The votes were cast – everyone in the family wants to have a dog. You want to have a hiking and jogging buddy. The wife wants a dog for a companion when you are at work and the kids are at school. The children are the most excited – now they will have a pet to play with and to care for. The next question is where to find a dog. Would you surf the Net, peruse the classified ads or go to the nearest pet store?

Just as with the ease of finding the items on a grocery list in a super mart, finding dogs would be easy as well if your first stop is a pet store. However, many dog owners would advise you to turn your back away from pet shops. These puppies are usually very expensive. The cute and adorable dog in the show window would certainly catch your attention but these puppies are usually produced by puppy mills. It simply means that the focus of the breeding program is to gain maximum profit and not to maintain the good qualities of the breed. Dogs are bred without much thought on the compatibility of the sire and the dam and to the potential genetic concerns the resulting litter would have. However this does not mean that dogs obtained from pet shops come from the same basket of lemons. Some dogs have turned out to be healthy and wonderful pets.

Dog lovers seem to gravitate towards each other. Notice how a dog in the park will be immediately surrounded by adoring fans. Dogs can be obtained from friends and neighbors. If you have a friends whose dog have had an accidental pregnancy, the friend would be just too gland to have one less puppy to raise or to find a possible home. As you get to talk with the owner of the dog, you will have an insight not only on the health but also on the temperament of the potential pet. It would be nice to get a puppy but getting an adult dog does have some advantages too. A friend that has to relocate can leave the pet to you. You won’t need to look for a dog and the need to housetrain will be eliminated as well.

The Animal Control, Humane Society, rescue and animals shelters are excellent sources of dogs. These places usually run ads featuring dogs for adoption. A lot of prospective pet owners baulk at the thought finding dogs from these places. It is a common notion that dogs were abandoned and end up in shelters because they have a health or personality problems. Although this is true with some of the dogs, a lot of animal rescue denizens wind up in shelters not because of their own faults. Relocation of the family, divorce or an illness in the family are some of the reasons why the dog ends up in shelters. The dog may have a personality problem or have developed unwanted habits but these concerns can be easily fixed by a patient and caring owner. Purebred dogs don’t come cheap but breed rescue groups that care for purebred dogs would allow you to adopt a dog for a small fee that will pay for the medical care the dog received while at the shelter. The most important consideration in getting a dog from these places is the fact that you have been instrumental in giving one homeless dog the chance of living in a normal home and to have a loving and caring family. Getting a dog from a shelter means saving one dog from a tragic end a lot of homeless dogs would have because no one have wanted to care for them.