Adopting pets...what's your experience?

[Disneyland1084]

My husband and I adopted an adorable two month old terrier/daschund mix from the pound three years ago. He has brought so much joy to our lives. To tell the story I need to go back three years before we got him. We were busy moving into a new house. My husband took a walk one day in his sister's neighborhood which isn't far from our house. He walks by a man walking his Harlequin Great Dane. They stop and talk and he pets the dog. I know Great Danes in general are sweet, gentle and loyal dogs. My husband just fell in love with him. After that he wanted a Great Dane SOOOO bad. I didn't because of the size of that dog. I love dogs of all shapes and sizes, but I think a Border Collie is the maximum size dog I'd be willing to get. Anyway, my husband begged me for so long to get a Great Dane. I kept saying no. His sister had recently adopted a lab from the pound. I finally suggested we go to the pound and see what we can find. I wasn't able to walk through the front door until the fourth visit because I kept breaking down into tears. I'm so emotional when it comes to animals. Anyway, we walked through the pound and saw all the various dogs. We went to the puppy section and fell in love with what is now our sweet dog. After only a few days of owning him my husband told me he no longer wanted a Great Dane. What a relief that was! I might be willing to get one SOME day, but ONLY if we have a big enough yard for it. I'd love to hear animal adopting stories!

 

[ely3857]

We adopted a whippet from the RSPCA about 10 years ago and on the drive there we were discussing what sort of dog we would end up with and I said 'I bet I get chatted up by a whippet' and I did!



Jodie

 

[doxdogy]

We just adopted the newest addition to our brood. Prior to her we had Anni and Katie. Both of them are at the bridge now. But they both brought 14 great years of joy to our family.

 

[SetzKitten]

I adopt all of my pets from the animal shelter. Some of them are only with me for a short time because I tend to gravitate towards the older, unwanted animals rather than the puppies and kittens. Although I've had to make adjustments for some of my more "eccentric" pets, I've never had a bad experience adopting and have never had to get rid of a pet.

 

[becjlek]

We have a great lab we got from our animal shelter. My DS did his Eagle project there too. He built 3 5X50 foot, partially covered dog runs for them.
He did a great job.

 

[John VN]

2 years ago today, Hemingway our Persian, lost his home to Hurricane Charley. DW heard about him from a fellow worker and she asked me if we could take him in until his owners found a place to live. I said sure and as things turned out his owners really didn't want him any longer so we kept him.

He rules the house and I believe he approves all the attention we servants give him.

 

[Virgo10]

Six of our cats were adopted from the MSPCA.

Chester was one of the first cats I saw when we went to adopt just ONE cat. As I walked by the cage he was in, his paw shot out and he grabbed my coat to drag me over. We found the orange tiger that I wanted but I never forgot Chester. About a week later I decided to volunteer and it was my job to take photos of the animals and put them up around town. Chester was featured 3 times but still no one wanted him.

Finally, after being in a cage for 5 weeks, he started scratching people. On my day to photo animals that week another volunteer told me that they were going to put him down for scratching a visitor. I said, I don't think so and he came home with me that day.

Now he's the dominant cat of the house and he is loving and smart. I cringe every time I think what might have been if I hadn't gone into the shelter that day.

Chester

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

I 1000000% support animal rescue and am involved with Golden Retriever rescue here in Houston.

Unforuntately, I have "another side of the story" story. We adopted a Golden that we had to re-home due to her snapping at neighborhood kids. I couldn't take the risk involved if she bit someone.

I got to pick her next family and she went to an adult couple with no children. I've heard from them years later and my girl is still doing great and fits in wonderfully with her new family. She's had no issues there and I think that's due to the fact that she was able to be socialized properly, whereas with me, she was thrust into being around kids.

It just goes to show, that even the sad results can still sometimes have very happy endings.

 

[AllyandJack]

I got my Ally at a shelter. My 21 year old cat had just died and I was walking half-heartedly through the shelter. I saw a tabby cat named "Nancy" and took her out of the cage and picked her up. I held her and she seemed sweet. I put her back and she freaked out. She dumped all of the food and water out of the dishes and tore up the paper. She was banging on the cage door. I took her out again and she sat on my lap quietly.

I figured I'd get her - still not really "feeling it" because I was missing my Patch. I filled out 10 pages of paperwork, had to have 3 references call, had to prove my parents (where I was living) owned their home....then, I finally got approved! I went back into the pet area and someone else had my Al!! I pointed and yelled, "That's MY cat!!!" and ran over and grabbed Al out of the arms of this poor unsuspecting woman.

I knew I would change her name, but didn't know to what. I was in law school at the time. She whined the whole way home - not meow, whine. So, I named her Ally McBeal.

I love this animal more than my own life. She's been with me through my Nana's death. She's been with me through 2+ years of infertility. She's been with me through 3 rounds of IVF. She laid in bed with me with her head on my hand for 12 hours straight when I had my miscarriage.

If I'm having a bad day because of medication or just feeling mad/sad and I want to stay in bed all day, she stays with me. I try to get her to leave to go to the litter box, but she refuses to leave me. My Ally.

 

[lowie]

i got very lucky one day when a lady i worked with came in to work with a litter of tiny hairless cats, sphinx. she was giving them away. i took one (looking back i should have taken all three, they're such amazing cats). he's 5 years old now and the best cat ever!

then we went to the pound one day and dh fell in love with a tiny back and white kitty, personally i wouldn't have picked her but all animals deserve a good home and it made dh happy. she's 4 years old today, according to our calculations. she's a nice cat, very good with the kids but not cuddly and sweet like our sphinx.

