Rescue dogs vs buying a puppy: Which would you choose?
A heated conversation this past weekend has got Damon, the dog-lover, thinking. Given a choice, would you choose to rescue or to buy a dog?
Picture it - you’ve decided to get a dog and there’s great excitement. You’re heading to the pet shop in the morning, and before long you’ll have a new little puppy running around the garden.
Then someone asks you why you’re not getting a dog from a rescue centre instead, and you suddenly have all these questions and what if's.
This is what happened to a friend of mine this weekend. He and his wife were about to go to the pet shop. Suddenly, around a braai this past Saturday afternoon, they found themselves being asked why they weren’t getting their new puppy from a rescue centre.
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For some people though, it’s easy - getting a dog means contacting a shelter, end of story. The option of buying a dog from a pet shop doesn’t even cross their mind.
While a pet shop’s objective is to obviously make money, an animal shelter’s goal is to save lives and prevent suffering. Shelters take in unwanted, stray, or abandoned animals, and provide them with vet care, food, water, and shelter - and in the end hopefully find them loving homes.
Animal shelters also carefully screen potential adopters where most pet shops and breeders don’t. However, it must be noted that I use that term loosely. Many pet shops and breeders do, but some don’t.
I have two dogs that I took in from a rescue centre. I remember walking in, seeing their little eyes, and my heart just melted.
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While pet shops get new ‘stock’ regularly, rescue centres have to deal with an influx of animals on a daily basis – with many people dropping them off as they simply can’t take care of them.
I got in contact with Gianna Scoulelis, a local who runs an animal shelter, to get her views on this debate.
Almost any type of animal you’re looking can found at animal shelters, just waiting to be adopted, so why do people choose to go to a pet shop instead?
Where did you get your pet from, and why did you decide on the pet shop or animal shelter option?