Visit your local pet shelter and find out for yourself about all the wonderful mixed breeds and purebreds just waiting for a home and someone to love.
October is Adopt a Shelter Dog month. It's a time set aside to raise public awareness on pet overpopulation, the need for homes, and how wonderful shelter dogs are. Shelters everywhere are overflowing and many perfectly healthy, loving dogs must be euthanized simply because there's nowhere for them to go. The idea that most shelter dogs are there due to behavior problems is false. Many owners fail to spay or neuter and simply end up with too many. Or the owner has to move and can't take the dog. Or an owner dies or goes into a nursing home. There's no end to the reasons why dogs are relinquished to the shelter but most of them make loving and loyal pets. I know because I work with them all the time and have personally adopted a number of them myself. Some shelter dogs go into service work as drug dogs, hearing ear dogs, therapy dogs, or even movie actors like Benji. The idea that shelter dogs are all mutts is false. The shelter where I work has seen many purebreds come through its doors. Offhand I can quickly recall Dalmations, Dachshunds, Pekingnese, Shelties, Pugs, Chihuahuas, Labs, Siberian Huskies, Beagles, Schnauzers, German Shepherds, and even a Bull Terrier, among others. The next time you long for the pitter patter of furry feet, go to a shelter and look for just the right dog. If you don't fall in love the first time, check back every week . Shelters get new dogs all the time. And when you are smitten by those big brown eyes and make the big adoption committment, you can know that you are saving a life. Every dog adopted from a shelter leaves room for one more that would have otherwise been put down.
