Should I get a dog?
It’s the question on my mind every time one of my friends or neighbors gets a pup. Living on the East Side of the Fort Sanders neighborhood – an area with many apartments allowing pets – I’m more or less surrounded by dogs and dog owners. It’s hard to go to class without seeing one on a walk or another running around in James Agee Park. Bowser, Raleigh, Reagan, Lucy, Misty, Muggle … so many great dogs around me, even more jealousy within me.
Normally, when I ponder the possibility of buying a dog, I think about the costs and the responsibilities. But a few weeks ago, I met a UT professor who forced me to think about an entirely different aspect of the dog-buying process (see: “The Dog Rescuer”).
Now I have a different question on my mind every time one of my friends or neighbors gets a pup: did they rescue that dog?
According to a study conducted by the American Pet Products Association in 2012, only 20 percent of American-owned dogs are adopted from shelters. The majority come from breeders and Puppy Zone-like commercial enterprises, leaving 2.7 million adoptable cats and dogs to be euthanized in shelters across the country.
To put that number in perspective: as many as 3,000 pit bulls are euthanized per day in the United States.
Some of those dogs are put down not far from campus at the Young Williams Animal Center. A quick visit to the shelter testified to its positive influence on Knoxville; they’ve found a home for 3,455 dogs this year, and the staff is happy to help would-be pet owners add to that number. Still, Young Williams is a kill shelter. The sheer volume of dogs that end up in their cages cannot be managed by adoption alone.
Looking at the doleful eyes of a big hound in the window, I wondered how much time he had left.I also wondered how many of my classmates have ever been to Young Williams. A quick, unofficial survey of my friends found that most of their dogs had been purchased from breeders; only a handful had rescued their pets. And though there is nothing inherently wrong with buying a dog from a breeder (as long as it’s a reputable breeder you’ve thoroughly vetted), there is a lot inherently right about rescuing one.
Amy Styles, a staffer at Young Williams, said that anyone who adopts from the shelter receives a puppy fully up to date on its veterinarian shots, imbedded with a tracking chip and spayed/neutered – for only $150. Adult dogs are even cheaper, at $75. Compared to the costs of adopting a pure-bred from a breeder, rescuing is more affordable.
Unfortunately, some people hold unfair assumptions about rescue dogs. In East Tennessee and the South in general, many of these dogs come from dog-fighting rings and back-yard breeders.
They have often been mistreated and sometimes injured in their journey to shelters. Because of this maltreatment, it’s easy to dismiss them as dangerous, and phrases such as “once they taste blood…” perpetuate this myth.
But just as human behavior is formed by the influences around each individual person, dog behavior is malleable. I met one dog who bore the unmistakeable signs of life in dogfighting. He’s now a therapy dog, part of the same organization that visits Hodges Library during exam weeks.
Young Williams is not the only animal center in the area – Union County Humane Society, Roane County Animal Shelter, Monroe County Animal Shelter and the Blount County Animal Shelter can all be reached within an hour.
In each of those shelters, hundreds of dogs are waiting to die or be adopted. Next time you find yourself pining for a pooch of your own, consider rescuing.
I know of a doleful-eyed hound dog just down the road who needs a friend.
R.J. Vogt is a senior in college scholars. He can be reached at [email protected].
