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Why Adopt?
Oftentimes, people who want to get a new dog focus solely on their age and looks, so they go to pet stores to find their "perfect puppy". Pet stores supply a much larger variety of breeds as well as the cutest and youngest pets. But have you ever wondered why there's a new supply of puppies every month? Pet stores are supplied by the cruel industry of puppy mills, which repeatedly breed dogs until a desirable one is born. Animal shelters, on the other hand, receive abandoned dogs with the aim to re-home them into loving homes. However, because of pet store's popularity, animal shelters begin to overcrowd with dogs who are not getting adopted, and many shelters resort to inhumane euthanization to open up space. The most effective solution to these unethical practices is adopting from no-kill shelters.
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A puppy mill is defined by The Humane Society as "an inhumane high-volume dog breeding facility that churns out puppies for profit, ignoring the needs of the pups and their mothers." These mills are often unhygienic, crowded, and cruel, yet they're shockingly common. These mills keep dogs packed in cages with little to no food or water, and they are forced to keep breeding until a desirable, or cute, dog is born. These are the dogs that you find in pet stores. An estimated 10,000 puppy mills continue to operate in the United States alone, and each year, 2 million dogs from puppy mills are sold through pet stores. Puppy mills use mother dogs to breed litter after litter; in fact, over 194,000 dogs are kept solely for breeding in various facilities around the world. These dogs are killed once they become infertile, and they are never able to enjoy the carefree life that they deserve. Many pet stores claim to be USDA-licensed or have an AKC registration, but these claims do not state that the puppies are being well cared for. Although the pets at the pet store are completely innocent, it is crucial avoid them because by buying them, you are supporting the cruelty of puppy mills.
Animal shelters aim to re-home neglected dogs to loving families, but one of the biggest problems that shelters face is not having enough room for all the dogs they receive. This problem is especially prominent in Japan due to the lack of space. Oftentimes, they will resort to euthanizing the animals who have been at the shelter the longest. In Japan, 82% of the pets taken into public animal shelters, which counted up to 204,000 animals total, were euthanized by CO2 in 2010. Only 11% of animals were successfully re-homed. The dogs who were and still are being euthanized in shelters spend their last moments in an overcrowded CO2 gas chamber gasping for air. The old and sick dogs—who are most often the majority of those who are killed—may die fifteen minutes after the CO2 has been released in the chamber due to circulatory problems. In these fifteen minutes, they slowly and painfully are suffocated, and some are still alive even when vital organs shut down.
