

How We Treat Pets in America - rohin
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/44230885813/how-we-treat-pets-in-america

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sharkweek
Soap box time!! -- I walk dogs at a local shelter. There is not a common breed
that doesn't find it's way through our doors at some point during the year.
Sure, you might not end up with a "certified" purebred that's going to win a
dog show (do you really want one of those for your family anyway?), but with
almost certainty, I can guarantee that you can find what you're looking for at
a local shelter.

There is almost no reason to "buy" a dog -- the shelters are overcrowded, and
the odds are good you can find what you want regarding breed/temperament if
you're patient. Responsible shelters will find you the right dog if you tell
them what you're looking for.

~~~
archon
> There is almost no reason to "buy" a dog

I agree, if we're talking about puppies. There's no reason to buy a puppy. But
an adult dog? I adopted an adult dog from a shelter, and I will never do so
again.

I realize that the rescue community does its best with the animals, but as an
owner of a shelter dog, I really wish somebody had explained to me that the
dog you see in the shelter might not actually be the same dog once you take
her home. In the course of a few weeks after I adopted her, my laid back,
amiable companion had turned into a hyperactive, sometimes-fearful, sometimes-
aggressive terror.

My point is that with an adult rescue dog, you are not getting only a dog. You
are getting a dog and all of its history. For instance, my dog has a deep fear
of manhole covers, tall grass, and a dozen other things. I have no idea why
she's afraid, and I never will, because I wasn't there when whatever triggered
that fear happened. She's also absolutely terrified of firearms. If I even
touch a firearm around her (I've never discharged one around her), she runs
away whimpering. I have to preemptively crate her on range days, just to get
my guns to the car.

I've been working with her for 2 years, and she's slowly gotten better with
some things, but even now she's still afraid of a lot of the same things. And
there is absolutely no way I can trust her around children. When my fiance and
I get married and want to start having kids, I don't know what will become of
her.

All of this to say, I completely understand peoples' hesitancy to adopt an
adult dog from a shelter. You can't be sure what you're getting, and while
neither can you be sure of what you're getting (in terms of temperament) when
you adopt a puppy, at least with a puppy you know that no other messed up
human has done bad things to your dog.

Edit: to clarify that I haven't shot my dog...

~~~
__david__
I had a very similar experience. I got a rescue that was an adolescent (not
fully grown) and just the sweetest dog ever. We did all the kinds of
socializing that you're supposed to do but as he got older he became more and
more aggressive towards anyone that didn't live in the house.

It got to the point where we'd have to lock him up in a room when people came
over because we were genuinely afraid that he would seriously injure a
visiting friend or family member. We tried all kinds of trainers but nothing
at all helped and we finally decided to put him down because it felt like he
was a bomb that was just waiting to go off.

It was all the more depressing because when there were no strangers around he
was a total sweetheart. He loved snuggling up with his humans and playing with
our other dog.

The experience was so negative that I don't think I'd ever take in a shelter
dog again. I paid a good breeder for a purebred after him (my breed choice of
Whippet partially inspired by the positive behaviors of my shelter dog) and
I've been very happy.

------
nsns
Somewhat ironic to find this post two links above the one about lab rats
getting tortured for "science". I guess rats are uglier.

~~~
Falling3
I for one find this kind of cognitive dissonance extremely upsetting and a bit
perplexing. People are easily able to compartmentalize their feelings about
various animals. This leads to neat little groups - food, pet, science
experiment. It's very frustrating to me.

~~~
bjt
If it's purely the compartmentalization that upsets you, then you'd be happier
if people were totally cool about tossing the Frisbee around with their dog
Spot on Saturday, then cooking him up for Sunday dinner. Is that the case?

Anyway, people are a mix of rationality and emotions. We build up emotional
attachments to the animals we keep as pets, and get uneasy thinking about
using them in meals or experiments.

~~~
Falling3
I'd prefer some consistency. If people think it's horrific to eat a dog,
there's no reason they should be perfectly cool eating a pig.

------
Falling3
_Very_ happy to see this on HN. I have never understood why people are willing
to purchase dogs. Between the conditions of large-scale breeders and the
amount of animals waiting in shelters, it's just absurd.

~~~
pageld
I know it goes against most people, but I bought a dog from a breeder.
Basically just to see its parents and how it acted around its litter.

My wife and I adopted a Lab two years earlier from a humane society. When she
went through puberty, she started acting "off". As in she'd be playing, stop,
have no depth in her eyes, and bite you if you got near her. 40 seconds later
she was fine and she didn't even know what happened. She even bit the last
trainer when she had one of her "seizures." The rest of the time she did every
trick and voice command perfectly. After we that, we decided we had to put her
down. We spent probably $2000 on training in the year-ish we had her not
including the hours calling universities and whatnot for advice.

After many hours of researching, we found out her dad "might have been" a
German Shepherd used in dog fighting that had other issues. That dog was shot
like a coyote because it kept on tormenting cattle. Would have been nice to
know that ahead of time.

We didn't want to go through that again. So we paid the $800, drove 6 hours,
saw our new dog get corrected by its father, and be genuinely rambunctious.
Now when we go on vacation people argue for the rights to take care of him
instead of saying no way.

