Why are some people so judgemental about getting a puppy, I don’t want to regime someone else’s dog !

[LardLizard]

It’s not my responsibility to take on someone else’s dog they have dumped in an animal rescue place

From what I hear out of every 10 dogs that are rehomed 6 are returned .....

People don’t say when you have a baby
Oh why did you go and have a baby
You could have adopted one !!!

if the rescue dog was that well behaved, it probably wouldn’t be in rescue

It's not just behavoir issues that lead them to re-homing.

People move - into accomodation that doesn't allow dogs
People die or go into Nursing homes and the dogs needs re-homed
People are allergic

Nothing to do with how the dog behaves

.

I grew up with dogs. i love dogs. my parents had some rescues, and some we got as puppies (mongrels from accidental breeding). I would always prefer a mongrel puppy over a rescue (but NEVER get a pedigree puppy).
Why?
Rescue dogs usually come from bad backgrounds, often ex puppymill, health problems, untrained, behavioural issues. and mostly available are fashion breeds which i don’t like (i prefer working dog mongrels).
Most pedigree dogs come with tons if health issues. i refuse to have a dog that has been bred to live a short, painful life ( my parents mongrels all lived to at least age 14, pedigrees a lot shorter).
A friend of mine has a big heart for rescues - she is a qualified dog trainer, has no kids and plenty of time. And she struggles with some of hers.

What are the right reasons?

if the rescue dog was that well behaved, it probably wouldn’t be in rescue

My current (rescue) dog is the best behaved dog I've ever had. She is a pleasure to live with.

also, the one dog that I adopted from a shelter was heaving with fleas. Never saw that on any dog from elsewhere.

I get what you are saying OP. However, if you'd ever been to a rescue and seen they animals in there it would truly break your heart.

I would LOVE a dog, but with two young children and a third due imminently it is definitely not the right time. We will get dogs eventually when the kids are older, and i would like a puppy, like you. I absolutely love datschunds. But I will only get a dog when I can afford and look after two so will get a rescue dog too.

Dogs are in rescue for any number of reasons, not just behavioural.

People buy puppies without understanding the reality of dog ownership and that dog ends up in rescue, families break up or move overseas dog ends up in rescue. Some people rehome their dogs because they have children or they decide they don't match the furniture. There's hundreds of reasons dogs are sent to rescue centres.

By all means get a puppy if you want one but don't write off rescues because of behaviour problems. At least with a rescue you have an idea of what you're getting, unlike with a puppy that could have issues that you won't discover until it's older.

And please research dog ownership before you buy a puppy because your op suggests you don't understand dogs at all.

@Yura you are generalising a lot there.

Some pedigree breeds come with health problems, no doubt about it. But not all of them, and it depends entirely on the breed. It just needs careful research.

We had cairn terriers growing up. One loves to 16, no health problems at all until her last few weeks. One is still going strong at 13.

YABVU, if you are a dog lover on MN you must never get a puppy because ALL breeders are puppy farms in disguise- have you thought of going to a shelter and getting a lovely whippet or lurcher instead, they're lovely breeds, so lovely that flowers bloom out their arses

Typical replies for MNs.

In the real world if you said to your mate "I don't want a rescue dog and to undo someone else's bad work, I'd rather have a puppy" they'd say "Fair enough. Cuppa?". Not give a Nobel speech about creating demand for puppy farms 🙄

I am on the inside of a profession that deals with dogs. I get weekly and monthly publications for this profession and some of the photos in those publications should be in newspapers and magazines on the high street IMHO. I find them shocking and I have been in my job nearly 40 years so am theoretically an 'old sweat' at this lark.
Look up the stats OP. Something like nine thousand Staffordshire Bull Terriers a year are PTS because no one wants them. That's just one breed! Imagine what a heap of nine thousand dead staffies looks like! All that hope and warmth and love to give - gone. All the shining eyes and pink tongues and snuffley noses - incinerated.
The whole of dog ownership in this country needs looking at and taking in hand from the top. It's disgusting the way they are treated. We let dogs down every minute of every day in this country. A country of animal lovers.

My friend has a puppy that was owned by someone else first who regretted it so you can do both.

@GunpowderGelatine my Mum's rescue lurcher is indeed lovely but the only thing coming out of his arse is cheesy farts!

It's horses for courses, OP. It maybe that people are judging you for the breed not the fact you have a puppy, or it could just be that they have strong views. Love and train the dog, whatever it is.

We have a rescue dog and he's a lovely temperament - unless we go on holiday and leave him with another family for a few days. He has a great time and then punishes us for leaving by pooing in the house for a couple of days!

OTOH, my neighbours have a rescue who's turned out to be v. needy and challenging to deal with. They didn't realise how difficult she was when they adopted her and they do their best - but if they had children, it probably wouldn't work. She's unfriendly (bit my DD once) and can whine all night sometimes.

Like people, dogs have different personalities and different experiences. Our dog was clearly loved before he went to the shelter.

gunpowder

Hmmm. Op you sound like just the sort of person who should not have a dog.

Plus I do wonder at the amount of people breeding their own children when the world is hideously over populated and many children are in care.

So whilst people may not SAY that to others, they may well be thinking it. Just saying.

We had a rescue dog. A beautiful Lhasa Apso, I adored her and she gave us good 5 years. But by god, never again. So many problems, her previous owner had OCD and washed her twice a day which severely damaged her skin. We spent a fortune and a very long time trying to minimise her fear of water. Poor girl. I don't regret getting her but I'd never get a rescue again, it'd be a puppy every time

Dogs are in rescues for any number of reasons and many of them are perfectly lovely, affectionate and easy dogs who would fit happily into a household and bring nothing but joy.

