Pet origin stories

My dog cost $80 and the fee included all health stuff as well as an RFID chip. Adopt a dog (or cat), fuck buying from a puppymill.

The adoption fee at my shelter is $150 for dogs. Dogs are chipped, fixed, and up-to-date on vaccines. The day my wife and I adopted our guy, they were taking a hundred bucks off the adoption fee for large dogs. We walked in expecting to adopt a small dog, but the one we wanted to meet was adopted out and left ten minutes before we got there. So we went and looked at the other dogs. And then we stumbled across this big guy in the back of his cage, head cocked to the side, ears way too big for his head, not making a sound. My wife tells the staff she wants to meet him. We spent a whole 90 minutes trying to coax him out from under chairs. He was terrified.

Naturally, we took him home. And here he is an hour after getting there.

He stayed under my desk for the next three days.

He goes to the park once or twice a day, daycare once a week, and was in weekly group training for four months. He is so so so much more confident now. It's been just the most rewarding thing watching him come out of his shell.

Bonus: Here he is a couple weeks ago being murdered to death by one of the puppies at the park.

We've had him for about a year. He turns 2 in a few months.

I have a feeling OP posted this as bait, so people would post cute pics of their rescued dogs.

And I commend this effort. Moar doggos pls.

I spent $25 to adopt my cat from my local humane society and now he’s my best friend in the whole world.

Pretty sure my dog belonged to someone else. He ran into our yard one day and stayed for almost 2 weeks. No one came looking for him after a few posts to social media.

who made this meme trying to imply there aren't equally dumb cat people spending multiple thousands on a "purebred" cat?

if anything should be banned it's the AKC and whatever the cat version is

#AdoptDontShop and don't support breeders/puppy mills.

No such thing as a "pure bred" dog anyways.

Plus, mutts have far fewer health problems. "Pure breeds" are largely inbred and products of incest.

My dog showed up on our doorstep like, hi I'm your dog. So we were like, OK cool.

Pretty sure the shelter paid us to take our current cat lol. Or at least all the chipping and medical fees were waived. She'd been there for months and months and had already had one failed adoption.

She's ornery as hell and never wants us to pet her but somehow mysteriously happens to be in the same room as us all the time. And she sleeps on us at night. Deep down it's clear she loves us in her own cat way. 🥲

Also despite her...odd... temperament she is a beautiful cat! No clue why anyone would pay for an expensive breed when there are so many cuties like ours just wasting away in shelters.

Found on the streets of South Dallas with glaucoma in her now surgically removed eye, happy as ever and would still fetch all day if she could.

The breeder fee is the cheapest part of owning a dog.

Food and vet bills will each cost far more over the lifetime of the animal.

Paying a breeder is a chump move.

Unless you're putting your animal in shows, why tf would anyone care about having a pure breed? Get a mutt that resembles what you want, and you should be good to go (and have a healthier animal).

Don’t act like there aren’t cat breeders selling Persians and Sphinxes for thousands.

Got my dog for $30 bucks out of the back of a truck in a grocery store parking lot.

Plenty of cat owners with ridiculously expensive malformed inbred cats.

My best girl was a rescue. She's legitimately one of the best behaved and cutest dogs. Did we get lucky? Fuck yeah. Would I ever buy from a breeder? Probably not. There are rescue organizations for specific breeds if that's what you want/need.

Reminds me of a joke:

-"Yesterday, I went to a zoo and the only exhibition they had was a single dog."

-"Oh wow, that sounds horrible!"

-"Yeah, it was a shitzu!"

I'm ashamed to say I paid 100 bucks a gram for a 300 grams scrappy tiny thingy. Ashamed but unapologetic

Cat 1: adopted from someone on Reddit who had taken in a preggo stray.
Cat 2: adopted from a shelter, was found in a hoarder house.
Cat 3: adopted from a shelter, was found in a Penske truck.
Foster cat: appeared on our window ledge, theory is she was dumped with her litter outside the pet shop nearby.

I'm anticipating more rescues in our future because people are selfish assholes who think spaying is cruel, but are totally ok with overpopulating the world with cats that don't receive adequate care and often die lonely.

High as balls cat 3 (Fran) after her gabapentin fueled vet day.

That to me just tells how many cats there are on the streets

"I found this cat in the garbage"

every dog I've owned since adulthood was a rescue. they're the best dogs. the only thing you get with a purebred is a known history of disease and inbreeding ailments.

All my dogs have been mutts that we adopted off the streets as puppies.

I asked a colleague once if they’d rescued their pet & got a very very light shaming, something about how not every living situation is right for the majority of shelter animals. IDK if it was about allergies or what, but… oops.

I unironically feel superior having adopted wounded and hungry animal

I don’t know why I did it as I am not really the best person in my mind. It almost ended up badly anyway but like it all straightened out in the end after some… conflicts

It is still a wild animal though compared to all the other pets I seen. Like a small lion in 100 sq m apartment. I have no power or control over him.

I may give in one day and turn him into a pie

There are two stray dogs that were dropped off by some random prick at our local city park sometime back around April or so. They appear to be some sort of mix between Beagle, Terrier, Dachshund, something like that.

The police are aware of them and sometimes come to check on them and even bring them treats. Animal control can't seem to catch them, nor does it seem like they're really even trying.

We can't adopt them, both because apartment rules forbid pets, plus they really need a good open fenced in yard to run around and play. But me and my roommate have been going out to the park almost every day to feed them, pet them and clean them up at least.

We're not the only people helping them either, numerous other regular park visitors are also helping out, within their means anyways. We talk around to see if anyone can hopefully adopt them to a forever home one day.

So far no dice there, but the pups are doing much better than when they were dropped off now. I'm starting to think the smaller of the two might have worms, but one of the regular park visitors that loves dogs said he's gonna get them some worm medicine soon.

I dunno what else to do really. We can't adopt them, apartment rules ya know, but until they find a forever home, we're doing our best to care for them, within our means anyways.

Fish a cat out of a dumpster with a piece of shrimp on a string, it's not hard

This is my actual real life human daughter. I adopted her from the RSPCA. She has a condition called felineitis, so please dont bully her. Also she's nonverbal and extremely sensitive to stimulus, so be patient with her.

That's a shit zoo.

One does not simply find a cat on the street...

...the cat finds you

Like there aren't cats for many thousands too?

Just shows how much stray cats and cat breeding is much more of an issue than stray dogs and dog breeding.

I have animals pay me for the privilege of being my pets.

You can negotiate with breeders? FML!

Ah so you’re admitting your pet is trash.

I kid I kid, just highly allergic to cats and don’t miss them clawing my leather furniture when I had one and found out why I could not breathe and broke out in hives for like a year/2 of my life