“10. Pets: If you buy a puppy (or kitty) from a professional breeder or a pet store outlet, it can set you back anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. On top of this, you'll need to anticipate additional fees and vet bills, too. Instead, adopt a pre-owned pet from your local animal shelter and get a new family member, fees, and vaccines at a substantially lower cost.”
Happy to discover that pets are mentioned on the list, Helen Woodward Animal Center spokesman John Van Zante said, “The public is used to hearing us ‘animal crazies’ at the shelters and rescues tell them that adoption is a better alternative than buying from a backyard breeder or pet shop. But for U.S. News and World Report to run the story, then have it spread even more by the Yahoo Finance website, could lend even more credibility, not to mention the worldwide reach.”
He added, “However the article didn't go into the fact that, according to The Humane Society of the United States, there are five million orphaned dogs and cats put down in the United States every year—500,000 in California alone—simply because there are too many of them and not enough space or funds to keep them.
“So when a family adopts their new pet there's a good chance that they are saving its life.”
Saving some bucks? Good deal.
Saving a life? Priceless.
Katerina Lorenzatos Makris is the author of 17 novels for
publishers including Avon, E.P. Dutton, and Simon & Schuster, and
hundreds of articles for publications such as National Geographic
Traveler, San Francisco Chronicle, and Veggie Life. She wrote a
teleplay for CBS and short fiction for The Bark magazine. With coauthor
Shelley Frost, she wrote Your Adopted Dog
(The Lyons Press). Holding a B.A. in Environmental Science Studies and
a lifelong interest in animal issues, she spends a lot of her time
battling a severe addiction to dogs.
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