But to say most are like that is naive.

The last time I volunteered at a local dog rescue there were about 40 dogs there. Approx. 5 had deep rooted behavioural problems as a result of deliberate abuse.

A few more had significant behavioural issues as a result of something happening to them outside their and their owner's control. In one particularly heartbreaking case a little old dog had a deep fear of men which had developed after her elderly owner became aggressive as a result of dementia. For ten years or more she had been a deeply loved pet and companion and that hideous disease robbed her owner of his mind and her of her home and trust in men.

Anything up to 25% had fairly significant behavioural issues as a result of lack of training, socialisation or proper care. In short, they had not have the upbringing you might hope for. This can be challenging. Loose lead training a very young labrador is one thing. Loose lead training 35kg of pure muscle is quite another.

Another 25% showed significant behavioural problems that may have been a result of being in kennels (it is a very stressful environment for many dogs) and so may not be an issue when they are in a home.

That left about 25% who were smashing dogs who would need no more than patience and care to settle into a new home and who would bring nothing but joy.

But (and it's a big but), in all cases you would know what you were getting into because the dog was already grown and developed. Puppies are much more of a gamble.

I've had 6 dogs in my life and 5 have been rescues of one form or another. Battendog (the latest after a looong gap and wait) was bought as a puppy. Anyone who thinks he was the easier option is fooling themselves. I love the little bugger like crazy but he has been, by far, the most hard work of any of the dogs.

Like some pp, I have no problem with anyone deciding a puppy is the best option for them so long as they have really and truly researched what they are doing and make a proper commitment to the dog. Those type of responsible people are no more to blame for the millions of dogs who need homes than someone who buys new shoes is for the amount of waste fly-tipped.

The people who ARE responsible for many of the dogs in rescue are the feckless bastards who allow indiscriminate breeding, who get a dog without any thought or commitment, who give up on the dog at the first sniff of inconvenience or who are so bloody terrible to the dog that someone has had to take it away. They are the shits who deserve the judgment and ire. May it rain down upon them.

Each to their own as long as you take any kind of dog ownership seriously and not on a whim.
I shall be controversial here though, I'm not entirely sure it is in the best interests of some dogs to be rehomed.
Bringing in Romanian strays from the streets? Someone i know has a collie/German shepherd cross, it has bitten more people than I can count, cannot be let off lead so has never run anywhere and has to bypass other dogs.
What kind of life is that for a dog. The owners feel very virtuous though.

Nasty responses are totally uncalled for - the OP has a valid point even if it’s not been expressed in a way people like.

I’m not in the market for a dog,but if I were I wouldn’t get a rescue either because:

A,rescue dogs generally do come with behavioural issues because the vast majority of rescues have either been ill-treated,neglected, the owners have got bored of them and got rid, either way most rescues haven’t lived with responsible owners previously and as such they are likely to have behavioural problems, many of which are unknown.

B, most rescues have such a rigorous rehoming procedure that you could be forgiven for thinking that no-one is actually suitable to adopt these dogs. Perhaps that’s because of the above-mentioned behavioural problems meaning that many rescues aren’t actually suitable to be rehomed,

This might be controversial, but for those who talk about the numbers of dogs being put down in rescue, IMO there are sometimes worse things which can happen to a dog than be put down, such as languishing in kennels for the rest of its life due to not being suitable for rehoming. I’m not talking about the likes of the pounds who put dogs to sleep after a week or so,but those charities who seek sponsorship for dogs who are so traumatised/have such bad behavioural issues that they will never be suitable for rehoming,and as such will live out the rest of their lives in kennels. Thing is, if the dog is so badly traumatised that it can never be rehomed, then it’s not a healthy dog is it? In which case it should be put out of its misery. Keeping a dog in kennels for years is no life for it and benefits no-one, oh, apart from the charity who will gain financially.

It goes without saying that the breeding industry needs to be regulated more, and that people need to think about where they get their puppies from. But that doesn’t mean that getting a puppy at all is wrong. Neither is getting a rescue, but to each their own,and there’s no right or wrong. And IMO just as the puppy industry needs to be regulated, so does the rescue industry. We have enough unwanted/abandoned dogs in this country, and the one thing I absolutely disagree with is bringing in yet more rescues from other countries when the rescue homes we have over here are full to over-capacity.

The Labrador rescue that one of mine came from had dogs that were given back for all sorts of stupid reaso, such as them not matching the furniture. There was nothing wrong with the dogs. Lots were dumped when a relative died (relatives always seemed to be able to cope with the inherited money though!) Not all rescues are hopeless nutcases! I've always had the nutters and even those have turned into perfectly normal, wonderful family dogs. It just took a bit of training and exercise. About the same amount of training as you'd put into training a puppy...

I think I know where the op is coming from. I have an adorable rescued dog who came to us at 11 months old. She is marvellous with children and other dogs but is very nervous of new people ...especially men. We love her ...it was our choice to take her on...our second dog...our first was mongrel puppy who needed a home and she lived to be nearly seventeen. Again our choice but dh and I are both from dog owning families and had some idea of what we were taking on.

I can understand inexperienced first time dog owners thinking it might be less challenging to choose a particular breed and bring it up from a few weeks old. Just do your homework op. Read about dog ownership, go to dog training classes and if necessary take advice from experienced owners. Above all remember Rome wasn't built in a day with puppy training. Be patient and consistent and make sure your puppy/dog doesn't end up as one of the ones needing rehomed. Good luck.

Ihopeyourcakeisshit yeah I do feel virtuous to be honest. I have got a street dog and she is the softest, kindest dog I have ever had.
Lots of breeders dump their pretty designer cross breeds at rescues when they don’t sell if people are so hung up on a puppy.