Everything You Need to Know When Adopting An Adult Dog

When it comes to adopting dogs, most owners would prefer to adopt younger ones as they are utterly irresistible, even when these little rascals might be tougher to train than the adult dogs. You see, generally speaking, adult dogs from the shelters tend to be well trained already, but they are given up due to many other reasons. But for the case of the puppies, they are chosen simply because of specific desired breeds as well as for their age. Most experienced vets will frown on this, as the puppy’s character traits might not surface up until they reach adulthood. There are other factors that will contribute to the adoption of an adult dog too.

Here are some of the top reasons why you should definitely adopt an adult dog than to get a puppy for a pet.

Top reasons why you should adopt an adult dog

1. There are no surprises

When it comes to getting a new puppy, you can only have a guesstimate on the puppy’s event size as well as characteristics. There are just this much of information that the charts can tell us, but there are always exceptions to this. For the case of the adoption of the adult dog, it is really a case of what you see is what you get, and hence there are little surprises for you.

2. Most of them come trained

When you adopt an adult dog, chances are they are already potty trained, and hence they have lesser of a chance to defecate anywhere around the house. On the contrary, when you adopt a puppy, you will obviously need to spend time and effort in potty training them. This can be tough for owners who are already lacking of time to train the dogs.

It is the same for housetraining too. In fact, since most of the adult dogs are house trained, it will be easier for them to acclimatize to the new conditions in a new environment.

3. Adult dogs have lesser of teething issues.

I recall during the days at which I was training my puppy, there are days at which I come home, only to see shredded papers, holes in my socks and shoes as well as many other items that are destroyed by the puppy. While it is necessary for the puppies to chew a lot to develop strong teeth, this is not the case for the adult dogs because they have already gone through the process already. As such, this teething issue only occurs in puppies, and this can be disastrous for owners since your puppy can potentially chew off parts of your expensive furnishing at home.

4. More sleep

Adult dogs really sleep a lot, and they can sleep through the night as they have already gown up to be less reliant on humans. For the case of the puppy, it is a common occurrence for them to keep waking up, either to relieve themselves or to seek attention from you. This is much akin to babies, since babies generally do not sleep through the night. In comparison, dogs can really sleep through the night, sometimes through the day too.

5. Lesser restrictions

When it comes to bringing your adult dog out, you just need to be mindful of their safety as well as bringing them to dog friendly places. This is because the adult dog should have developed their immune system via the injections that they would have taken. For puppies, it is not so clear cut as they would need to go through the immunization process before it is safe to bring them out. As such, if you are looking for a companion straightaway, adopting an adult dog is the way to go!

What to consider when adopting adult dogs

Before you go about adopting the adult dog, there is some information that you will need to know.

1. Selection process

During the selection process, all family members must be involved in the decision making process, and the decision must be unanimous one. This is to ensure that the entire family has the same buy-in, and this will be important when it comes to loving the dog and ensuring that it feels welcomed in the house.

Of course, the dog itself must feel comfortable with you too. You should allow the dog to approach you. Observe the dog’s reaction when it interacts with your family as well as with strangers. Preferably, look at the dog’s body language when it interacts with children as this is a clear indication if they are comfortable being around kids, since kids can really be a tyrant these days!

There are some dogs that will display signs of nonchalant as well as being aloof. While these dogs do deserve to be adopted, do be mindful that they might take more time to be used to be around your family.

2. Observing Dog’s behaviour

Before you decide on the dog, even if they appear friendly to you and your family, you will also need to look at the dog’s current accommodation as well as behaviour. First of all, a clear indication if the dog is potty trained is that the kennel shouldn’t be soiled at all. Also, check if the dog does respond to basic commands such as “stop”, “come” as well as “sit”. This will indicate if the dog has been trained before too.

Most dog shelters will allow you to bring the dog around the area. By doing so, it will allow you to have a glimpse of how the do reacts to things in the environment. Watch how the dog reacts to the greens as well as to strangers. Watch how she reacts when strangers touches her as there is little sense in adopting a dog that does not like to socialize at all.

Wrapping things up

As you can probably see, there is more sense in adopting an adult dog as compared to a puppy. Just be sure to do your due diligence, and the adult dog will turn out to be a great addition to your family.