NY Times has an excellent story about the challenges facing dog shelters. The statistics are staggering. Just in Austin, Texas alone, 40 dogs are abandoned everyday - that's 14,000 a year. Across the US 4 million dogs enter shelters out of which 2 million are euthanized.
Most dogs in shelters never get a chance. Most of the dogs in shelters are stressed and therefore don't show well.
My wife is part of a rescue organization and I saw this first hand with a dog that we fostered from our local shelter.
We were visiting the shelter and I saw a border-collie mix that had the saddest look on her face. She seemed stressed and depressed. The shelter told us that she was going to be euthanized the next week if she wan't adopted. She had no adoption applications pending. We decided to foster her to give her a better chance of being adopted.
We took her home and cleaned her up. She immediately opened up and her personality starting coming through. She was a wonderful friendly dog with great manners. We realized that she was at some point someone's baby. After a couple of days, we put her picture on our rescue website. She immediately had multiple adoption applications and now is living a great life with her new family.
If you are looking for a dog, try a shelter first and give the lonely dog in the kennel a chance. It might turn out to be your best friend.
