I love meeting rescue dogs

[ka jowct]

One of the pleasures of walks in NYC is the number of cool dogs I see.

Yesterday I was on the esplanade along the East River, and met some lovely rescue dogs. One woman had a pair of pitbulls, one of them elderly. The younger pittie wanted to say hi, so I let him sniff and then gave him some butt scritches. He leaned against my legs and kept giving me those “Keep going with that” looks if I stopped for a few seconds.

When I got back closer to home, I saw someone with a really unusual looking dog: fairly long coat, in lovely creamy, caramel colors with some darker grey, with light blue husky eyes. The human had rescued her in Puerto Rico, where she’d been living on the street. She was sweet and confident as well as strikingly beautiful.

Conditions were not very interesting for photography, but the dog encounters were lovely. And an “Adopt, don’t shop” endorsement.

[cbelt3]

:agree:
Our Best Dog Ever was adopted from the Humane Society. Miss Pixie was a Rat Terrier, and had been the mommy in a puppy mill. And then tossed to the side (thrown out of a car window at a K Mart) after her last litter. She was thin and scared and missing her puppies when we took her in.

And she immediately became "Mom" to our children and other dogs and cats in the household. Snuggling and loving and kissing everybody. She made it to 18 years before she passed in my wife's arms. We miss her every day. We're contemplating looking for another Rattie to take her place, but the household is a bit too busy now to bring a new doggo into it.

[srf1957]

Unless the dog has about 3 months to live here . It is cheaper to buy a random mutt off CL than what the humane shelter wants . They blew 250k endowment in 2 years with new management . County and largest local city quit contributing because of bad bookkeep that couldn't tell them where the money was going .

[NewtonMP2100]

[ka jowct]

srf1957 wrote:
Unless the dog has about 3 months to live here . It is cheaper to buy a random mutt off CL than what the humane shelter wants . They blew 250k endowment in 2 years with new management . County and largest local city quit contributing because of bad bookkeep that couldn't tell them where the money was going .

That is an unfortunate situation, but CL is a terrible way to find pets, for some of the pets. It IS very attractive to sadists who want something to torture, etc.

There are usually alternatives to a local shelter. You can search by area code at petfinder.org, and generally find small local rescue groups.

[srf1957]

Petfinder dropped the local shelter from their list .

[jh]

Let's not forget you local dog pounds. Our current dog came from the local gov't pound and is a cutie as well as a great dog.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

County shelters are usually the most reliable places, after that it's typically regional rescue organizations. I wouldn't buy a dog from a listing on CL unless I knew them personally ahead of time and knew they weren't a breeder.

Unfortunately there are a few local pet stores that "lease" dogs. There was just a story about a family that bought a Husky puppy listed for $3200, but it was purchase agreement. The dog turned out to be too much for the family and they had to get rid of it, but were still on the hook for the lease payments totaling nearly $7200.
Family says pet lease left them with $7,200 bill, no puppy [kiro7.com]

There are plenty of dogs in local shelters for $199 to $275, sometimes much less depending on the county.

[C(-)ris]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
County shelters are usually the most reliable places, after that it's typically regional rescue organizations. I wouldn't buy a dog from a listing on CL unless I knew them personally ahead of time and knew they weren't a breeder.

Unfortunately there are a few local pet stores that "lease" dogs. There was just a story about a family that bought a Husky puppy listed for $3200, but it was purchase agreement. The dog turned out to be too much for the family and they had to get rid of it, but were still on the hook for the lease payments totaling nearly $7200.
Family says pet lease left them with $7,200 bill, no puppy [kiro7.com]

There are plenty of dogs in local shelters for $199 to $275, sometimes much less depending on the county.

I blame the people entirely. I’m not sure I have enough fingers for all the red flags on why they never even should have considered a Husky or signed the paperwork.