*Sigh* I'm finally home and have the time to respond properly. I volunteer for an animal rescue society called "Second chance animal rescue society" and I would say that a least 5 dogs a year that come though SCARS have to have a leg amputated do to injuries. All of the scars dogs are in foster homes (so no worries they do not have to hop around on a wire bottom) and the three legged dogs are completely normal and can do everything their four legged friends do and they do get adopted out just as much as any other dog.
The puppy mill situations are awful and I'd like to think that most people would not purposely adopt from one. Having dogs stacked in cages never let out except to breed (yes people these dogs live in their pee and poop and usually there is 4-5 cages stacked on top of eachother and guess where their fecees travels, not a pretty sight!) this is not my idea of a well bread animal. I know this because we've rescued animals from places such as this.
We also deal with reserve animals and animals from the pound that are found in very poor conditions. We once had a lady call scars to tell us that there was this awful smell coming out from under her trailer. When Sylvia showed up she crawled under the trailer and found a small hole that 6 puppies fell into. Four were dead (hence the smell) and two were still alive. They died because the hole was just big enough that they couldn't climb out and they ended up starving to death. What's worse is that the owner (of the trailer) didn't care enough to pull them out and try to save them, they only wanted the smell to be gone! This is just a small taste of what scars goes through.
I got my dog Gulliver from scars. He came to scars because EHS was going to put him down (before ever going up for adoption) because he growled at the animal control officer, heaven forbid the slight possibility of him biting anyone and they be held liable. Gulliver does growl and bark at people coming into our house but he has never attacked anyone and he clams down quickly. Lucky for me one of the people working at the EHS called scars and said they thought he was a nice dog and didn't deserve to die. So one of the girls picked him up and a few days latter I met him and fell in love and adopted him.
I think if your not sure or don't really care about what breed you want then you should adopt from a no kill animal rescue society. If you want a specific breed then take a hard look at the breeder and ask around about them.
For anyone who wants to read about scars or wants links to animal rescue places visit the scars website at
www.scarscare.org I will warn people now that the rescue stories are really hard to read (you will need kleenex) and there are pictures. On the "available for adoption page" I believe right now there is one really sad story and picture, so don't say I didn't warn you. There are also "Look at me now" stories about dogs who have been adopted and are doing great.
I'm done now, thanks for reading
