Bringing a new pet, like a puppy or dog, into your life necessitates careful thought regarding where to buy a puppy or dog. Beyond personal lifestyle, you must weigh the ethical implications of different sources for buying a puppy or adopting a dog. This article reviews responsible options to find your perfect canine companion.
Choosing the Right Pet
Adding a dog, puppy or pet to your family equals a 10–15-year responsibility demanding research beforehand when buying a puppy or dog. Realistically assess if you can provide dedication, time, space and resources a pet requires before buying dogs or puppies. No living being should be disposed of lightly when needs change after buying a puppy. Once confident in your ability to uphold responsible pet ownership, narrow preferred breeds and traits suiting your environment when deciding where to buy puppies.
Adopting Dogs from Shelters & Rescues
Rather than supporting unethical breeding, adopt dogs or puppies needing homes from shelters, SPCAs and breed-specific rescues! Most thoroughly vet health and temperaments before matching pets to lifestyles. An added benefit is that adopting adult dogs avoids destructive puppy stages while still gaining loyalty.
But do research any rescue or shelter for buying dogs before adopting – while most prioritize animal welfare, some bad actors exist, too. Ensure they spay/neuter, provide medical history, charge reasonable fees, offer post-adoption support, and care foremost about successful matches when adopting dogs or puppies.
Where to Adopt a Pet
Here are two reputable organizations in Canada to adopt from:
BC SPCA
The BC SPCA is British Columbia’s largest animal welfare charity, with 35 adoption centers across the province. They care for over 118,000 abused, neglected and homeless animals per year. The BC SPCA adoption centers offer a wide variety of dogs, cats and other domestic animals.
Their website allows browsing adoptable pets and has an alert system for new arrivals matching your preferences. They also thoroughly vet animal health and behaviour prior to adoption. Adoption fees help cover initial vet costs like spaying/neutering and vaccines.
Learn more at spca.bc.ca
Petfinder
Petfinder is North America’s largest database of available pets for adoption. It hosts over 300,000 adoptable animal listings at any time across 13,000+ animal shelters and rescue groups.
The site allows custom searches by location, breed, age, size and other attributes. Users can save favourite listings and set email alerts for new pets added, matching their criteria. Petfinder also provides adoption tips and inspiring stories of rescued animals finding loving new homes.
Over 25 million shelter pets have been adopted via Petfinder to date thanks to this invaluable tool connecting people and adoptable animals locally and across Canada.
More at petfinder.com
Finding an Ethical Breeder
For a specific purebred puppy, seek responsible small-scale breeders prioritizing canine health over profits. Good ethical breeders screen for hereditary diseases, match pups to owners, provide multi-generational health info, allow parent visits pre-buying a puppy, start training/socialization early, and offer lifetime buyer support.
Visiting well-reviewed breeders directly allows for assessing the puppy’s upbringing and breeding operation before buying a puppy or dog. Ask many questions without sales pressure when buying dogs.
Pet Stores and Other Places to Avoid
Never impulse buy from pet stores selling dogs or puppies, backyard breeders, online ads or flea markets. Pet stores support heartbreaking mass commercial breeding mills churning out distressed animals. Purchasing motivates these cruel puppy mills and pet stores to keep producing more. Additionally, pet store employees rarely know bought puppies’ lineage, health or ideal owners.
Backyard breeders buying dogs and puppies also lack oversight into hereditary issues, regularly selling unstable animals. Furthermore, “designer” trend mixes exhibit unpredictable size, health and temperaments without standardized breeding.
10 Reasons Not to Buy a Pet Shop Puppy
Beyond explaining where to ethically get a dog, it’s important to understand why certain sources like pet stores for buying a puppy should be avoided. Here are 10 reasons experts recommend against buying a puppy or dog from pet stores selling puppies:
- Health Concerns – Lack of genetic/congenital disease screening means later veterinary issues.
- Kennel Club Papers Myth – Documents provide no health or quality guarantees when buying a puppy or dog.
- Pet Shop Guarantees – Misleading guarantees often expire quickly or require relinquishing your puppy back to its inhumane fate for a replacement.
- Adult Appearance Uncertainty – With no ability to evaluate parents, the eventual size, shedding level, energy level remains unknown.
- Breed Knowledge – Pet shop employees rarely provide detailed breed traits or help match puppies to ideal households.
- Training & Housebreaking – Vital early socialization completely absent leads to preventable behavioral issues.
- Socialization – Nervousness, fear, or human aversion results from a lack of healthy early conditioning.
- Value of Pedigree – Lineage paperwork alone useless without parents’ health context from a dedicated breeder.
- Supporting Puppy Mills – Where almost all pet store puppies originate from, continuing the profitable cycle of cruelty.
- Post-Purchase Support – Pet shops offer no support or guidance after a sale, unlike ethical breeders that offer lifetime advice.
Choosing where to buy a puppy or dog constitutes an ethical decision as well as a practical one. Support adoption over retail pet stores selling dogs. Embrace responsible pet ownership’s long commitment. Conduct ample breed research before buying dogs and adding a puppy or dog to your family. Consult reviews, veterinarians, specific breed organizations and shelters while avoiding impulse puppy purchases based on appearance alone.
With compassion driving your choices, you soon will be rewarded with a perfectly suited canine companion. I hope this overview on adopting dogs or buying puppies responsibly assists consumers and contributes to ending the cruel puppy mill and pet store industry luring with cute faces while inflicting immense distress and suffering.