Don't Shop, Adopt

After working at one of my local animal shelters, I learned A LOT that I didn't know about pets that you find in pet shops. Many of the breeders that sell the puppies and kittens you find at pet shops come from puppy mills, etc. These are mass-breeders that constantly breed the animals together. They live in poor conditions and many die. Some are even sick. However, not all the animals are from such places, but a good amount, sadly, are. Many also are purebred. Certain purebreds tend to be more high-strung and have more problems in the future. If you buy from a breeder, make sure it's a local breeder, and that they take top-notch care in their animals. Most of these will NOT sell to a pet shop.

As this happens, millions of animals that were stray, surrendered, abused, and other countless situations sit in animal shelters. It saddened me when we would get so many cats in our shelter that we ran out of kennels and had to resort to large portable dog kennels for them. No one wanted that half-blind kitten with the freaky 6-toed feet, or that 8 year old de-clawed sweetheart that belonged to a grandmother off to a nursing home, or the batch of newborn pups that were dumped in a sealed cardboard box and left on the side of the road. Hundreds of perfectly healthy animals get euthanized because they've been in the shelter too long.

I have nothing against pet shops, I really don't. I don't, however, support the puppy mills that profit off of selling their animals there. I dunno, it's just my view on it. Yours might be different and that's fine. I just know I'll never buy a dog or cat from a pet store. I'll take the scared but friendly pit bull mix that got his left ear tore off by the neighbor's rottie.

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