My Views on Dogs....go against popular opinion.

Why I 75% Don’t Agree with “Adopt, Don’t Shop”

The public service announcement comes on the radio when I’m driving to work.

It’s an ad for First Coast No More Homeless Pets,

which is a noble cause...but the announcer says

“If you’re looking for a new addition for your family, adopt, don’t shop”.

What that means is go to the pound and pick out an animal someone else surrendered, that is now homeless.

But what they don’t tell you is why it was surrendered.

And, to be honest, they really should.

(If they know)

But often times, they don’t.

Because if you knew that the cute beagle mix that’s staring up at you

with puppy eyes from its sad concrete cell

was turned over to them because the previous owner

Simply could not housebreak it....

They know there’s probably more than a 50/50 chance

that you won’t take it home.

I mean, the shelters do sometimes have a form on the animal’s cage

That says “best as the only pet in the house”, “better for a quiet adult household” etc...But they don’t get into detail about the actual issues behind that notice.

They often don’t know.

It’s a hit or miss, luck of the draw situation.

In some rescues, the animals have been there long enough for the workers

To know if they destroy things quickly, fight with other dogs or don’t hold their pee.

But they don’t live there 24/7 or take the dogs home,

so it’s still not in depth enough to know how they will act in your home.

Like I said, luck of the draw.

Sometimes, the seemingly sweetest dog later shows signs of aggression.

Sometimes, the happiest puppy turns out to have separation anxiety

And you lose hundreds of dollars in personal possessions to its nervous teeth

Before you figure out how to dog-proof the home when you leave.

And it’s still a gamble.

There are things, like the couch, that you simply can’t move to the other room.

And if the puppy can’t be crated

Because when you tried, it tore up its bed and bent the bars to escape,

You have to just hold your breath when you walk into the house

After a few hours out doing errands.

Do I sound like an intolerant, selfish, close-minded person?

Probably.

But I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not,

Just to impress a handful of animal lovers.

Hi, my name is Amy. I’m 31 years young

And I have generalized anxiety along with

Some traits of OCD,

Like wanting to maintain a clean home that is organized

A certain way that looks appealing...

And I represent the probably only 10% of society

That has their stress exacerbated by dogs

Rather than cured by them.

The year after I got married,

My husband decided he wanted a dog.

He never said that until he saw the dog he wanted.

It was a fluffy brown spaniel mix,

Surrendered by his previous family without explanation.

This should have been a huge red flag,

But when one wears rose-colored glasses,

The red flags just look like regular flags.

When I tried to Facebook stalk the family,

I found out they had a little baby.

They seemed like nice people, just very absorbed in parenting

and I figured “ok they had a baby and didn’t have time for a dog”.

 This was my first time living with a dog in my home

as an adult, where it was my home and my rules.

At first I didn’t mind.

He seemed pretty tame.

After a few months, his true colors showed,

and some were ugly.

Like whatever color characterizes barking obnoxiously loud

And for an extended period of time

at the slightest pin drop outside the apartment.

This behavior only worsened as the dog would lunge

At passing runners and other dogs that were 50 feet away,

Straining himself as he barked and snarled incessantly.

Maybe that color would be red...because he was seeing red more and more.

And if that was red, yellow would have been the color

Of the constant bladder crystals which resulted

in several expensive vet visits and many antibiotics.

And still accidents would happen without much warning.

And brown would have been the color of his obsession with poop.

We had a cat for a short while too, and try as we might,

Nothing could stop him from getting the poop out of the litter box

And smearing it everywhere.

We had an automated, self-cleaning litter box... but it took at least

Two minutes to recognize that the cat had come and gone

And start to cycle

And two minutes was all it took.

When he wasn’t eating poop from the litter box,

He was grabbing it by the pile outside.

My husband always had to fight him to stop.

 At least this dog could be crated.

He slept in one every night

Because I was unable to sleep when I could hear him

Up sniffing around, for fear there would be puddles

To clean up in the morning.

But when my husband decided to go to school 35 miles away

And be gone 8 hours a day, three days a week,

Crating didn’t seem fair.

The dog would have been inside 16 of the 24 hours in a day.

So we invested in many baby gates to keep the dog corralled

in an open kitchen area,

where tile floors could be mopped easily.

Home started to feel like a prison.

And not just for the dog.

And where I had reservations about having a dog,

I now had full-on anxiety.

And the anxiety would turn to anger

Every time something happened to disturb the peace in my home.

And no matter how much I tried to take a deep breath

And sip some tea and reason with myself,

I went from being “ok” with dog ownership

To hating it more than anything else I had been challenged with.

Finally, in the midst of a dark and troubling chapter in my marriage,

My husband came to the realization that this dog

Though he was cute and fluffy

Was too expensive with his medical bills and too aggressive

And it was time to find him a better situation.

So he surrendered him to a no-kill rescue,

Where, much later, a nice older lady with more time on her hands

Would take him in.

My husband was devastated to lose his companion animal,

But I felt free....there was peace in my home again.

Going forward with life,

I shook it off as just one unlucky experience

With one unlucky dog.

