Argumentative Essay: Rehabilitation Puppie's Return Home

There are between 45 to 55 million dogs per household in America (American Humane Association 2012). Furthermore, according to a national survey, the majority of dog owners chose to get a dog for the companionship as the major reason for having a dog (American Animal Hospital Association, 2004). After all, dogs are nonjudgmental, give unconditional love, can be trusted with our most intimate feelings and emotions, and are highly intelligent. These dog characteristics can significantly enhance the lives of thousands of youth and adults, especially those with disabilities and/or those who live in continuing care facilities. There are approximately 20,000 service dogs in the U.S., which includes 10,000 guide dogs (American Humane Association 2012)

“If the fake service dog scam continues to escalate, real service dogs, and the privileges and respect they are entitled to, will be in jeopardy.” (Lichtenberg). Service dogs are needed for people with PTSD, Disabilities, Clinical Depression and GAD. A lot of people rely on these wonderful animals to help them get through the day. For example, people who use dogs to help with depression ,what if they get into a bad mood and attempt suicide, the dog will get someone's attention or can even call 911. Soldiers with PTSD suffer from flashbacks and the dog can calm soldiers down and help them know what is real and not. They are not meant to help people who just want to take their dog into the store or have “stressful” or “bad” days. We all get those. Service dogs are beneficial to the world and save lives, you should not be able to just order a kit off the Internet to “license” your dog to be a service dog. Lives are at risk and its wrong to mock the need of a service dog.

Imagine walking into an animal shelter, seeing the dogs and cats locked up behind bars wanting to be adopted. At an animal shelter, homeless animals are continuously looking for a home everywhere. An animal shelter in Ohio is CHA animal shelter, they are a nonprofit organization. They provide temporary care and shelter for cats and dogs and try their best to find them a loving home. Also, they provide surgery to spay or neuter the animal, and give the animal it’s required shots. Adding to, they provide an implanted microchip so the owner can track their animal if it is ever lost. CHA animal shelter has also provided a public website to view pictures of the cats and dogs and a brief background on the animal. They also have an option for donations for emergency situations, food, and supply, etc. The fact that they offer donations is remarkable because some individuals do not want to adopt a pet, but want to be apart of promoting adoption and give support to the organization. Not only does the organization try to make the pet’s life the best at the animal shelter, but CHA also hosts events to get people’s interest and gives the animals time out of the cage. I have adopted a dog from an animal shelter and it has been the best decision ever. Knowing I saved animals live brought more joy and love into my life, and nevertheless, he is the best little jack russel ever. Although I could have got a puppy from Petland, the choice of adopting a dog not only saved me money but also allowed me to save his life as well and improve his quality of life. An individual who adopts a pet is rescuing it from neglect and is giving that precise animal a second chance. In conclusion, I believe that CHA animal shelter is the best place to adopt a pet because it is less expensive than buying an animal from a pet store, it decreases puppy mills, and the individual can pick a dog or cat of any age.

In the United States, about 7.6 million companion animals enter animal shelters every year. The overpopulation of these animals and the fact that they have no homes leads to about 40% of them being euthanized (ASPCA). This is a global issue, but the root of it can be found within the local community at The Humane Society of the Ohio Valley.

Mountain Vista’s High school class of 2017 was able to create and elective named Dog Therapy. Which would make Mountain Vista the only high school in the Douglas County schooling area to have a dog therapy “class”. But you won’t know until you are enrolled in the class is that you will have to go through many hours of training. To only reach a .25 credit and no letter grade on your transcript. Which is a huge misfortune, because you will put just as much work in this class as you would in any other class if not more. So with the guidance of my consoler and I, we decided to propose this to the Dougal county board and to the assistant principal. With the rest of the second semester I created a Dog Therapy class proposal, and got the green light from the

The facility has not had to euthanize a healthy dog due to lack of space for several years. Programs have been developed such as the “special needs fund,” which allows for expensive medical treatment, rehabilitation, and adoption for many dogs who may not of had that opportunity in previous years. However, cats provide additional challenges due to overpopulation issues. Last year approximately 800 treatable-rehabilitable/manageable cats had to be euthanized. However, programs such as the trap/neuter/release program, foster care in private homes, PetSmart and veterinary clinic housing/adoptions, and free cat adoption incentives greatly reduced the overwhelming difficulties with housing/adopting cats (Nebraska Humane Society, 2014).

Many American households own a pet, but their pets may have originated from a cruel background. Especially dogs, for many of them stem from one of the ten thousand puppy mills located across the United States. Puppy mills are large commercial breeding facilities that specializes in maximizing profit over the welfare and conditions of the animals. Animals live in unsustainable conditions which they are provided with the minimum amount of food, water, exercise, shelter, protection, and veterinary care; yet, these animals are forced to continue breeding for the sake of providing beautiful pets for our own personal expenses. The government should step in to advance regulations and inspections of large commercial breeding facilities because old rules no longer fit the current time anymore. For us to take home a new healthy family member, we should all know it comes from a safe place.

