by: Jon Dunkerley
Ok so you have made the big decision to purchase a dog. Whether the decision was yours alone, or that of your kid’s, you being the voice of reason must determine the appropriate breed of dog that will be part of your family for the years to follow. Think of it as a trip to the grocery store. You have your absolute necessities, your health food, and your junk food.
Necessities
So you are at your wits end! Your kids are driving you crazy, “we wanna dog, we wanna dog, we wanna dog!” You dream of puppies in your sleep, your kids demand animal crackers in their school lunches; they draw pictures of puppies and stick them to the refrigerator door. Just last night, you thought you heard your wife bark in her sleep You decide that living in this state of craziness is no longer acceptable! Your options are; get the hell out, invite your family to lobotomy class, or submit.
Junk Food
So you walk into the grocery store and immediately see this huge box of chocolate chip cookies. You know in your heart that you shouldn’t buy the damn box, but no matter how hard you try, your mind will not waver from imagining big fat chunks of chocolate mixed with icing sugar as it dribbles down your chin and stains your nice new shirt!
We can and will use this same analogy when discussing the new addition to the family:
Every year, thousands of dogs are purchased, adopted, or taken in by individuals acting on pure impulse. These people just want a dog, its cool to have a dog, oh wait till the girls see me now, nobody’s gonna mess with me now…
These people have no time to think about the implications to owning a pet nevermind which specific breed would best suit their living situation. They do not fathom the living cycle:
Mrs. Johnson walks into a pet store with her 5-year-old daughter. By the way, Mrs. Johnson is a single mother living in a 2 bedroom dump up town, and holds two jobs just to make ends meat. Upon entering the store, Jenny, Mrs. Johnson’s daughter sees a little Husky pup and remarks emphatically that she wants this dog! Wanting to please her daughter, Mrs. Johnson works out a payment plan with the store, and the mother and child exit the store with the pup. Do you remember the big chocolate chips with icing sugar…
So the pup is now at home and growing rapidly! The child is in school all day, the mother is at one of her two jobs leaving the pup alone. All of us know what happens when young pups are left unavaded to their own device? Now the icing sugar is really beginning to drip…
Three months have passed and the mother is at her wits end! The daughter is no longer interested in the pup, the mother would rather mop the floor with it than take care of it leading to the pup being dumped at the nearest animal shelter! Stain…
The lesson here is simple. When planning on adding a dog to the family, research the different breeds that exist, to try to best suit the breed characteristics of the dog to your own living arrangements.
Health Food
The health food isle of one’s grocery store should be frequented quite often throughout one’s weekly visit to the supermarket. Being knowledgeable on what you put into your body can make a world of difference in ones productivity, emotional state, and overall well being.
When selecting a breed of dog to add to the family, refrain from giving in and choosing the cutest pup you can find, do your research, and be fair to the dog! Let’s practice empathy for a minute:
You have just graduated from College and are looking for work. While you are looking for employment, you rent this 375 Sq. bachelor pad above Maria’s Pizzeria. The place is a dive and you know it! You are afraid to tell your parents where you are living, you refuse to invite your friends over, half of your stuff is in storage due to lack of space! Now imagine yourself as a rapidly growing Husky pup. You want to see the world, wanna run, be free, chase rabbits, chase a ball, dig in snow… Instead you are confined to a small living space, ly in a corner, overheat in the heated apartment, are subject to abuse from your owners when it is their falt for not watching you when you mess up, unable to fulfill your own instincts!
I hope by this stage of the game, you are grasping the point that I am trying to make. There are thousands of dogs on the streets today due to lack of research, commitment, love, and basic understanding. These dogs did not ask for the life that they have, it was placed on them by stupid humans who think of nothing else but how to improve their own self image.
The situation is however improving. Now, good breeders will not just sell pups to anyone. They require a wealth of information relating to living conditions before parting with a puppy. I can only hope that more people will follow suit and start paying attention to where their dogs go, and who they go with.