I have been a dog owner all my life, and there are few things I have treasured more than my canine companions. After my coal-black lab Prince—with his velvet ears and graying muzzle—passed away last year, I am now a 73-year-old man with just one little companion: a little bug-eyed chihuahua named Poppy who weighs less than the Sunday newspaper and sleeps curled against my hip every night. Her coat has thinned with her ten years, and her tiny paws make clicking sounds across our PVC floors. It is because of that bond—that silent understanding between man and dog—this week’s truth bomb from a weathered old Kentucky farmer is focused on the false nature of understanding what really goes on in dog land.
Last night, a glossy ASPCA commercial flickered across my television screen, begging for $60 donations to rescue a trembling, emaciated shepherd mix with matted fur. The three-minute montage showcased skeletal puppies shivering on concrete floors, that made my stomach clench. As haunting piano music played, I remembered a data investigation I conducted a while ago about national charities.
Did you know the ASPCA’s CEO devours a staggering $1,200,000 salary annually. Other executive there gorge on half-million-dollar salaries. Their propaganda machine fundraising events and parties, which the executives so enjoy, cost $80,000,000 annually, which is almost 20% of their revenue! Most sickening was a $9,300,000 settlement they flung at accusers to bury a RICO lawsuit. The ASPCA was accused of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act through a scheme involving bribes to a witness.
Oh, and here’s another fact that might shock you: your ASPCA donations do not trickle down to your local county shelter, where exhausted volunteers launder urine-soaked blankets and comfort trembling strays. Those organizations operate under entirely separate financial systems, despite what the heart-wrenching commercials with their slow-motion footage and melancholy piano music might lead you to believe. Your local shelters, try to raise their own funds, spending more like 5 or 6% of their revenue to fund raise.
I have always known charlatans abound in this world, and while organizations like the ASPCA are maddening, the true ugly nature of the canine world is even more perverse. You see, about 350,000 dogs—tails tucked, eyes pleading from behind cold kennel bars—are euthanized from overcrowded animal shelters annually in America. And here’s the real rub. Approximately 2.1 to 2.6 million puppies, are purchased from the over 10,000 puppy mills scattered across the United States each year, where breeding dogs spend their entire lives.
Buying a dog from a puppy mill or a pet store bankrolls a nightmare factory where female dogs spend their lives confined in wire cages. Puppies born in these hellscapes rarely see sunlight until they’re crammed into transport crates bound for pet shops, while their mothers remain behind, trembling at human approach.
Instead of supporting this industry, consider adopting from a local shelter or rescue group where eager faces press against kennel doors, where tails wag with desperate hope at each passing visitor, where a perfect companion waits—one whose life you’ll save with a simple choice that simultaneously ensures your money doesn’t finance the cracked paws and infected wounds of breeding dogs trapped in filthy cages.
So now you know what the data says about the canine world—the cold numbers that represent warm bodies shivering in kennels. The truth should pierce your heart like a rusty nail. Stop supporting those Madison Avenue charities with their gleaming headquarters and million-dollar executives. Stop buying dogs from breeders with their polished websites and pet shops with puppies pressing wet noses against glass. Start contributing to your local shelters—those cinder-block buildings on the edge of town where volunteers’ cars fill the parking lot on weekends. Review their financial statements first; the good ones will show every penny spent on vaccines, kibble, and heartworm medication.
ADOPT. The dog you bring home—whether a copper-colored chihuahua or a coal-black lab with graying muzzle—will gaze at you with amber eyes full of gratitude until their last breath. They know, in that wordless way animals understand things, that you saved them from the needle or the gas chamber and gave them a warm bed beside your hip at night. And importantly, those shelter kennels contain every imaginable dog—from blue-eyed huskies to square-jawed boxers—all waiting behind chain-link doors across America.
It’s sometimes hard to do the right thing, even when your conscience whispers the answer in your ear, but believe me, once you know the truth, nothing compares to the weight of a warm, breathing creature curled against you, their chest rising and falling in peaceful sleep, knowing they are finally, irrevocably home.
Simply, adopt and donate to local shelters! Make life better for all.
Old Man Pondering 
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