I have 2 Brittanies. Medium sized, goofy, big ol’ hunks of puppy love. Technically they are hunting dogs; they work one month of the year and spend the other eleven laying around the house and sucking up. Incredible sense of smell Rumored to be intelligent but I’m not convinced. Great companions. Very sweet. Loves cookies.
**Oops - Dolores, not Doloris. Sorry about that. **
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S’ok, it’s not my real name anyway.
You haven’t yet explained why an adult dog from rescue is necessarily better than one. The dogs come from the same sources. So why is a rescue dog better?
Unless you are pre-supposing that a pure-bred is better than a mix.
I wonder why you are generalizing your bad impression of that shelter to all shelters. There are many good shelters, too. I have experience with two shelters–one is a local humane society with a frayed shoe-string budget and a lot of unpleasant and aggressive pit-bull mixes in their kennels. They also have a lot of sweet and wonderful dogs there. They work with the animals and train them, and have volunteers to give the dogs extra socialization and exercise. They make a concerted effort to make good matches between dogs and people. I got my dog there, and I volunteer there. As I said, dogs come in for all sorts of reasons–not necessarily behavioral problems. Dogs’ owners die and the dogs have to be given up. Dogs’ owners fall on hard times and have to move to small apartments with no dogs allowed. Some people choose the wrong puppy for them and can’t (or won’t) handle the dog that he turns into. (I suspect this is what have happened with my dog. He is a pointer/Dalmatian mix, so he is super-energetic and gets bored easily. He is great for us, but might have driven a less athletic or attentive owner nuts!)
The other shelter I know well is the North Shore Animal League. I was privileged to grow up around the corner from this wonderful place. I guess you are not familiar with it. I will let it speak for itself. http://www.nsal.org.
BTW, my friends’ dog exhibited the violent behavior before she was adopted by them. In other words, she was released to them with this violent past. They knew they were getting a “problem” dog, but they were equipped to handle this and willing to work with her. She has been living with my friends for 4 months now and is doing great.
Well, the smallest breed of dog is the Jack Russel (chihuahuas and toy poodles are NOT real dogs), and they absolutely adore humans-- If there’s a lap, they’re sitting in it to be petted. Unfortunately, they adore all humans, so they’re no defense against a burgalar, but they’re incredibly brave, and will easily fight off any horses, cougars, smilodons or tyranosaurs who try to attack. I’ll also put in a ringing endorsement for mutts, but it’s hard to tell how big they’ll get. Pure breeding doesn’t make for better dogs; it just makes for consistent dogs.
Green Bean the problem here is that we are talking apples and oranges. You are talking about a Humane Society (no kill) and I am talking about the local county animal shelter (kill). Folks who brought their dogs into us knew that those animals would be destroyed in roughly two weeks time. They came in with the attitude of “get this f***ing thing out of my house”. We had dogs that bit, were aggressive, weren’t house broken, chewed, etc. As I’ve said before it’s not the dogs fault, the owners were generally irresponsible idiots, but having trained dogs, I will tell you it is extremely difficult to retrain an adult dog without a lot of time and effort.
People who cared, like those that were moving, or had the pet of an owner that died, usually look to alternatives to kill shelters. Thus they go to Humane Societies or breed rescues. It’s not too difficult to contend that those are better cared for, better trained, and better behaved, therefore BETTER dogs. In fact we did everything possible to save the rare good dogs that came to us including turning to these organizations.
I mentioned breed organizations because Revtim specifically asked for a BREED of dog that that fit the criteria. I was just sharing the information that they exist.
corvus our shelter NEVER gave out that info. In fact, it was hard for the employees to get a decent background on the dogs. It may have changed since then, but we wouldn’t even tell people over the phone if their pet had been picked up. I have no idea why this was, but it was just policy.
I heartily agree with Chronos
I want to know the size and general temperament of the dog with which I am going to share the next 15 years.
Beagles get my vote. Mine is small sized, and she loves to be petted and touched. They are very curious, and they are also quite smart. Go for it!
I’d throw my vote in for the Pug as well. I have one and he’s just the greatest dog ever (the black ones are the best, but rare). Doesn’t do any tricks, though. Boston Terriers and French Bulldogs are also nifty little critters.
We got him through a rescue group and I would recommend that route, but we also did a dutiful amount of shelter hopping. That can be a depressing experience, as there are so many wonderful animals who don’t deserve the fate they’ve been handed. If you can take a dog from a shelter, you’re probably saving its life.
On the other hand, rescue groups also get dogs from shelters. They just happen to focus on particular breeds. Our rescue group specialized in pugs, but they also rescued pug mixes of all kinds. We got our second dog through a different rescue that simply rescued young dogs and unwanted puppy litters. That is another way to go.
Thanks for all your input, everybody.