Does your shelter have puppies/small dogs?

[Picklepaige]

After browsing a few forums, I am surprised at how many shelters don't regularly get in small dogs and puppies. Especially in the north, they seem to just have large, young adult dogs in shelters, normally lab/pit/or shepherd mixes.

So, do your local shelters get in many puppies and/or small dogs?

I live in Mississippi, where there is MASSIVE overpopulation problem. Maybe in the north there is an owner-retention problem, but not here. All we seem to get in our shelter are strays and accidental litters. To give a little sample of what we have, here is a pet list:

Tupelo-Lee Humane Society - Adopt Dogs and Puppies!

We get in around 50 or so PUPPIES a day, so it's probably way outdated (this is a list from about five days ago.) Also, it's not even a quarter of the dogs available, because the photographer only has an hour before she has to go to work.

I mean, we have plenty of low-cost spay and neuters. People just don't care about dogs here

 

[Maxy24]

We get them with every shipment at the rescue I volunteer with but all our dogs are from down south. For whatever reason Spaying and neutering is done more up here than down there and so we don't have a bunch of loose dogs running about getting each other pregnant. There are pups and certainly lots of small dogs but they get adopted the fastest.

 

[xpaeanx]

I'm on Long Island and yeah... we get like NO puppies here. ever.

pretty much all the dogs in the kill shelters are strays. LOTS and LOTS of pit mixes with some shepherd mixes.

The no-kills have mix of stray/owner turn in. But still, no puppies.

of course, here they fix the animal before they give it to you(cats & dogs). So I think that really helps keep the pups down.

I had tried to get a transport going so that I could take a few small breed puppies from the south that would have been PTS and find them homes up here since there are so few puppies that come through around here. It didnt' seem to work out though.

 

[Bailey08]

The rescue Bailey came from brought dogs up from downstate IL to the city/near north suburbs. They had a *ton* of puppies -- they primarily pulled puppies, and had a few returns and purebred older dogs. It was heartbreaking. They would try to save the moms, but they didn't usually have the room (and the puppies, of course, were much more easily adoptable). They did have some Heinz 57s, but a lot of labs and lab mixes as well. Only a few smaller dogs; most were larger breeds. Bailey was maybe 8 wks when I adopted him (I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't fudge that a bit).

In the city, though, there were more pittie and shepherd mixes and less young puppies.

 

[elegy]

right now there are a bunch at one of the shelters as they've absorbed some of the latest puppymill bust dogs, but it's often pretty hard to get a small breed pup or younger adult dog- they get snapped up quick as a wink. if you want a pit/lab/shepherd x we've got it covered, though.

we have a couple rescues who pull pups/dogs from kill shelters in the south and adopt them out up here, and there are a couple "rescues" who deal in mill dogs, but that gives me the heebie jeebies (especially at $400 a pop "adoption" fee).

 

[Tankstar]

yes we get them. Lots of small dogs and puppies, majority from puppy mill rescues. We have alot of "small breed" rescues around here. We have alot of rescues in my immeadiate area. No shelter, as it burnt down in Febuary, but they are remaking one, grounmd braking starts soon for that.

 

[sprintime]

Our two shelters have lots of them off amd on. Right now they have too many because of spring breedings I guess but they have everything from tiny terriers to mixed chihuahuas or other toy mixes. This was a phase everyone thought they could make money by breeding toy mixes so now our shelters have had 4 adopt- a- thon so far since May.

 

[MericoX]

Usually the shelter here (we're in Maine) only gets puppies if there's a puppymill bust, and they transport alot of dogs from the south and there are usually puppies and other highly adoptable big dogs.

 

[Laurelin]

We get some of both. In the spring we usually have 2-4 litters at all times. Other times of the year we get in maybe a pup or two a week. If you want big pups (6 months- 1 year), we get those in around the clock. Typically we have at least 4 small dogs at all times but they may or may not be spoken for. I only recall one litter ever of small breed puppies- JRT mixes. The small dogs are mostly terriers and chihuahuas with a few toy breeds and designer dogs thrown in. There's not nearly as much variety with them as the large dogs and we never have nearly as many small dogs as large dogs. The majority of the shelter dogs by far are pits, labs, hounds, and herding breeds.

