If the title of this recent article posted on CBC News by Matthew Kupfer made you shudder — you’re not alone! How sad that someone would gift a puppy. How careless. Humans need to do better. In case you missed this article, Kupfer highlighted two times of the year when local humane societies see a spike in animal returns (especially in dogs.) The first time of the year when people return their pets is in the summer, when they realize that they’ll have to either bring their dog with them on vacation, or pay a professional to take care of them. The second time of year comes right after the holidays, when puppies, who have been given as presents, are returned for well, just being puppies!
It is doubtful that any of you reading this article would ever consider giving a puppy as a gift, but you may know someone who is thinking of surprising a loved one with a fuzzy bundle of awesomeness, so I thought of a few tips you could pass along. Let’s save some puppies from going through the stress of being adopted and then given away.
Since this is SO IMPORTANT, I’m going to dedicate FOUR posts to this topic: that’s one tip every week right here in the blog.
This week’s tip for how to stop a friend or family member from gifting a puppy is simple: Convince them to buy a book about dogs instead. I believe in your powers of persuasion! You’ve got this!
There are a lot of great books that help families select the right breed (no, this should not be based solely on looks or colour preferences), energy level (we’ll get to that one next week), and age of dog. My favourite is “A Member of the Family,” by Cesar Millan. If people read this book before rushing out to get a dog, there would be a LOT less returns to the humane society, a lot less sad children, and loads more people who are HAPPY with their dog’s behaviour.
If you haven’t had a chance to read it, this book can be enjoyed by any dog lover who is on the journey to becoming a dog leader. Enjoy!
Here’s the link to the CBC article.
This week’s photos by: Rhaúl V. Alva (puppy wearing Santa’s hat) and Jakob Owens (French bulldog inside Santa’s hat.)
