Everyone's gotta love a mutt

I have adopted 5 dogs in my lifetime so far, not much considering I'm not of legal drinking age yet. I have volunteered in the animal shelter for the past two years. What I cannot understand is picky people and families that absolutely MUST have a purebred dog to live in their impeccable household where puppy pee pads are their choice of carpet. I love my mutt dogs more than I can possibly imagine and I have grown such attachments to the ones at the shelter that I can't bring home yet. And it is heartbreaking to see five new dogs come in to the shelter and know in the back of my head that in a month's time they will be put to sleep not because of health issues (although sometimes that is the case), but because of stuck-up people who refuse to buy a dog that is not purebred. Pet stores are constantly packed with people who think that getting a dog at an animal shelter is not the way to pick the perfect family dog. Sure, they may feel a hint of sadness as they think about those poor dogs freezing in their cramped cages, but do they actually do anything about it? No. They assume like everyone else does that these dogs will eventually find a home by someone else, but for God's sake, not themselves. And that is STUPID to think so.

In an essay titled "Behavior Analysis of Companion- Animal Overpopulation: A Conceptualization of the Problem and Suggestions for Intervention" by Angela K. Fournier and E. Scott Geller, it states, "the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) estimates that eight to ten million companion animals (i.e., cats and dogs) are relinquished to shelters each year and of those, four to five million are euthanized (HSUS, 2002). In fact, euthanisia is the number-one killer of all companion animals (Sturla, 1993). In addition to being placed in overcrowded shelters and euthanized, many animals stray or roam free, becoming nuisances and causing illness and injury in the community (Allen & Westbrook, 1979)."

The animal shelters that put these dogs and cats to sleep are not to blame. They are just doing the only thing they can do. The government does not provide enough money for the well-being of companion animals and thus, the shelters are not able to build better and bigger homes for these animals. Through my experiences, dogs and cats that are only three years of age or older are typically the ones that never get adopted and end up living the last few months of their life in a cold cage. That is not the dogs' faults! Growing old is a natural thing and they should not be punished. Just because these dogs cannot run as fast or play as long does not mean that their hearts and feelings are fading out too. They still desire a warm bed to sleep on and a family to make them feel wanted.

Breeders are the problem here. The only thing they are interested in is money. Breeding and selling purebred dogs is not an appropriate career because they are bringing more and more puppies into this world where MILLIONS are already suffering because a puppy is that much more desirable to a family. And yes, purebred dogs are easier to train and may behave better, but to me that just seems as if people are too lazy to actually take the time to train their mutt. It will take a long time, but in the long run, it is so worth it.

All I'm saying here is that more people should consider using the animal shelter as a way to pick out their new dog. Those dogs are not as dirty as one might think. So I'm asking every person that looks into those eyes of the slightly overweight pit bull to stop assuming that someone else will adopt him/her. Now is the time to act and to be the person who saves that dog's life. You cannot wait for someone else to do it for you. Because that person may not exist. It has to be YOU.