Pets Without Borders

Long-Distance Adoptions

Some say, "Why adopt a pet from far away when there are plenty at your local shelter?" Fair enough - and the first place to look for a new pet is at your nearest shelter.

But adoptions, like marriages, are affairs of the heart, and sometimes the right match just happens to be somewhere other than "here."

There are pros and cons to long-distance adoptions.

The con is that even though an adopter is screened and home-checked, sometimes we don't really know how animals will work out in their new environment until they're there. And if "there" is awfully far away, bringing them back can be an ordeal.

On the positive side, very few people "impulsively adopt" from thousands of miles away. People who are willing to invest the time, money and planning it takes to organize a long-distance adoption are not the sort who will casually change their minds the next week. So, in a sense, one might call this "self-screening."

And most important of all is that we all adopt our pets from shelters, rather than from pet stores or breeders. At home, from the next town, from the next state, or 2,000 miles away - it doesn't matter. Just so long as we adopt!

Here's a lovely recent adoption by folks for whom only that one special dog would do. They came more than a thousand miles to get him!

New York, from California to Connecticut

New York was a nine-year-old pit bull mix who came to Best Friends from El Monte, California. He'd been kept on a chain for nine years. But still, he was friendly and well behaved.

One day while visiting Best Friends, Alice and Sandy Look of Connecticut had their hearts stolen by the darling fellow (all three pictured above).

"People still look in amazement," Alice writes, as New York plays in her living room, "when I tell them I adopted a dog from a place in Utah. "Utah?" they say. "Why not a shelter here in Connecticut? There are plenty of needy dogs." And of course, they are absolutely right; it would make total sense.

"But logic or common sense often doesn't come into play when adopting a dog. All I knew was what I saw and felt - an older dog with a lot of spirit still in him, willing to take a chance on another person, despite whatever had gone wrong in the past. To me that kind of spirit was amazing. How could he not deserve a home and how could I not take a chance on him?"

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Next