I wanted to try to be optimistic about any future pets.

Not even a year later,

My husband was back to lamenting that he missed having a dog.

And since we had been through a rough patch,

I wanted to do what I could to please him.

So I said he could get another dog.

I said this thinking he would take his time

Researching breeds and maybe applying for

Something specific through a rescue,

But he went out that day and brought home a heeler mix.

This dog was black and grey, the same size as the spaniel,

and seemed fairly tame also,

Just as the spaniel had at first.

But  unlike the spaniel, he didn’t have health issues.

After just a few weeks, it became clear though

He had a lot of energy and was lonely and bored

In a small condo

When we were out,

So my husband decided the dog needed a playmate.

I wanted a cat.

I visited a rescue cattery,

but he said he didn’t like the idea of smelly litter boxes

And dirty paws up on the counters.

he wanted another dog.

So I went with him this time

And kind of helped him narrow his choices down

We took home another heeler mix (maybe?)

That was also black but different from the first one.

They got along fairly well it seemed.

This was in November and we made it through Christmas

Without any major mishaps.

What I would soon find out, however,

Is that two dogs can play with each other to prevent loneliness,

But they can also act as a team when executing bad behavior.

Right as the year ended,

Their ugly colors started to show.

Like black- the color of the expensive wedge shoes one of them

Gnawed the heel off of while we slept,

Which I could not find someone to fix easily

And had to throw away.

That kind of thing happens sometimes.

But it happened with five other pairs of nice shoes,

Before I finally found a way to keep them safe.

It didn’t stop at shoes.

Everything that wasn’t tied down or stored away was fair game.

Before long, there were tears in my bathrobes,

Ripped blankets,

A brand-new oven mitt was destroyed,

As were several towels, tee shirts and underwear.

The corners of the couch were shredded on one side.

A pillow was annihilated.

Food and candy were pulled down from the table.

Even thick plastic pieces of technology (like computer mice) were chewed up.

As each mishap occurred, I would gradually dog-proof everything

But later on when I tried buying crates,

So we could go out for more extended periods of time,

They destroyed those too.

Soon, Just like the original dog,

I was going fast from being “ok” to hating my situation,

It finally reached the toxic boiling point when

They couldn’t be crated to spare my home and my stress.

Add in a thick, disgusting coating of black hairs on every surface

and one dog repeatedly trying to mark where

the spaniel had once peed in a hallway,

and the result was that I was often angry with my husband.

He was trying his best, but he was not able to train them properly.

And we couldn’t afford “doggie boot camp”.

I do recognize it wasn’t truly the dogs’ fault.

They were a breed that belonged running around outside.

They had boredom or anxiety.

They didn’t know better.

But when I was holding the shredded remains of something I cared about,

Or having to take time out of my busy day to clean up pee,

“They didn’t know better” didn’t sit well with me.

It was grating,

Like telling a hormonal woman to “calm down”.

These problems were not, however, enough to ward

the dogs being given away.

I was supposed to learn patience and tolerance,

And perhaps, if things had turned out differently, I would have.

It would have taken time, but it could have happened.

However, the dogs wound up eliminating themselves

In a tragic turn of events.

We had a surprise baby.

Back in January, just two months after obtaining the dogs,

We found out we were pregnant.

This did not affect the dogs at first,

But towards the end of the summer, as we prepared for baby,

My husband stopped being able to exercise them nearly so much.

He got a minor head injury which made running cause terrible headaches.

And then he was busy getting ready for the birth.

The baby came and we were busy 24/7.

There was a rise in destructive incidents.

But the last straw came at the end of maternity leave-

My parents and his were here.

We were all sitting around the living room

And my father-in-law was holding the baby as he sat

on the edge of the couch.

Suddenly, without warning or much logical reason

(food or toys to compete over)

the dogs got into a nasty fight.

Teeth bared, snarling, wrestling all over the place

in a dangerous fashion that could have resulted in bloodshed-

it didn’t, but it was loud and terrifying.

And the worst part was how ungodly close it started to the baby.

All the parents were looking at my husband.

With a heavy heart, he sent the dogs to another rescue two days later.

And now, here I am sorting out my thoughts again.

How do my two long stories about failed attempts at owning a dog

Tie back into my claim about “adopt, don’t shop” being a fallible concept?

Well, as I mentioned before,

I am one of the few in society who are caused more stress by a pet

Than the animal is capable of relieving.

We are far outnumbered by the ones who love dogs,

But I know I am not alone.

I have encountered others, mostly women,

Who agree- having an animal (dog, cat, whatever)

Is not appealing for where they are in life.

Some of them are married to a spouse who is begging for one,

And still, they know better than to cave.

And it is people like myself who,

If their family is going to decide that there be a dog,

need to know what they are getting into.

So here are my points that I’m going to challenge.

1)   You should invest in a shelter dog instead of a puppy that was bred recently to sell because someone needs to save the shelter dog

Well, guess what? Both dogs are alive. Doesn’t that mean the farm puppy’s life is also valid?  I mean, no, don’t go encouraging someone to make a new litter of puppies on your behalf. And don’t you do that either. Spay and neuter. But if the puppy is already here in the flesh and in a cage at a pet store or a kennel on a farm somewhere, his life needs “saving” too most likely. Or else he’s also doomed to wind up homeless/in a cage forever/put down.

