Reply #103: While he wasn't picked up from a shelter

[DeschutesRiver]

he was an unwanted dog that was lucky enough to have a breeder who would take him back. The puppy had a home, like thousands of shelter/rescue dogs likely did at one time, then the family didn't want him, and he is being rehomed from a breeder - could have just as easily been left at a shelter or a rescue.

I adopted a dog from a rescue - found as a stray, sent to the rescue and adopted out like Charlie to a family who decided after a week that they didn't want her (she kept escaping the back yard to chase birds all day on the adjoining golf course). Because the rescue had an agreement for the dog to be brought back to them if it didn't work out (much like this breeder, and they don't all do that), my girl was again put up for adoption and we have a great dog whose just had her one year anniversary here.

I feel this breeder does function as more than just a pump and dump breeder - the breeder also functions a shelter/rescue of their own dogs that are for whatever reason going to be disposed of by their owners. That is a rescue function to me - "Charlie" was just another unwanted dog before being rehomed with the Obamas. I don't think it matters who is doing the rescuing of unwanted dogs. Shelter dogs are more at risk, because usually shelters are kill zones and over crowded. But my girl came from an overburdened no kill rescue with a return if you aren't going to keep the dog policy. I am not at all picky about how an older, "no longer a cute little pup" kind of dog get rehomed.

Charlie didn't get a forever home first time out the gate, just like any rescue/shelter pooch. I know we aren't going to agree on this, but just wanted to put my point of view on it out there; I think the Obamas here, as in other areas, managed to find compromise - a hard to find type of hypo allergenic dog that their girls wanted (and that they probably have picked the Kennedy family's collective brains about regarding breed suitability for the family, which is good, because it ups the chances that the dog will be there forever), that had been given up and tossed out of the house by another family and was in need of being rehomed as a "used" dog which is not what breeders typically make their living doing.

I think they did a good thing.