How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?

Earlier last year my husband and I adopted a dog from the animal shelter. Our hearts set on a cocker spaniel, Gregory logged on to petfinder.com and behold a cocker resided in our area. We drove over to the animal shelter to meet “Brownie”. The shelter was full of dogs 3 and 4 to a cage. It smelled and the short staff made it difficult to for dogs to get adequate exercise; the cage served as their eating, sleeping, and pooping facilities [so it smelled]. Initially the pet counselor told us that “Brownie” was not on the list. We walked around the shelter just to check the other dogs out when out from around the corner walks the pet counselor with “Brownie”. The stay or his past life had definitely taken a toll on him. He fought each step as the counselor pulled him in our direction. We looked at each other with a worried glare. So we sat with the dog for a while; despondent with fleas crawling through his fur, brownie sat in the cage with us. The counselor kept insisting that “Brownie” would make an excellent addition to our family; his assistant assured us that if “Brownie” didn’t work out, we could return him in exchange for a voucher for a new dog. For some reason, we decided to try him out. We filled out the paperwork and set an appointment to pick him up after his surgery.

A few days later, we arrived to pick up our new family member. We changed his name to Canon; not only did we not like the name Brownie, but he didn’t respond to it and we read that it’s pretty easy to teach a dog to answer to a new name. They could not tell us whether or not Canon was house trained, but turns out he is! To make a long story short, Canon has transformed into the perfect family member. Had we let his first impression skew our decision we would have missed out on a great experience. Canon loves people, but he loves us the most! He is not destructive, plays well with other animals [even cats], and is a fast learner. If you are looking to purchase a new pet, skip the pet store. Head over to the local animal shelter and your new family member maybe locked up in doggie jail like our Canon was. When you walk into the shelter you may be scared or even grossed out, but persevere!

The fees differ but pet adoption usually cost $100 or less up front.