Dog Prices

[the hare]

we paid $1,500 for our Geraman Shepherd...best fifteen hundred dollars I ever spent

[JerryCarr]

I recently acquired Hamish, a Kea'au Shelter rescue. He's wonderful, and I plan for all my future Big Island canine aquisitions to be rescues, too. That doens't mean that I can't appreciate people's need for purebred animals. For years on the Mainland, I raised and showed AKC Saint Bernards. Certain breeds do exhibit behavioral and emotional characteristics that go way beyond the physical similarities that members of a breed have, and people are willing to pay for that. Of course there are exceptions to the stereotypes such as my neighbor's "I-love-everybody-no-matter-how-mean-to-me-they-are" pit bull and my rancher cousin's "utterly-untrainable-for-herding" border collie. In the end, it's all about freedom of choice and being willing to pay for what you want.

[Hotzcatz]

A friend of mine used to raise purebred pedigreed wiener dogs. They would usually be sold to Oahu, Maui or occasionally Kauai since - according to her - folks on the Big Island didn't have as much money to pay for puppies. Now, with the economy and all, she's not raising any puppies at all. Apparently it is common for female wiener dogs to require expensive vet work when they have litters and with the shots and all, they can't sell the pups for enough to cover the vet bills, shots, puppy food and aggravation of puppies.

Personally, I generally want a purebred because then the dog's temperament is much more likely to be known.

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"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson

[csgray]

I agree that way too many perfectly wonderful dogs end up at animal shelters, or killed, for a lack of homes, but I have very mixed feelings about the methods of some dog rescue people.

We have a rescue dog who is the last rescue dog I will ever take. She is in many ways a wonderful dog, very loving and devoted to us and our other dogs, but she has some real psychological damage that stems from the abuse she received before she was rescued. Some of the resulting problems are just funny, like being terrified of ceiling fans, but one of those problems means we cannot ever use a house or pet sitter, put her in a kennel overnight, or have her around any male except my husband. This means we cannot travel, or even go to the Kona side for the night, and having any male house guests is a real hassle. We did not plan to have our lives so limited by adopting this animal, and should have been given the chance to make a conscious choice about what we were doing.

Looking back, the rescue person who had her for months knew about this issue, and chose not to tell us in hopes we would be committed to the dog before we found out, which is what happened. Rescue operations are often so intent on finding a home for the dog that they do not always share important information with the adopting family, which is unfair to everyone involved. We made a lifelong commitment to this dog, but did so without being given the information we needed to make an educated decision, which was unfair to both the dog and us.

My point here is use real caution when you adopt a rescue dog who was abused, there are lasting effects which can make an otherwise wonderful dog a very difficult member of the family to have. Do not assume the rescue people will share with you all the information they have, their priority is to place the dog, not make you happy.

Carol
ed. to fix a typo