It's amazing what knowing the family history can do to your stress levels.

~~~
tjr
I agree with that too. Seeing the temperament of other dogs in the family can
be a good indicator of how the puppy will (can?) turn out.

I've had four Brittany spaniels, two from early puppy stage, and two from
adult stage. The two that I had from a puppy were wonderful dogs for me and my
family. The two that were adopted as adults had acquired a variety of odd
behaviors; one of them we were able to put up with, the other one was too
destructive and eventually we had to relocate to a farm with more space than
we had in the suburbs.

I now have an almost 2-year-old border collie that I first saw when she was 5
weeks old. Border collies in general have some particular tendencies that I'm
still working on with her, but in general her temperament is very good.

For what it's worth, I did peruse the local shelter for a while before
adopting a puppy from a farm.

------
bugschivers
Funny this comes out, when only last week this research was released
[http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=1049...](http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10498)
"Neutering, and the age at which a dog is neutered, may affect the animal’s
risk for developing certain cancers and joint diseases" It is also worth
checking out Nathan Winograd, who is campaigning to make ALL shelters in
America no-kill. It is worth looking at the statistics and reasons why
shelters kill animals in their care, as most often, it is not simply that
there are not enough homes. <http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=10627>

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michaelochurch
Sorry to be "that guy" but "dog days" has nothing to do with a summertime
culling of stray dogs. It has to do with the "Dog Star", Sirius:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_days>

This is a good article, and puppy mills (and the general unnaturalness of many
dog breeds) are something more people should know about.

~~~
rohin
Hey, you're right. We updated the article with your link and clarified the
original source better. Thanks for pointing that out.

------
__david__
> These breeders can raise their dogs in idyllic conditions of sunny farms,
> financed by the high premium placed on purebreds.

That sounds logical, but from my talking to various breeders it just isn't
reality. They claim to barely break even or even lose money, despite charging
~$1000 per dog. Most of them seem to have other income that supplements their
hobby.

Good breeders are motivated by love of the breed and not by money (which, to
be fair the article pointed out).

------
dpatrick86
Neutering in rats slightly increases lifespan of the animal. If this could be
proven in dogs/cats, etc. as a more general biological phenomenon I think it'd
be a great selling point for the procedure to new pet owners.

Who doesn't want their new pet to live longer?

<http://www.ratbehavior.org/Neutering.htm>

~~~
bugschivers
<https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/100301g.aspx>

"New research on the biology of aging in dogs suggests a link between
shortened life expectancy and ovary removal."

"The study, published in the December 2009 issue of the journal Aging Cell,
found that Rottweilers that were spayed after they were 6 years old were 4.6
times as likely to reach 13 years of age as were Rottweilers that were spayed
at a younger age."

------
Mc_Big_G
I volunteer as a canine friend at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society and it
kills me to know that for every one of the dogs that they save (no kill
policy), many other dogs who are just as sweet are put down.

I've been volunteering there for a year and have never had a problem with a
dog. Their population is almost exclusively pitbulls and they've all been
great.

I started freelancing a few months ago and my first client was
<http://www.wagaroo.com> The site is built with rails and ember.js. It's very
MVP right now and any feedback is appreciated.

They just got started and are only working with shelters and rescues for now.
Their ultimate plan is to include responsible breeders and fight the puppy
mills but they are taking their time in order gain understanding and to find
the best way to make it happen.

------
rdl
This is a great priceonomics post (your blog is amazing, second only to the
old OKCupid blog!)

I feel kind of bad for wanting a purebred cat now, vs. a shelter cat, but I'll
probably do it anyway (the breeder is someone I know, and probably loses $1-2k
on each kitten since it's just a hobby for a rich spouse, etc.) Russian Blues
seem worth it. I'm considering taking an ex show cat instead of a kitten,
though.

------
aeturnum
Anyone have numbers on the total number of pets in the US? Or on the number of
natural deaths each year? It's hard to contextualize these numbers without
understanding the overall population.

~~~
bugschivers
<http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=10627>

------
kirpekar
I've never really used their product, but the priceonomics blog is excellent.
Complete, thorough, deeply researched and well written. Kudos!

------
bluedino
I thought this article was going to be about the $52 billion a year Americans
spend on pets.

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papsosouid
It is worth noting that the campaign to make spaying and neutering required
has also done considerable harm. Puppies are often spayed and neutered as
young as 6 weeks, despite the numerous health problems associated with the
practice. Even the standard 6 months causes significant increases in a number
of health problems. We need to stop punishing our pets based on the notion
that if we don't get them fixed early, they will breed via magic or spores or
something of the sort. You can in fact prevent your dog from having sex with
other dogs.

~~~
jug6ernaut
"they will breed via magic or spores or something of the sort."

You obviously don't understand the problem, the problem isn't with people who
are responsible. The problem is with people dump there dogs on the side of the
road, the people who breed there dogs because it sounded cool, or to make
money and end up not being able to sell them/give them away and end up dumping
them somewhere.

I have never heard of "significant increases in a number of health problems"
in spaying/neutering at the sixth month mark, this may be different for some
dogs but thats besides the point. Spaying/neutering is not bad, doing so
indiscriminately(like everything) is bad. I dont know where your coming from
calling it "punishing" the pets. Even with the surgery itself most dogs are up
& running in 1-2 days.

I would agree that spaying/neutering is not the complete answer. We should be
punishing people who hurt there pets. You should not be able to have a pet if
you have been proven not responsible to have one, you should be punished for
doing harm to them.

Pets arn't the problem, people are. Pet over population and other problems are
simply the sad side effect of humanity.

~~~
cantankerous
_Pets are simply the sad side effect of humanity._

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Pets can give their owners all kinds of
health benefits, emotionally, and otherwise. Humanity isn't all bad, last I
checked. I do enjoy my dog.

~~~
jug6ernaut
Sorry, allow me to clarify, the pet overpopulation problem* is simply a said
side effect to humanity.

~~~
cantankerous
Got it ;-)!

