By Sarah Hoggan, from the March 2000 Newsletter

Spring comes every year and new life suddenly abounds. Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the pet section of the classified ads. Puppies and kittens of every shape, color, and breed are suddenly available en mass and to fit any price range. But please, before you catch this "Spring Fever" and buy a puppy or kitten, consider the "strings" attached these little furries, and instead consider adopting an adult animal.

Puppies and kittens are beautiful, fluffy, and incredibly cute as they tear about your house and discover all that is new in their world. However, they’re also naïve to appropriate "pet" behavior, and need training. Effective house-breaking requires taking the animal outside several times throughout the day and watching them to praise good toileting behavior. If a new owner doesn’t have the time to devote to proper training, they’re setting themselves up for frustration. Worse yet, they may be sentencing their new pet to a life, or death, at the animal shelter.

Directly linked to house-training is the rigorous feeding schedule their growing bodies require. To prevent obesity and growth deformities, young animals shouldn’t be allowed to eat as much as they please. Instead, they should be fed measured portions of food through out the day. Additionally, most animals go to the bathroom within one hour of eating. So, after each feeding, the puppy or kitten should be taken outside for a house-training lesson.

In addition to the feeding and house-training demands, young animals require more veterinary care. Their vaccinations are not simple boosters for pre-existing immunity. Their shots are administered in a series that requires multiple veterinary visits. Most veterinary clinics offer very reasonable rates for puppy/kitten vaccinations, but the time necessary for multiple clinic visits can’t be altered. Also, skipping the vaccinations altogether is never a good idea. Without the vaccinations the young animals are especially susceptible to potentially fatal infections.

Given all that, now consider adopting an adult animal. Last year the Moscow Animal Shelter adopted out 500 dogs and 688 cats. They had to euthanize 59 dogs and 65 cats. While the absolute numbers of animals destroyed may seem small, that’s roughly ten percent of their adoptions.

As a benefit to the new owners, most adult animals they place are already house-broken, and will communicate when they need to go out. Additionally, prior to adoption, the animals are spayed or neutered and some cats are already declawed. That’s an investment in veterinary care that you’d have to make with a puppy or kitten.

Finally, the Moscow Animal Shelter pets come with a behavior profile so you know what commands they understand and what their temperament is like. Perhaps the best "benefit" to adopting an adult animal is the knowledge that you saved their life. Nationwide more adult animals are destroyed than puppies or kittens, because the adults are less likely to find a home.

Acquiring any pet has intrinsic costs and responsibilities that must be taken into account. Before you open your home to an animal, look at your life style and decide what would be best for you and the animal you’re adopting.

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Sarah Hoggan is a junior at WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine. She and her wonderful husband have three dogs, two cats, and are expecting a baby in September to add to their happy commotion.

 

Copyright: Copyright on articles and recipes are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective authors, except were otherwise noted.

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