Click HERE to go back to the Archives Listing

Click here for the printer friendly version

FREE TO A GOOD HOME

A very sad but true fact is about to unfold. Often people feel they must give up their pet for various reasons. It does not matter weather it is an HONEST reason (such as moving and really, truly cannot find a new place to rent that allows pets, or perhaps the pet’s owner has been hospitalized or even has passed away leaving no one to take long term care of the pet, or really, truly someone in the house is allergic to the pet) or because the person can’t be bothered to train the dog to stop it’s annoying habits (most discipline problems with dogs, such as not being housetrained, destroying carpets, shoes, furniture, etc. being to hyper or nipping are the fault of the owners who can’t be bothered to train the animal.) The reason does not matter, but what may happen to the dog when you place that FREE TO A GOOD HOME advertisement does matter and matters big time.

Puppy Mills and Back Yard Breeders scan pet ads, looking for Free or Cheap dogs, mostly females that have not been neutered or spayed. They smile and tell you just what a wonderful home your dog is going to have. Then they subject the poor dog to years of torture producing puppies cycle after cycle in tiny wire cages or similar horrid conditions. With no affection, little food and no proper veterinarian care. Yah, your dog got a good home, didn’t he/she.

Many FREE dogs are snapped up by people who tell you what a wonderful home your dog is going to get, then turn around and sell it for a profit to some other uncaring person or yes, even to Research Facilities. I won’t bother to tell you what is going to happen to the dog once it enters a Research Facility. I will tell you, it won’t come out of it alive.

Then there are the people who under no circumstances are ever going to waste their precious money on buying a dog. Instead they phone the FREE TO A GOOD HOME ads. They smile and promise what a good home it is going to get. Now remember their money is precious to them. So forget a healthy diet of decent food, forget wasting money on a vet when the creature so desperately needs one. Forget spending a few bucks to fix the fence in the backyard, just chain the thing up. Forget taking it to a groomer, just let it get matted and filthy. After all, it didn’t cost them anything. IT’S NOT LIKE THEY HAVE ANY MONEY INVESTED IN IT AND NEED TO PROTECT THEIR INVESTMENT. Then dump it at the SPCA or city pound or on a back country road if things go wrong and get another FREE one from another ad.

Am I saying that all people who get a free pet, are bad, bad, bad. No, of course not. Many will love and care for their new dog forever. But, it is up to you, the person giving it away or selling it cheap to make sure your pet is going to the type of home, the interested party says it is getting. TAKE YOUR DOG TO THE PERSON’S HOME. GO BACK AGAIN IN A WEEK, IS IT STILL THERE??? Or do they have some excuse, it’s at the groomers, my neighbor is taking it for a walk, it ran away, whatever. SCREEN THE PHONE CALLS, UNTIL THE RIGHT PERSON COMES ALONG. JUST BECAUSE YOU CANNOT KEEP IT ANY LONGER OR SIMPLY DON’T WANT TO, IT IS STILL YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE SURE IT IS GOING TO A DECENT AND CARING HOME.