a ranch where we board, train, and groom dogs has taught me how each and every single dog has a different personality whether people want to believe it or not. I have always been in love with animals, especially dogs, and have always wanted to help them in any way possible. My family rescued our dog from the Animal Care and Control Center in San Francisco in 2000. We have given her a nice home and I am sure she appreciates it as much as any dog would.

Brownie, the beagle my family rescued from Animal Care and Control Center in SF

Just because animals cannot speak up for themselves does not mean they should be mistreated or not given a loving home. I encourage anyone looking for a pet, to adopt from a shelter and save an animals life, because that is the first step in shutting down puppy mills.

Zeke, one of the many German Shepherds being trained at Shamrock Ranch in Pacifica, CA

Dogs