How to save puppies

Dogs are constantly being put to sleep while people hit the pet stores for the cute and usually sickly pure bred puppies in the window. Are you part of the problem or the solution?

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• A big heart
• Lots of love and patience
• The drive to help dogs

1. Accept it, mutts are awesome!
   Mutts are more loving, just as smart and, in my unbelievably biased opinion, usually cuter than purebreds. Too often, imbreeding and puppy mills and all sorts of other things result in purebreds frequently encountering health and behavioral problems. In any type of animal, recessive genes only come out when there is no dominant gene to defeat it. Some recessive genes aren't bad, things like red hair and blue eyes certainly aren't problems, but other ones are. Sickle cell anemia is a recessive gene that only affects people who are products of two carriers. With dogs, it's the same thing. The hip dysplsia frequently found in German Shepards could be easily avoided by regularly breeding them with other dogs.
   There's a common myth with mutts that they are ugly and stupid. This, just like the myths that all pit bulls are baby killers, is just plain silly. I think it's a damn shame that people sound shocked when I tell them my dog's a mutt. Is it that hard to believe that a sweet, well behaved and adorable animal doesn't cost thousands to breed?
2. Me and my pound-adopted pup Go to the local shelter to adopt.
   No matter what kind of dog you like, you should always go to the local shelters to adopt one. 30-40% of shelter animals are purebred dogs, many of them even cute little pups. These dogs are just looking for families to go home with and many of them will be put to sleep if no one comes to save them within 30 days. How would you feel knowing your fate depended on someone falling in love with you within the next 30 days? Not only that, but you couldn't go looking for them, you had to hang out in a cage until they happen to show up? It's not a very comforting scenario.
3. If you insist on getting a pure bred, get one from a good breeder.
   It's one thing to go out and seek two very well bred dogs that are not related and have no health problems, but tons of people just head down to their local pet store and pick up the cutest puppy in the window. Most pet shops get their papered pups from "puppy mills," aka, they have a handful of unloved mother dogs there solely to breed over and over. It's extremely hard on any female animal to breed non-stop, and these dogs don't even get love and affection in the meantime. On top of all that, once they can't breed any more, hasta la vista doggy. These mills are also filled with parasites and disease. I can't even tell you how many kids I know adopted a dog from a pet store only to have it die within the first 2 months because of some horrible disease it had before it even got to the pet store.
4. For the sake of all pets, please spay or neuter your pet.
   The last thing the world needs is more animals in the shelters. Also, spaying can make dogs less prone to cancer and neutering can drastically reduce the chance your dog will become roadkill. Did you know 70a% of all dogs hit by cars are unneutered males? Now that's saying something!