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.

#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.

Paying a breeder is a chump move.

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.

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

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

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.

Plenty of cat owners with ridiculously expensive malformed inbred cats.

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