By Arianna Bowles
This past September, my family began looking for a new dog. For the first time in our career as dog-owners, we decided to go down the adoption route instead of buying a puppy from a pet shop.
One of the most difficult tasks my family came across in our search was finding a dog that stayed in the shelter long enough. We would browse websites and come across a possible candidate, only to find out that they’d been adopted before we could make it to the shelter. Simply finding the right animal can take a while, because a shelter may not always have exactly what you’re looking for. It was a while before I came across “Mike” — a hound mix residing at the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, New Jersey.
My family visited the shelter the next day, and the minute I met “Mike”, I was in love. The shelter had us go into a playroom and asked us questions while they observed how we interacted with the dog, and about ten minutes later we were filling out paperwork. The adoption process can vary from shelter to shelter, but it typically isn’t too much work to adopt a new furry friend; it probably takes the same amount of time to go through the process at a typical pet store. It didn’t take long for us to finalize everything and take “Mike” home. During the car ride, we decided to rename him Jack, and our crazy adventure began.
Adopting a pet isn’t always easy; you never truly know the animal’s full story. In all honestly, Jack was a complete nightmare when we first brought him home. He constantly wanted to nibble at everything and attacked food whenever he got the chance. Our best guess is that he was abandoned at some point when he was a baby–most likely a hunting dog that wandered off from his training pack in the woods. It took a while for him to finally calm down and realize that he was in a stable home. He’s a little angel now, but getting through that period of bad behavior was pretty stressful. Adoption is a big responsibility, and you need to be willing to deal with any unusual behavior, as well as teach your animal how to deal with its new environment.
If your family is committed to bringing a new animal into the home and you all have time to take care of it, adoption is definitely the way to go. Right now, it is estimated that there are six to eight million dogs in cats residing in animal shelters, just waiting to be taken into a loving home. Even though adopting a pet can be a lot of work, it’s beyond worth it in the long run. It’s been six months since we adopted Jack, and he’s already become such an integral part of our family. The best part is when we’re all sitting down to watch television at night, and Jack is snuggled right up next to someone, so incredibly happy to finally have a family of his own.
The Delsonian 