In this post we’ll cover everything from where to find puppies for adoption, how to pick the perfect puppy, what questions to ask at the adoption meeting and the top mistakes to avoid when adopting a puppy.
Congratulations! Preparing to add a new member to the family is such an exciting time! You’re creating a story you’ll tell to family and friends for the rest of your life! As a vet assistant, I hear all sorts of stories about how people find their pets. I’ve gathered all the best practices on puppy adoption that I’ve learned from owners over the last five years into this post!
I want to thank you, (yes YOU!) so much in your help in adopting a puppy that needs a home. At the time of this post, there’s about 70 million stray animals in need of homes in the US alone, some of which are perfectly healthy, happy dogs and puppies awaiting euthanasia to help with population control.
When you adopt you save two lives: the life of the puppy you adopt and the animal who gets to move into that kennel at the animal shelter or foster home. Adopting is truly a noble commitment, and I hope that you find the perfect match for your household!
Puppies for Adoption
How to adopt a puppy
These 6 steps will guide you on your path to adopting the perfect puppy!
- Decide what type of dog your’e looking for.
- Do you want a small, medium or large dog? How often can you realistically exercise your dog? What kind of lifestyle will your dog need? Consider things like: Grooming needs, ability to be around kids, other dogs, and cats, will you want a dog that can spend a lot of time indoors or outdoors? Create a budget: How much will you be able to spend on the adoption cost, supplies, routine care and veterinary care?
- Contact local shelters
- Become familiar with adoption process and what kind of animals they see come through the shelter. Will they need a reference check, veterinary reference, home visit or interview?
- Follow the organizations timeline and requirements for adopting a pet.
- Meet and Greet
- Arrange to meet your potential new puppy! Make sure it’s a good fit, and ask all the questions from the list in the next section.
- Prepare your home
- Make sure you have the essentials! Utilize the New Puppy Checklist PDF to make sure you have the essentials and more!
- Bring your puppy home!
Related: New Puppy Checklist PDF | 33 Must-Have Puppy Essentials
Puppies for Adoption Near Me
The most obvious place to look for a new family member is at your local animal shelter. Puppies are adopted quickly (usually same or next day quickly), and often there’s no waitlist since they are in such high demand. So keep an eye on your local humane societies website and social media page. If there is a waitlist, get on it!
Other adoption agencies do exist, and do have puppies! There are many foster based animal shelters around the country. This means there is no shelter, or office that the rescue runs out of. Rescue animals live with foster parents until they’re adopted out. Which means they can only help as many animals as they have a foster home for.
Furthermore, this is my preferred way to adopt because the puppy has been living in a home, the foster can give you a better idea of what the puppy’s personality is and their potty training and crate training status.
Ask to visit ahead of time to become familiar with adoption process. Some organizations will even allow you to complete an application ahead of time and complete any necessary steps like a home visit, veterinary reference, or general reference check while you wait on a puppy to become available for adoption.
Questions for Adopting a Puppy
- How old is the puppy?
- Do you know anything about mom and dad? Any chance you can meet mom and dad?
- What breed(s) is(are) the puppy?
- What vaccines have been given and when is the next round due?
- Is the puppy up to date on deworming and heartworm preventative?
- Any previous health concerns?
- Is the puppy microchipped?
- What kind of support do you offer after the adoption is complete?
- Is they puppy spayed/neutered? If not, is there a spay/neuter contract?
- Is the puppy crate trained? House trained? Destructive?
Here’s a list of some organizations that regularly have puppies up for adoption.
ASPCA – ASPCA website offers a good source of animal news, but also offers services in Asheville, LA, NYC and Miami. Their website can help you locate a local shelter as well as browse pets for adoption in your area.
Pet Stores: Petsmart and Petco have all been known to host adoption events. Your local pet store is probably involved in adoption events as well. They may even know of rescues or pets in need of homes.
