A few days ago, a friend of mine was talking about adopting a puppy and sent him an informative email about things to consider before adopting a puppy- thought Id share it with you guys:
This is a great idea and think every person should own one. Besides having another member of the family to feed/tender to, you will learn so much from them.
Here are some things that I wish I knew before I rescued my dog:
1—Work: Dogs are a lot of work; They have to be walked, fed and played with, daily! You may tell yourself “oh, he’ll encourage me to go for more walks and all,” but that never works.. Think about when its -30 or 100 degrees outside and the pup needs to be walked.. and no, the backyard is not an option. It will begin to smell, stain (kill) your grass and not be so pleasant when you accidentally step in s~~~. You could also hire Caesar Milan, you know, the dog whisperer, to train your pup to use the toilet, but doubt they’ll be able to flush.
2— Life-long Infant: Dogs are just like babies and will remain babies. No matter how well-trained or “mature” your dog is, they constantly need to be corrected.. and sometimes its after they left their token of appreciation by the dinner table.
3— Food: There are a lot of dog foods out there, but surprisingly, 90% are crap. I recommend going on http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com and looking up the score and ingredients- you’ll be surprised what s~~~ they put in dog food. Now, depending on the size, you will go through dog food pretty quickly and it will be an added expense. I can recommend good foods that have quality ingredients and light on the wallet. Email/send me a PM if you want some suggestions.
4- Travel: What will you do when you travel? You will either have to sweet talk your friend/family member to take care of him/her or cough up the cost of dog-sitting. If you take the dog-sitting route, I recommend DoggyVacay.com; Ive used it a number of times and its pretty good; got pictures daily and my sitter was a huge fan of my pup.
5— Home-wrecker: All dogs have the tendency to ruin things, whether its shoes, slippers, chair edges, TV remotes or anything that looks appealing to the 4-legged human. When I first got my dog, he chewed EVERYTHING, despite the plethora of toys I bought for him, he liked my shoes better.. (Yeah, im talking about those nice kicks you spent your hard-earned cash on). He slowly grew out of it, but poor shoes are gone.
6— Vet costs: When you first get a puppy, I would follow the vet’s recommendations, but after about a year , I only recommend the rabies and Heartguard. The vets’ office will try and upsell you with all these vaccines and believe me when I say they are a waste of money. I want you to recite the following: RABIES AND HEARTGAURD, THATS IT. If vets’ advise is taken, be prepared for a 600$ vet bill. You’ll ask how it came to 600$ with a 40-50$ consultation fee and 40-50$ rabies vaccine.. Yup, you guessed it- The 25 other vaccines they upsold you on.. and besides, think of it this way: Even we humans dont get 10 vaccines a year. Thats like a lifetime cost of human vaccines. In summary, yearly check-ups and will cost anywhere from 50-100$/year (This doesn’t include the few times they injure themselves and we go running to the vet and pay whatever to get our precious baby back).
These are the things I can think of and really hope you can adopt a puppy. They make great companions and are the ONLY ones that show you unconditional love despite the occasional slap or 2 or 3.
I hope you find this email helpful and please free to ask as I am a proud father of one.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. -Steve Jobs
KevinStyles 2 years, 4 months ago.
