Getting yourself a dog should never be a hasty decision. It requires from you a lot of things to consider, and that includes your main purpose of getting yourself a dog, your familys willingness and the time you can allot for petting your dog. Statistics in the US show an overwhelming number of dogs who have been prematurely euthanized because of the owners inability to take care of their dogs; and definitely, this number should be diminished. Millions of dogs suffer from their masters incompetence in caring for them so the first question to ask yourself before embarking on this huge responsibility is, what is my purpose of having a dog?
Many people would say that they want to get a dog for their children, so that their children can have something to pet and play with. If this is the case, the dog would not definitely be for your children. At the end of the day, it would be you who would take care of the dog because most children would not give into taking care of the dog like bathing, grooming and feeding them every day. The interests of children change as they grow up and eventually, they may neglect taking care of the dog when they grow, leaving the responsibility to no one but you. If you think you arent ready in catching this responsibility, it would be something to ponder on before getting yourself a dog.
Others would also say they want to have a dog so that they can have additional safety and protection. While many people have this innate belief that dogs can protect them and secure them from future harms, this may not be the case. It takes expertise and adequate training for both the master and the dog, before one can confidently say that dogs can protect you and keep you safe. So if you feel like getting yourself a protective type of dog would keep you secure, it would be better to invest on more effective means of security such as alarms, and the like.
Because of several misconceptions about getting a dog for a pet, a number of dogs have been abandoned which ultimately caused their death. This stresses the importance of decision making because once a dog was bought by a master with false purposes or hastily made decisions, the life of a dog may go astray in the long run.