2)    Who needs a pure bred dog?

So, there are some studies that prove some mutts can be heartier than a pure-bred puppy because some of the genetic “glitches” get bred out. But I’m trying to create a case for choosing (or not choosing) a dog based on personality. And when you mix a bunch of things to the point that you can’t really tell what’s what, you don’t know what you’re getting.

Fact: some breeds are pre-dispositioned to be more aggressive or stubborn. How can you tell if you have a partial “bully breed” or a partial breed that has something wild in it (dingo?) or even a partial small breed that is prone to destructive behavior (Boston Terrier, anyone?) if your dog looks like it could be 57 different things?

When you choose a certain breed, you get to research what that breed is known for- from chronic issues to behavior patterns based on what it was bred to do, like herd sheep or dig for rats. And you can even take quizzes to determine which of these breeds is right for you based on how spacious your home is and how many hours a day you can spend with the dog.

This means you can rule out buying a certain dog that is known for something you don’t want, and can focus on the ones that have traits you do want.

Of course, even pure breed dogs can have that one black sheep in the litter that is still prone to acting out. But it seems less likely that you will encounter that when you do your research and choose wisely.

3)    Aggression is learned

Also partially true, like in the case of pitbulls that are starved so they will fight or be mean to intruders on purpose. But sometimes, it just happens.

There’s a reason you can find lists out there on the internet of statistics where it’s usually the same type of dog that bites people. (the kicker is that Dalmatians are up near the top!) There are lists that tell you what breeds can get meaner as they get older, spaniels, schnauzers and dachsunds, coming up the most. This is because history always repeats itself. Some animals are just prone to behavior issues. This doesn’t mean every one of them will be that way, but it’s just more likely. Factor that into your reasoning.

4)    Go save an adult dog, don’t buy a puppy

I’m not knocking people who have the patience to do this, but I am going to tell you point blank that I am not the person for that job. We’ve done this now three times and failed. And guess what? One of the biggest problems we had was that our already-grown-up dog was already-set-in-its-ways. They were largely housebroken, but getting them to stop barking or chewing was seemingly impossible. It would have taken professional intervention. A puppy can still grow up to have issues, but at least at the tender age of 8 weeks it’s more malleable. A dog who only knew your home its whole life is only going to know the patterns and the learned behaviors of your home. There won’t be memories of two years running around in a huge back yard prior to moving into your small apartment. There won’t be emotional “scars” from someone beating it to cause it to exhibit all kinds of anger and fear once it reaches your household. It will just be a happy, roly-poly puppy with a waggly tail and a clean slate in its brain instead of a series of patterns it now has to record new ones over.

So to the members of society who advocate for the abandoned dogs, kudos.

You do a very good job at a very tough job, my friends.

You love animals so much that you will take

the sick and bad-tempered dogs into your home-

your personal space that is your sanctuary-

and work tirelessly with them until

they are rehabilitated.

You will throw caution to the wind.

You will pardon chewed shoes, mangled couches and piles of poop.

You will spare no expense for the many medical bills,

training classes and special accessories your pets need.

Most of all, you will have them there with you

come what may and you might even breakup

with a significant other or two who get in between

you and your pet.

If that’s you I just described, you are worthy of respect.

But let me also say that you and I are two opposite ends of a spectrum.

I don’t enjoy animal smells and mess in my home.

I don’t want something there that will disrupt the peace.

My home is my sanctuary and I don’t cope well

with my sanctuary being torn up.

That being said, my spouse grew up

with a Labrador retriever that has lovingly been dubbed “the angel dog”

because he was so well behaved

and of course my husband was devastated when he died.

He still wants a dog someday, but to keep this time.

So when we move to a house and it has a back yard,

I know he’s going to want to try this again.

We will do our research,  and we will choose a puppy of a specific breed

so it can be trained up from the early stages.

I’m still going to have my qualms about dog hair and accidents

but at least I’ll know what I’m getting.

I know this has been a long post, but allow me to address one more thing.

I said I “75% don’t believe in adopt don’t shop”.

The reason I’m not 100% all-in is because of a few things.

1)   I know a handful of shelter dogs turn out sweet, well-trained and calm.

We just don’t know which ones until they settle in to our homes.

2)   I know that a handful of pure-bred, trained puppies can turn out to have anxiety or aggression. Like I said, it happens.

3)   I know that now and again, a pure-bred puppy can turn up at the pound. They are there and gone in just a few days usually. If you are lucky enough to find one, you are lucky enough. Because you just saved about $1000.

And maybe I just had 3 unlucky draws from a deck of doggie wildcards.

Maybe when/if we ever try again,

Down the road,

When the baby is older and we have a back yard,

We will wind up with a surrendered pet after all

and it won’t be a nightmare.

But in the mean time, I stand by this.

For some of us,

it’s just better to know what you’re getting.