Hellobee Boards

I'm not proud, but he's from someone's trunk in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in the town where my in-laws live. They took one of the other boys to live with them, and we have the last boy from the litter with us. They were supposed to be $30, but we got a deal, 2/$25.

I wish we would have adopted (and my family has adopted many animals in the past), but I love our dog and he has been a perfect addition to our family. Healthy, happy, and some wonderful mixture of breeds.

DH adopted our pup before we met. He wasn't looking for a dog, but a rescue group was sitting outside of Office Depot or some store like that and he saw him and said he just couldn't resist his sweet personality and cute ears Then the second he took him home he ran upstairs and poo'd on his bed. Turned out he was pretty crazy, he had been brought back twice before DH got him and had/has pretty bad separation anxiety. But we love him!

We have two adopted cats and a purchased from a very reputable breeder dog. We looked for a long time for an adoptable dog, but after 8 months without a match we decided to look at breeders. I absolutely love our breeder and the dedication she has to Australian Shepherds and will likely get another dog from her in the future.

Last year, we went through a local Great Dane rescue and adopted our Winston. He was about 4 years old at the time, and they didn't have a great background on him--they estimated that he had been in and out of probably about 6 homes by the time we got him. He was great...around just future-husband and myself, but then started demonstrating suuuuper bad separation anxiety and VERY territorial behavior (it became evident that "something" had taken place in his past--poor boy). One day, my sister was over and I stepped out for awhile, and he ended up lunging/snarling/biting at her.

Long story short, we just weren't comfortable at that point to keep him and try to work through it (and we did explore all possible options) to "hopefully" get to a point where we would be "comfortable enough" having him around us/other people, so he went back to the rescue--talk about feeling like a failure. He now lives happily with a single retired woman waaaay up north. We still miss our boy very much, though we don't really miss his slobbers!

I would consider rescuing again, though would be more cautious going into it, and also try to work with the rescue to find out more about the animal up front.

@artbee: So cute!

We adopted our older dog from the Humane Society. When we started looking for a second dog, a friend of a friend was looking to rehome their puppy; they came over one night to introduce him, and ended up leaving him with us forever. It was a big adjustment, but we love our guys, and wouldn't chnage it!

We got our husky lab mix free from some people on craigs list. Of course we went out to meet her and let lo play with her a bit before we took her. The people bought her but couldn't keep her because she was getting way too friendly with the cattle and ended up chasing a few through fences She is a wonderful dog and loves the kids so much, she has not a mean bone in her and is super tolerant of our almost 4 year old.

Our big dog was adopted from the pound. Our chihuahua was purchase from a reputable dealer. She had to be flown to us from Wisconsin. The chihuahua was bought as a surprise. My husband decided to buy her because her coloring is unique.

@OahuJeni: The best kind of *sucker*

I am not proud to say this, but we got our dog from what we now know to be a middleman for a puppy mill. At the time we were told a different story! It took me years of research to figure out what really happened. They were a family who took the puppies and socialized them for the last week or two, which I guess I'm grateful for. Fortunately she's never had the health or behavior issues I've seen in other puppy mill dogs (knock on wood!) but next time I would prefer to go through a rescue and know exactly what is happening.

@pointybird: well they certainly have character that is for sure. They are a very clean breed so they usually potty train themselves....we never once had an indoor accident with ours. He knows sit and come very well, and is great on walks or at the dog park. However, Shibas can pretty much never be off leash. They will bolt! No matter how much we call ours or coax him with treats, he only comes when he is good and ready. They are a very rebellious breed! Also, he is very territorial. I have never once seen him treat a toddler or child badly, but he can be aggressive with adults, especially at our house (he is protective of me and baby). If you want to know more feel free to post on my wall!

We would have loved to adopt, but we ended up buying our mini goldendoodle from a breeder. I know was an expensive "mutt" but he's literally perfect for our family. He doesn't shed, is smart, playful and is just plain awesome. His name is Charlie, and he's basically a giant teddy bear!

We adopted our dog from the local SPCA. We originally went there to look at another dog I'd found on their site, but when we got there he had "NO CATS" written big across his paperwork, and we have a cat. So we walked through the kennels a couple of times and didn't really see anything we liked! We almost left and ended up going through one more time and saw her sunbathing in the outdoor part of her kennel. As soon as they took her out it was love at first sight.

I bought mine from a breeder!

@regberadaisy: We're not sure! We know she's part Shar-Pei, we waffle between boxer, lab (she looks a lot more like a lab these days as she's growing up) and a boerboel. I'd never heard of that last one but I Googled "Shar-Pei mix" once and found a few pictures of Shar-Pei/Boerboel mixes that look EXACTLY like her!

We basically say she's part Shar-Pei, part awesome.

My bunny is a rescue bunny! I got him when he was 1 year old, and now he's almost 10!

RESCUE! And in my opinion, it's the only way anyone should get a dog or cat.

reputable breeder...and actually, we just put down a deposit for a 2nd dog, from another reputable breeder (sooo excited to get her in less than 2 weeks!!)

i wish we could adopt, but i have a few hang ups because i was bitten by my family dog when i was 2, very severely--i had to have plastic surgery to repair part of my face. i'm not afraid of dogs now (though i am afraid of things coming at my face), but i'm determined to be extremely careful and smart about my pets, especially since we hope to have kids too someday (hence my being on hellobee ) dh has had the same kind of dog his whole life, which is a small breed that has just the kind of temperament i wanted as well, so for our first, that's what we went for. i also wanted a puppy, to try and control for as much as his early experiences as possible, so breeder made the most sense for us. and then for a second, it was the same factors in our decision. we thought about applying to a rescue, but then the timing was an issue-- we want our new dog to be past the initial training stages by the spring when we start ttc...