Home To The Unknown

As trainers, we sometimes prefer pure breeds, we know how they are, how they react, their flaws, their weaknesses, their merits, what they're good at, what they're not,etc... practically everything about breed have been studied, researched, observed, etc...For more extensive study, we even draw up the family tree of a pup, "is it coming from a champion line?",  "How's the temperament of the parents?" and so on. I myself started out with a beagle, because it suited my lifestyle, the body size, its appetite, what to expect in training, how would it behave, the list goes on. All these anticipation, all these expectations, are naturally available when we go for a pure breed, preferably coming from a breeder, when it is still a pup.

Let's flip to the other side of the coin: Yearly, we have millions of dogs that end up in shelters/dog pounds. Some had homes before and they either ran away or got abandoned, some never even made it to a home and was directly sent to the shelter from pet stores. Sad story but it happens more than you can imagine (hence, going back to key message, never get from pet stores or dog mills, only buy from responsible dog breeders).

Now, you're trying to get a new dog, you've never had one before and this is your first round. You have a kind heart, where you feel that pure breeds will mostly get a good home, might as well go to a shelter to adopt a dog there. It's noble and admirable, but do you know what you're getting yourself into? Of course I'm not suggesting that adopting a dog from shelters is a bad idea, it is a great idea! If you're not into showing dogs or dedicating yourself to contribute in the breeding business, getting a pure breed and adopting from shelter has not much differences when it comes to "getting a dog into your life". There are just a few points where you need to be careful. (Please note that my points covers for both pure breeds and mongrels)

Parenthood
As the dogs mostly are abandoned, 99.9% of the time you will not know the history of the dog, how the parents are, how are their temperament, what had the pup gone through with the parents, are there any complications during birth or "puppyhood", was the pup aggressive, dominating or dominated among its peers........? All kinds of questions that would lead to how the pup behaves naturally, all remain unanswered due to the lack of history. To me, that would be the biggest flaw. Things get complicated when its not a pure breed, mixture of different breeds would cause mixture of attitudes, attributes, characteristics, markings, chances of disease and sickness, strengths, weaknesses and so much more. It might not all be bad, but it might not all be good. True story, my family adopted a pup that was mixed with German Shepherd (M) and Rottweiler (F). What was produced was a tall, strong sized rottweiler, with a longer muzzle and more importantly, weak hips (contributions of the German Shepherd gene). The mix could make so many possibilities, but sadly it is hard to predict what type of dog will be produced, for better or worse. Sadly, more often than not, mongrels usually turn up in the shelters more than pure breeds, at least that's the case for Malaysia, which makes the mixture effect worse as we might be looking at 10 or 20 generations worth of combinations and we don't see any characteristics of their original ancestors, other than that yellow fur-ed body.

Characteristics
Other than parenthood-contributing-characteristics, being in a shelter, you never know what had happened to the pup. Can you imagine yourself being abandoned by someone that meant everything to you, caged in, no freedom and cramped with other scared humans? The same goes for dogs as well. The trauma on the dogs psychology is hard to predict, just like humans, some are stronger than others. A royal blood might not be as strong mentally as a normal human being, same goes for pure breeds and mongrels. Bottom line, we just never know what kind of a dog we are taking just by observing it for a few hours.

Age
In a shelter, there dogs that are not a year older and there might be closer to death than you think, although sometimes you can see the certain indicators on age on some dogs, there are some that you can't see them obviously. The dog that you bring home might be a seven year old when you think or the shelter thought it was only two.

With all these points to consider, branches out to more questions, such as training method, food input, allergy concerns etc... things that you may need special or unique attention. Although getting a pure breed dog from a highly reputable breeder might not decrease the same complications to zero and all the above might still happen, but it might clear some doubts on how to tackle the problems with the clear history, for example, mom is allergic to chicken, pup might be allergic to chicken too.

However, after all said is done, these are the rewards for adopting:

Appreciation
As I've mentioned, a dog might be traumatized after it's brief stay in the pound,  if a good person is willing to adopt it to his/her home, the dog might show high appreciation to the owner, being extra loyal. I personally know a Japanese lady, who adopted an electric-collar-over-abused black German Shepherd. At first it was totally scared of humans, not able to comfortably interact with strangers, and even had doubts with the owner herself. But a year later when I met them, he was just like any other healthy dog. If the owner has the determination to train and expose the dog to a better life, it might appreciate its twist of fate from worse to better and live a better life than dogs that don't know about hardship. This might also help with training as well.

Doing Society and Humanity A Favor
Sadly, we have enough assholes in the world to cause a long chain of supply of abandoned dogs, by adopting, we are helping to get these poor souls to homes so that they can lead a normal life. No one or nothing deserves to be abandoned, especially after it has given all it's heart and soul to the person. It's just not right. But sadly it happens, and luckily some of the greater ones in the human race, does recognize that adopting is more suitable than purchasing. For that, I guess, there's still hope for humanity.

To make it perfectly clear, what I stated above are not pros and cons, but points to consider if you're planning on adopting a dog. Cause the last thing we want is to have an adopter abandoning an adopted dog, because what he/she got was not what he/she wanted. To me, it doesn't matter if a dog is bought from a breeder or adopted from a shelter, if you're willing to spend time with it, give it your love or train it, regardless of where the dog came from, it will be a happy dog. 

So till next time, Woof!