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Finding the perfect pet for you and your family can be as easy as 1-2-3 if you follow a few simple suggestions.
Given the vast amount of resources, including animal shelters, breeders, the classifieds, and pet stores, it is important to be patient and knowledgeable as you make your decision.
Start by deciding whether you want a dog or cat, and make sure that you are prepared for the commitment of owning a household pet.
A lot of love to provide a pet is key, but love is simply not enough. You must consider whether you are ready to walk the animal, finance the pet food, medications, and doctors visits, and take the time to train your pet.
Some people jump into adopting an animal without considering the financial requirements, the time commitment involved, and travel considerations.
Once you have carefully thought through your decision and are ready to begin your search for a household pet, adopting your dog or cat can be a fun and creatively challenging prospect.
The best way to begin is to visit your local animal shelter. This is the least expensive and most loving way to find the perfect pet for you. Not only will you find an animal addition to your family, but you will be helping out your local shelter.
There are two kinds of shelters. A no-kill shelter is a shelter that will not euthanize its animals when the shelter is full. It will do anything possible to save its animals from an untimely death.
A kill shelter, often a county-financed shelter, euthanizes animals on a fairly regular basis. Due to limited resources and overcrowding, a kill shelter is forced to euthanize animals to make way for new ones.
Some people choose to adopt from a nearby kill shelter because they know that they are literally saving an animal's life in the process of finding a household pet.
Shelters are required by law to give necessary vaccinations and to test for animal diseases. Make sure that you ask your shelter to let you know if the animal you choose has been vaccinated.
Shelters also spay and neuter animals to help decrease the overpopulation of animals currently plaguing the United States. It is this overpopulation of dogs and cats that causes so many shelters to have to euthanize animals, so spaying and neutering is vital in reducing these euthanizations.
The cost to adopt an animal from a shelter is usually nominal, often anywhere between $25 and $100. This fee covers the spay and neutering process, as well as all vaccinations.
It is not necessary to choose a breed before visiting your local shelter, but it is helpful to know ahead of time if you want a small or large animal for any particular reason.
Pet stores are another option in finding a household pet, but many animal rights people emphasize that buying from a pet store is helping to support a potentially extremely dangerous and cruel act. Puppy mills, often the source of dogs sold in pet stores, are known to treat animals with cruelty. Owners of puppy mills have been known to mutilate, mistreat, and neglect their animals in the pursuit of breeding as many animals as possible to make as much money as possible.
While animals sold at pet stores are obviously adorable and certainly need to be adopted, buying these pets is considered high risk in the perpetuation of animal cruelty.
The classified sections in your local newspaper is a wonderful way to adopt a pet and to help out someone who can no longer take care of one. Remember to meet the owner and the animal in a neutral, public setting because it is risky to meet in private a random person who places an advertisement in the newspaper.
Perhaps the easiest and most efficient way to find the perfect household pet for you and your family is to surf the Internet.
There are literally zillions of websites, e-mail lists, forums, and chatrooms dedicated to animal adoption.
Whether you locate your pet of choice at a nearby shelter or from a faraway animal rescue group, there are volunteer animal transportation services that will move a pet from one part of the country to another for animal adoption. Just ask the rescue group to hook you up with transportation resources.
Animal rescue groups are groups of volunteer animal lovers who dedicate oodles of time to rescuing animals that are abandoned, neglected, abused, or hit by cars, etc. Many of these groups specialize in rescuing certain breeds. Others are organized by location or according to still other categories.
The Internet is a wonderful resource for finding an animal rescue group. Simply type the name of your favorite breed into a search engine and locate the various rescue groups devoted to this breed. You can also type in words and phrases such as "animal adoption".
Lastly, breeders are people who breed animals as a hobby and/or to make a living. Breeders often charge significant prices to adopt an animal, and these prices can range anywhere from in the hundreds to thousands of dollars. If you are adamant about finding a full-breed animal, breeders can be a good resource - though certainly more expensive.
For anyone truly wanting to help the Animal Kingdom in adopting a household pet, shelters and rescue groups are the number one resource for adopting your pet. Not only will you have a new forever and furry friend, but you will know in your heart you have helped to save the life of an animal!
Remember to be patient with your process. You want to find the right pet for you, and careful decision making and patience is so very important.
Good luck in finding your perfect pet!
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