 

[minkydog]

After 5 months of research, deciding what kind of pet would be best and what we wanted in a dog, we knew we wanted a standard poodle. Luckily the local rescue had a whole litter(and their mother!) so we adopted Murray. He wasn't an alpha, in fact he was kinda quiet. Uh-oh! he was sick! real sick. He ended up in the hospital 6days later with bacterial pneumonia. For about 5wks he was very ill and spent a lot of time in his crate or at the vet. But eventually he recovered and has become the best pet we could ever want.

We renamed him Minky because he's so spunky. He's wonderful with all the kids, but especially our handicapped son. With Christian Minky is calm and alert. He never moves quickly around him and has actually alerted me to dangerous situations(like the time Christian let himself out of the house at 10pm!) Minky sleeps by my bed every night and he is protective of all his peeps.

If we ever get another dog I would not hesitate to go to a shelter or rescue. Even though we got off to a "ruff" start, it was worth every minute of worry and every dollar we spent to save him.

 

[MushyMushy]

I wanted a dog back in 2000 and didn't want to go to the local humane society because they make you jump through so many hoops it's not funny. I would have passed, because I did pass to get a cat, but I just didn't want to go through that again. Anyway, I ended up at a shelter in WV. They had a cage full of black lab mixes, and I knew I wanted a lab, so they handed me the sweetest little thing. She just fell asleep in my arms, and slept through the whole car ride. What a doll!

Little did I know...

she was SICK! She was full of worms and just in sad shape. About two weeks after we got her, she started throwing up and got diarrhea, so I took her to a vet who said she had parvo. Well, she did survive it, but before that I called the pound to tell them about it, they told me they had to put the whole litter to sleep and to bring her in so they could put her to sleep too. Oh no!

After she got better, she turned into quite a turd. She was hyper and loud and chewed everything in sight. She would NOT be crate trained, and we ended up taking her to a woman with a PhD in animal behavior. Ay yi yi. We went through periods of actually hating her at times, but we're not the type of people to give up on an animal we take responsibility for.

She's turned into a pretty nice dog after all these years. We had such a rocky start with her, but she's very sweet and loving. She still barks too much and she's hyper as all get out, plus we can't take her in public, but she fits right in with us now.

 

[mrsstats]

My last 5 out of 6 dogs were from shelters. 1 was from a pet shop but he was also a mixed breed. My last 4 were older dogs, already trained. I have 2 now as all others have past on. I searched all over for these 2 and wound up with the best dogs for our house. Petey, my last dog I go, has been such a joy (until today when he killed a rabbit). He has the sweetest personality. I dont know how we would go on without having them in our house.

 

[christineann]

All of my dogs from middle school through my adult hood have been adopted from shelters or found (obvious strays). They have been awesome members of our family. My last child leaves for college Thursday.....she says she and her brother worry about me being "alone". I told her that thanks to our rambunctious 2 year olds, there is NO ALONE about it at all .

 

[Coloradomom]

We had not had pets for years due to kid's allergies but when they were teens they seemed to grow out of it, so...(all from the Denver Dumb Friend's league)

Along came Macbeth, a pretty 3 month old orange tabby. We got him right before DS left for college (still had DD at home) so everyone asked if he was our DS replacement!!

Then 15 months later the Pet Care A Van (outreach program) came to my office one day, well, I made the fateful decision to go down "just to look" and we ended up with Puck, a 6lb, 9 month old orange tabby with lots of fur who was just pathetic looking. They figured he'd been on the street. When we picked him up the little guy just purred the loudest purr. How could we not adopt him?

Ok, so with 2 cats we were done.....NOT

About 9 months later we were in the vicinity of the Dumb Friends League and DD and DH convinced me to go in "just to look" and we ended up with Noah, a one year old orange tabby who is the most nervous Nellie of the three.

So, we love our little shelter babies BUT when DD goes off to college in 2 years, it will be the 3 of them and US. Despite DD pleadings for a 4th one!

 

[gradtchr]

All of our cats are adopted in one way or another.

Our first one (gray-Simba) I found on a friends driveway when I almost ran over him. He was about four weeks old (teeny tiny) and his mom wanted absolutely nothing to do with him so he came home with me and was bottle fed before he decided he only wanted dry food .

The second cat (buff-Pooh) we adopted won our hearts when we were thinking about fostering. He was at the shelter and maintained eye contact us whereever we went in the shelter and had the tiniest little meow. His mouth would open wide and he would let out this little tiny squeak. What was so funny about that is that he is and was a 17 pound cat and the meow totally did not fit the cat. When we got him out to play with him and pet him during one on one time he started drooling on us and we were totally won over. After a visit to the vet he came home with us and had an interesting meet with our first cat.

The third cat (black-Koda) we adopted we actually weren't looking to adopt but were at a pet store and were playing with the kittens when the person in charge of the adoption whom I had seen at several adoptions and was friendly with asked if we wanted a cat that she was looking for someone special to take him and that she was not asking just anybody. We took him out of his cage and held him for about twenty minutes and he just cuddled in (that is until we started moving and he wanted down and out) and he came home with us and has been a wonderful addition to our family.

Now the outdoor cat (orange and white-Tod) we are working on adopting and taming up actually adopted our yard about a year ago when he was an itty bitty kitten. He was however living on food he caught and wanted absolutely nothing to do with us but with the drought came a lack of food which led to us feeding him and working on taming him up. He's our cat now we just hope he realizes it soon.