With it being the month of February, all things related to love is on the mind. This is from all those cute little Valentine’s Day cards to thinking of ways to surprise the kids and hubby for a fun Valentine’s Day dinner. I decided to take a new approach to Valentine’s Day this year and that was by sharing the love through dog adoptions. Finding that perfect family pet through adoption can be such an amazing experience!

When it is the right time for dog adoptions.

I will say that I have been wanting to add a furry friend to our home for at least a year now. I knew then that the timing was not right at first because we were finally getting back into our home after it had flooded and also had a new baby. A new baby, 2 other kids, plus still trying to get things situated in a semi-new home was not the best timing for a new puppy.

As soon as life as we knew it was ‘calm’, I knew that we were ready for that family pet that we all had been wanting. I truly believe that when you are contemplating adding any pet to your home, you need to think about all the factors that bringing a new pet home will involve.

Factors when contemplating dog adoptions:

These include, but are not limited to:

• Will you be able to afford a new pet? Depending on what type of pet you will be getting, there are expenses involved. You want to be able to do what you need to in order to properly take care of it.
• Will you be able to spend the necessary time with your pet?
• Do you understand the longevity of this pet, as in the lifespan of the pet, up to 10 or more years?

Bringing home a new pet is a lot of work, especially when it is a new puppy. I have heard many compare the experience to having a newborn. After the first few days of having our dog home, I can say that I completely agree. It is a lot of work when dealing with the potty training, the sleeping at night, as well as the puppy playing. Now don’t get me wrong here. Having a newborn is a lot more difficult than bringing a new puppy into the home, but there are those similarities.

Finding the place for dog adoptions.

This post is centered around the concept of dog adoptions. You can always buy your dog from a breeder, but for the sake of this post, we are talking about finding dogs from shelters. There are many popup dog adoptions that occur at local pet stores like PetsMart and PetCo. These are usually scheduled on a particular Saturday of each month. Outside of these popup dog adoptions, most areas have local shelters in place that house pets that need homes.

Majority of these pets in the shelters have been found from not so good living conditions and normally they are not in the best condition when they find them. In other cases, they may be homeless puppies from a stray momma dog.

We adopted our puppy from Friends of the Animals Baton Rouge. FOTA is a local dog shelter in Baton Rouge. Its primary mission is to rescue, re-home, or otherwise save as many dogs and puppies as possible from the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). They take these stray dogs and puppies and have them checked out by one of their affiliated veterinarians. These dogs are well taken care of by fosters until their forever homes are found.

The adoption process.

So how do you go about adopting a dog or puppy? The first step is to keep a look out on what all dogs and puppies they have available. Once you have found ‘the one” visually, take the time to play and get to know the dog or puppy by playing with and holding it. Just like people, you can truly learn a lot about the dog after taking the time to engage with it.

I brought my older two kids to FOTA to play with the puppy we had seen on Facebook. We fell in love with his picture and just had to take the time to get to know him. Sure enough, we knew he was a perfect fit after only a few minutes with him.

You normally have to fill out an application before being approved for adoption. This is an important step because they want to ensure the dog is going to a loving home and will be well taken care of. There are many questions that will need to be answered.

These dog adoption application questions may include:

• Do you have a fenced in backyard?
• Where do you plan to keep the dog?
• If you have to leave the dog alone, for how long would it be?
• Do you understand that this is a long term commitment, as in many years?

There is usually a fee associated with pet adoptions. This fee covers all the care the dog has received up to this point, including being neutered/spayed and current vaccinations. The price of adoption is well worth it when you look at all of these advantages.

Saving lives and sharing the love with dog adoptions.

Buying a dog from a breeder is perfectly fine when you are wanting a specific breed of dog. If you are not worried about having a specific breed, then dog adoption is such a great opportunity for all. You are not only saving the life of that dog by bringing them into your home. You are giving that dog the love it deserves when making him/her apart of your family. I promise you, they will love you in return with all they can give!