Mar 10 2008
Great Reasons to Adopt an Adult Dog
When I was working at shelters, one of the things I noticed is that most of the people coming in to adopt a dog were interested in puppies. While I have to agree that puppies are cute, spending time with the adult dogs made me come to appreciate their special qualities. Now I’m going to share them with you in the hopes you might consider adopting an adult rather than a puppy.
Some of the best reasons to adopt an adult dog include:
- Adult dogs are easier to housebreak. Adopting an adult dog means you have a good chance of bringing home a dog who is already housebroken. If not, it is usually easier to train an adult to go outside because their bladder is mature enough to hold it for more than a few hours at a time. With a little direction and lots of praise, your adult dog will have this one down in no time.
- Adult dogs have outgrown the super-hyper puppy stage. I’m not going to go so far as to say that all adult dogs are calm, but usually a dog who is at least two years old has outgrown the crazy puppy and adolescent stages. While they still need plenty of exercise, this maturity often makes it easier to train them and makes them more pleasant companions.
- What you see is what you get. It’s easy to fall in love with a puppy for its cute looks and silly antics, but it’s not as easy to get a read on a puppy’s personality. With an adult dog, what you see is what you get. Shelters often take complete histories when they take in a dog. Looking for someone who’ll enjoy a trip to the beach? Hoping to find a real couch potato? By spending some time with an adult dog and reading his history, it’s more likely you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for in a canine companion.
- You may be saving a life. Sadly, right now there are far more animals in shelters than there are homes. As most people come into shelters looking for a puppy, this often means that adult dogs stay in the shelter longer. For a shelter with a heavy influx of dogs, this often means they need to euthanize some dogs to make rooms for others. By adopting an adult dog, there’s a very good chance you’ll be saving a life!
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I completely agree. Adult dogs have so much to offer. Most are so full of love and, yes, appreciation, at another chance for a good life and in some cases, for life at all. Often they find themselves in shelters due to no fault of their own. If a family or person has a bad set of circumstances come along, the first to go is the dog. The dog that thought he was a real member of the family. The dog who, more than likely, would have given his life for the very ones that turned him away when the going got rough. I just breaks my heart.
Thanks for your comments. It’s true. I think a few people have some genuinely difficult circumstances which leave them with no choice but to give up their beloved pet such as aggression toward a child or an unforseeable change in living situations. For the most part, though, most of the adult dogs I saw in shelters simply lacked some basic training. It broke my heart to see these wonderful animals passed over for adoption time and again simply because they weren’t puppies.
I finally got to your back posts to read about adopting older dogs. I’m a big fan of older dogs. They can be so loving.
Thanks for your comments, Xialan. I’m (obviously!) a big fan of older dogs, too. I like that what you see from an older dog is what you get. They’re often easier to train than puppies. I just don’t see a down side, other than you may get a few less years with them.