The other day I was talking to a friend who works for the Humane Society. She was talking about how a dog had been returned to the shelter because the family didn’t have time to train it. 

Unfortunately, it’s a story I’ve seen or heard many times over my 25 years of grooming. Sometimes people adopt puppies or kittens without thinking that once you adopt this pet, you adopt a responsibility to take care of that pet for its lifetime. The longest living cat was 38 years old and the longest living dog reportedly lived to be 29 years old! True, most pets don’t live past 20 years, but you need to remember yours could be that exception to the rule.

Most households own pets with 44 percent of us raising more than one furbaby and 29 percent of us having both cats and dogs. Approximately 3.2 million of these are adopted each year from shelters and pet rescue adoption agencies.

Around 5.7 million animals enter shelters every year, with about a quarter of them being pure breeds. Sadly about half that aren’t adopted are euthanized. This is a very sad reality for the shelter workers and why it is so important to them to try to place pets with good homes, in addition to educating people about the importance of spay and neuter programs to help keep more unwanted litters coming into the shelters.

Another aspect that shelters and rescues look at when doing adoptions is if the family can financially afford the pet or make the time to enjoy the pet as part of the family. The average cost of food, medical supplies, training and other care for a pet is usually $600 per year with the additional costs of pet grooming and other pampering. The average time needed to walk and take care of your pet is about an hour a day, but of course you and your pet would benefit from more time together if you can spare it.

This is even more important when you adopt a puppy. Puppies require training and training costs time and money. Puppies are like children. They do not know what they are doing until they are trained. A lot of times they will be destructive if left to their own devices. Training can be the best money spent and it is way cheaper to train your pet than to replace all the stuff that they can destroy or the injuries they can inflict when not taught to be calm when needed around young kids or older adults.

The most common reason people give up their pets is due to behavior issues that could be avoided with just a little training.

So next time you think your household seems a little lonely and you need to hear the pitter patter of four feet following you from room to room, please think about the responsibility first and if you still feel a pet is a good fit for you, then talk to your local shelter about what kind of pet will suit your family’s lifestyle best. After all adoption is for life!

Tina Clem is the owner of The Loved Canine Salon in Tifton. For more information, contact her at 859-494-8462.