Many of the small dogs we get in are actually coming from students buying pups at the local pet store. We've had several come in with papers and many more we've been told were originally bought there. One memorable one was an 11 week old Schnoodle from the shop. I can't imagine tiring of a dog that fast, but apparently it's possible. The smallest dog we ever got in was a 2 lb yorkie named Spazz.

 

[bnwalker2]

Ours does quite often, but they're usually adopted or rescued pretty quickly.

 

[Sweet72947]

The shelters here get young puppies (like 9wks+) only occassionally. Most puppies are 5 months+. There are plenty of small dogs though, like poodles, JRT, beagles, shih tzus, lhasa apsos, yorkies, silkies, chis and mixes thereof. You will tend to see more dogs who are 40+ lbs in the shelter, but little dogs always trickle in.

 

[MH<3dogs]

Our local SPCA which is where I adopted Hannah from was shut down quite a few months ago. When we went to adopt a dog all they had were puppies.

There are 2-3 local rescues and they get their fair share of puppies. You can always find a small dog.

 

[FoxyWench]

the shelters in this area get puppies VERY rarely, same with toy breed dogs...
but its porbably a good thing becuase they charge a hell of alot more for pups and small breeds because there "highly adoptable"
i wouldnt even consider adopting from some of the shelters round here simply because they want $500 as an adoption fee for a puppy or small breed...thats almsot as much as youd pay a good breeder for many of the smaller breeds...and the pups are always unknown medium/large mixes.

pits, shepards and labs (and mixes thereof) are most common around here

 

[lizzybeth727]

I went to a shelter yesterday and was suprised at how many small breeds they had.... probably about half of the dogs. There was a full blooded chihuahua and a dachshund, lots of terriers and one or two shih tzu mixes.

I can say that giant breeds are extremely hard to find. My organization is always looking for tall dogs - 26 inches or more at the shoulders - and rarely ever do we see one in the shelter.

 

[~Tucker&Me~]

We rarely get small dogs -- they seem to get snatched up by rescues almost immediately. Puppies are also taken by rescues, the few times we do get them.

It's really sad actually, as we have kennels that could fit what... 30 dogs? And we normally have in 5 or 6. I wish someone would get a program going that could transport dogs out here from kill shelters, because we have the room and the money for them.

Stupid system.

 

[ihartgonzo]

Yes... I would say that at least 25% of the dogs at our shelters are small or puppies. Of course, the majority of the dogs are adolescents, and medium/large size, but irresponsible people buy dogs of all breeds and ages.

It kinds of irritates me when people say they cannot find a small dog, or a puppy, or a dog of a specific breed in shelters. There are other venues of rescuing a dog! Private rescues, breed rescues, etc, are often overflowing with purebreds, puppies, and little dogs.

 

[iibao]

the shelters in this area get puppies VERY rarely, same with toy breed dogs...
but its porbably a good thing becuase they charge a hell of alot more for pups and small breeds because there "highly adoptable"
i wouldnt even consider adopting from some of the shelters round here simply because they want $500 as an adoption fee for a puppy or small breed...thats almsot as much as youd pay a good breeder for many of the smaller breeds...and the pups are always unknown medium/large mixes.

pits, shepards and labs (and mixes thereof) are most common around here

That is ridiculous, over here we got small and puppies. They charge the same price tho.

 

[DaVinci]

I lie in Northern Minnesota and the two closest shelters get puppies and small dogs but thye always go real fast. We don't get many puppies more so in the spring early summer. We do have spay/neuter clinics and I guess some pretty responsible owners.

 

[lizzybeth727]

It's really sad actually, as we have kennels that could fit what... 30 dogs? And we normally have in 5 or 6. I wish someone would get a program going that could transport dogs out here from kill shelters, because we have the room and the money for them.

Stupid system.

Sounds like a great project!

I know of one or two shelters in AL that had a program where they would transport dogs to shelters in New England. It DOES exist, maybe you could research other shelters that do this and figure out how they manage it. The southern shelters would likely give the dogs free, and probably already temperment test them, so you could probably recoup the transport costs in the adoption fee (especially if you can really publicise the program).

Good luck!!

 

[StillandSilent]

Our shelter is always overflowing with both. Even small breed puppies (mixes in general). However, thats the first thing that gets adopted when we do transports up to CT. The black lab mixes that we couldn't give away in NC, we practically have people fighting over up north. It's crazy.
Its absolutly terrible, but our AC probably euthanizes 700 puppies a year, just because there are no placements or room available for them at our shelter.