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<\/a>A few of the possible fees when adopting a pet.<\/p><\/div>\n
Basically, people and organizations admonish potential pet owners that they should adopt<\/em> rather than buy<\/em> their new little pal. I\u2019ve always thought that sounded like the kind thing to do, but I never gave it more consideration than that.<\/p>\n But then it hit me\u2014when you adopt a dog, you have to pay a bunch of fees, which people have told me can run into the hundreds of dollars, so that means that you\u2019re basically buying<\/em> a dog anyway! (Those fees usually include spaying or neutering, microchipping, a general exam at a veterinarian, and all of the animal\u2019s basic shots.)<\/p>\n If only pet shops looked this cute.<\/p><\/div>\n And then there\u2019s this<\/em> fact that never occurred to me before, nor, apparently, to anyone else: the animals from a store or breeder, who wind-up\u00a0not<\/em> bought, then become\u2026the new homeless ones! So they either go up for adoption themselves, or even worse, are euthanized!<\/p>\n So whether you buy or adopt, it doesn\u2019t lessen the number of animals in the world. It\u2019s just a matter of math!<\/p>\n On a side note, I\u2019ve had only two dogs in my life, both with Mr. X. I\u2019m sure that viewers of my former TV show, Karen\u2019s Restaurant Revue<\/em>, remember my precious Clarence, The Singing Dog. He was much more popular than I was. And I hope that long-time<\/em> viewers also have fond memories of my original<\/em> co-star\u2014my beloved Bud, The Wonder Dog. (He didn\u2019t sing, but he was the most adorable little creature who ever lived. And he was kind, which is a weird trait for a dog; he was always happy to go to other people to cheer them up. I even took him to retirement homes occasionally. But I secretly adored that Clarence didn\u2019t want to even talk to anyone who wasn\u2019t me. Unless they were carrying some meat in their pocket, of course.)<\/p>\n Photos of Bud, The Wonder Dog, taken by Angie Dickinson, who also framed them together, making this display one of my favorite gifts of all time.<\/p><\/div>\n I was truly the luckiest girl in the world to have loved those two now-angels. (I still do, of course.) And Mr. X and I bought<\/em> them both; Bud from an upscale (if there\u2019s such a thing) pet shop, and Clarence from a breeder, (which, trust me, did not look better than a pet shop, on any<\/em> level! We had done tons of research before we chose one, but the place was still gross!)<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure we would have fallen madly in love with any<\/em> toy poodles we would have wound-up with, as most everyone does with their own pets. But the point of this article is my original premise that made me want to write it to begin with: Adopting a pet instead of buying one doesn\u2019t lessen the number of animals in the world.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>