There are many views on whether or not servicemen and women should be able to keep the dogs that they trained after their time in the army is up. In my opinion, dogs should be kept after service is over. Even though these dogs really belong to the Marines, their handlers should have a say in what happens to the dog. If the handlers are hurt during war, the dogs could be sent to another serviceman or woman. This needs to change very soon.

This is a very hard and awful situation for the dog because they are domestic animals. This means that their survival skills are poor and they are almost completely helpless on their own. They are bound to die from starvation, overexposure, or get hit by a car. For the dogs that do not end up being killed, many shelters will take the dogs in, but many of them are overcrowded. The stray dogs that are brought in to local shelters can only stay for a short period of time because of the amount of dogs they are able to take in. In the end, most of the dogs end up not being bought because for every ten dogs in need of a home, only one person will be willing to. It can also cause emotional trauma for the owners when they find out all of the diseases of the dog and have to put the dog

Now in days anyone can buy a service vest and call there dog a service dog. Many dog owners are now discovering the option of bringing their dogs into public places without even worrying about whether their dog is welcome. This type of thing is seen all the time especially with women and small dogs being carried around in their purses. In many places such as Restaurants, hospitals, hair salons, and schools it has been noted that over the years the number of “service” dogs coming and going through there doors has increasingly gone up. Legally, there are consequences for trying to pass off a family pet as a service dog, but the legal community has found it difficult to prove which dog is a service do and which is not, due to the lack of legal registration, people are rarely being prosecuted for their offense.

A therapy dog is skilled to care and offer comfort to patients in hospitals, retirement homes, schools, catastrophe area, and people with learning complications. From a different perspective, a service dog is an assistance dog trained specifically to help persons with disabilities including autism, hearing and visual difficulties. The dogs aid cognitive therapy enabling the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) victims to expose themselves gradually to feelings and thoughts reminding them of the past. The dogs offer comfort, affection, and companion that enable the victims to relax triggering the sense of flashback within them. Flashback is critical in the treatment process of PTSD.

Did you know about 25 million puppies and kittens are born into the United States each year? That’s more than 50,000 born each day in this country alone. Twenty five million pets produce yearly greatly exceeds the amount of willing families to take care of these animals that are born into the world. Even though, these massive amount of litters may in fact be completely healthy there is just not a sufficient enough of homes for this animals to be place in. statically reported by the humane society of the united states in October 2011 6 to 8 million animals who have no place to call their home are put into animal shelters. Unfortunately, due to the excessive surplus of these animals about half which is 3 to 4 million only make it out alive. The other half left to be euthanize by the shelter to make room for the new incoming animals. This turns out to be one animal euthanize every 8 sec. Pet overpopulation has been a serious problem throughout the nation for many years. The on ongoing cycle of bring unwanted litters of pets into the world makes it extremely difficult to reduce the amount of animals being euthanize across the nation each and every day. It’s important for people to understand the need to spay and neuter their family’s pets and all pets in general, all though people don’t understand that need its extremely important to take into account that these thousands of wanted any unneeded animals being born into the world each day will statically end up homeless, place in

Growing up, dogs always played an important role in my life. They could make me happy anytime I was sad, and always welcomed me when I walked in the front door. Even when i felt that there was no where else to turn, they were always there. For some people, they do not have the ability or freedom to enjoy a dogs company the way we do. People like prisoners, could benefit from the support, love, and obedience of a dog. By aiding these prisoners with a shelter dog, we are able to give a dog a home, and give a prisoner an outlet to experience feelings and emotions to help them grow and overcome their fault.

Countless lives locked away in cages and forgotten about have overwhelmed our society, it has left blood stains on our history as a species and if history has taught us anything, it’s that we have a choice to change our ways of adjusting to situations. A war which was fought in pursuit of ending such criminal means, yet we as human beings do little to nothing to end the horrific crimes of animal deaths in shelters. It is no secret that this world has become infused with problems that have extended from one side of the globe to the other. Amongst these problems lies a terrible truth: nearly every year, sums of almost eight million cats and dogs have been placed in shelters around the world. Out of these vast numbers, half will be

In my opinion, this is a terrible issue. These animals are dying because of this with no fault of their own. If the overpopulation in shelters continues we will not have a place to put all of these animals except for in the ground. A shelter is supposed to be used as a safe place for lost, homeless pets, but it is being abused and turned into a trashcan due to the overpopulation. Some may argue that there are “no kill” shelters, and although that is true to some extent, it is not entirely true. The sad truth is that “in most cases even when a shelter calls themselves a ‘no-kill’ shelter it simply means they give the dogs they don't want to a shelter that IS a kill shelter” (Maguire). Overpopulation is costing animals their lives. Do you know what else overpopulation is costing? Us. It costs the United States taxpayers $2 billion a year “to impound, shelter, euthanize, and dispose of homeless animals” (“Animal Overpopulation”). These statistics are hard to take in, but they are very real and this is why I think something needs to change.