What do I want to adopt? Adult or Puppy?
What do do you want to foster?
Puppies are:
Impressionable: What ever you do to them when young, they will remember later in life.. From 8-12 weeks and 7-9 months, if they have a good or bad experience with kids, people with hats, men, being dropped, hurt by another dog, they will later hate kids, men, people with hats and dogs. This comes out in 1-3 years later.
Accidents
Puppies who are 7-14 week will have accidents and it is expected/ Puppies until about 1- ½ years will have an occasional accident because the human is not on schedule!
Chewing
All puppies chew until about 2-3 years. They will chew shoes, furniture, pillows, blankets in a kennel, cords, remotes and many other things.. The average family loses $500-1000 worth of stuff in the first year of puppyhood.
Training:
They do not know sit, come, walking up and down stairs, they jump up on your good clothes, they don’t walk on a leash or pull really hard, they play bite you skin and hair. They pull on your clothes and can tear them and more. They will bark in a kennel and keep you up all night.
Vet Bills:
Puppies need 3sets of shots to be fully vaccinated. Also, they are full or worms, If you are afraid of worms, don’t get a puppy. Worms are very very treatable but all are contagious to other dogs if they eat the poop. Also, some can be tranmitted to humans if you not wash your hands.
All puppies and dogs need heartworm preventative all year round. It cost 7-15 a month depending the weight of the dog or puppy.
Spay and neuters in the TC area cost about $250-375 depending on where u go and How big the puppy is.
Even adult dogs need vaccinations every year. For DHPP, Rabies, Heartworm test ad Bordatella, that cost about $150 with a vet exam. Of course, that doesn’t include the heartworm preventative, or any other minor or major health issues you may come across.
Adult dogs:
If you get a dog that you don’t know a thing about you don’t know about any of the above. It is a surprise. They may know some of the things above, or may not know anything! As a Last Hope foster, we take what we get and work on them until they are as perfect as they can be while they are waiting for a home. The new owner has the benefit of our training and experience. They also will know where we are in that training, his good points and bad points. No adult dog is perfect even if trained! If you want a perfect dog, foster and get stuffed animal!
