Picture this: a new family moves into their new suburban house in a nice neighborhood. After settling in, they decide they need a furry friend. Then, after extensive research, they decide to buy their animal from a breeder. Right?

Wrong. Here’s why: 

Cost. 

According to Vetstreet, a website that specializes in pets, adopting animals will carry an adoption fee ranging from $50 to $200 depending on how needy the shelter is. Alternatively, buying an animal can cost from $500 to $1000 and sometimes more. Using all this money to buy an animal will also make it more difficult to buy other necessities for the animal, like food and bedding. Wouldn’t it make more sense to spend less on a sweet animal that has been through a lot, and spend more money on spoiling it? 

Help cut off backyard breeders.

Too many breeders around the world are uneducated in the birthing efforts of an animal are keeping puppies and their parents in poor conditions to keep a profit. According to Paws.org, an organization dedicated to donating to the adoption efforts of animals, writer Juan Castillo says that, “over 90% of puppies in pet stores are sourced from puppy mills.” A puppy mill is a commercial breeding facility that mass-produces dogs and cats. These places can keep dogs and cats in cages for their entire life, and the animal’s only purpose is to offspring. Adopting from a shelter will cut off the source of money given to backyard breeders, and eventually, end the terrors that the poor dogs and cats are put through.

Save a life.

According to the ASPCA, an organization dedicated to helping shelter animals go to their rightful home, approximately 1.5 million animals (dogs and cats) are euthanized each year. This can be changed simply by choosing to adopt. Everyone wants puppies. Puppies will never have an issue being adopted. The animals that have a difficult time being adopted are the older dogs and cats that have been thrown into the shelter after having an unfit home, old dogs that were used for breeding in puppy mills, and animals left behind by their families. A dog is a man’s best friend, no matter how old it is. “Breeders, puppy mills, and even those families that do not adopt from shelters are all to blame for this killing cycle,” Kelly Iverson says, a foster mom for sheltered animals. “There are not enough people adopting dogs to balance out the number of dogs being rescued and put into the shelters in the first place.” 

The reasons to adopt and not shop are endless. Joanne Dimashi, a junior at Battlefield High School, says that she thinks people should adopt and not shop because it, “cuts off profits to backyard breeders.” If everyone begins adopting from shelters instead of buying animals, less innocent and healthy animals will be euthanized, and the world will be a better place.