Humane Society of Huron Valley– This shelter brings in 20-50 puppies every two weeks on the Love Train, but often has puppies in foster homes or in the shelter. They are based in Ann Arbor, Michigan and people drive from everywhere to get a puppy from the Love Train!
Puppies for Adoption Michigan
Third Coast Lab Rescue -They are entirely volunteer run and completely foster based. They often have purebred labs as well as “honorary labs” up for adoption.
Michigan Animal Rescue League – Based out of Detroit and always have VERY cute animals needing homes. Puppies under 1 year are common, and puppies under 6 months show up regularly!
Puppies for Adoption LA
The Real Bark – This is a non-profit based in LA. They do have a foster program and a brick and mortar site.
Fur Baby Rescue – When I looked at this website they had a ton of cats, not many dogs. It looked like they had at least two husky puppies for adoption! At the time of writing this, they require an appointment to meet at any of the animals.
Bark n Bitches- An organization that is foster based; there are a ton of VERY cute puppies and dogs on this website looking for homes.
Related: New Puppy Vet Visit | 13 Must-Ask Questions for your Vet
Puppies for Adoption NYC
Muddy Paws Rescue – A foster based rescue out of NYC. At the time of writing this they have many dogs under a year of age and a handful three months and under.
Second Chance Rescue – They require an application, reference, home visit and routine adoption interview. They also offer $100 off emotional support animal adoptions for puppies with an official ESA letter.
Petfinder Puppies
The internet is full of website leads that will help you find your new best friend. Petfinder is the top website that shows you all dogs, puppies, kittens and other available pets for adoption near you. They search through thousands of adoption websites (including the ones listed above) and show you an up-to-date list of what pets are in need of a home. Many smaller adoption organizations choose to list their available animals through Petfinder.
The cool thing about Petfinder is you can utilize filters including age, size, breed and location. They even have a perfect pet matchmaker tool! Petfinder has helped millions of pets find homes, and it’s the site that led me to my dog!
Puppy Adoption Cost
Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as free. Even if a puppy is free, you’ll be covering the cost of something, whether it’s a spay/neuter, vet care, food, toys and other supplies. (I’ll cover free puppies later in this post).
An adoption cost or rehoming fee will likely be associated with adopting a puppy. Cost varies depending on where you’re adopting from. Adoption from a private individual cost can range from $50-$1000 or even more depending on the breed or situation. Puppies are usually more expensive for a few reasons.
First, is that they are in high demand. Secondly, is that puppies cost more for the adopter/shelter/foster organization to care for. Puppies require a lot more time, energy, and money from food, to vaccines, deworming and spay/neuter costs. Adoption agencies rarely break even on the cost of what it takes to rescue a puppy. So consider your puppy’s adoption fee a donation to help more puppies find their forever homes.
Dogs for Adoption
Of course adult dogs need homes too! The best thing about an adult dog is you know what you’re getting. Plus, it’s likely an organization you’re adopting from would let you foster before committing in case you have any hesitations.
I think everyone should go through the process of raising a puppy at some point in their life. But if you don’t have a lot of flexibility for the kind of dog you want, it’s best to look into adopting an adult dog. Adopting a mixed breed puppy that you don’t have much history on makes it hard to tell exactly what the puppy will be like when they get older.
Adopt a Puppy for Free
In some circumstances puppies will be available for adoption at no charge. In this case, there’s probably a reason they are free. When it comes to the cost of puppies it’s so important to know WHY you are paying, or not paying, the asking cost from the adopter.
When a puppy comes into your life for free, there are still costs associated with food, supplies, spaying or neutering, vaccines, and vet care (both expected and unexpected). These things can total anywhere from $300-$1000 and even more in emergency scenarios.
Puppies for Adoption Craigslist
There’s always the craigslist puppy special! I have several friends who have gotten puppies off of craigslist. PLEASE be careful with adopting anything from craigslist. There are a ton of puppy scammers out there. My own dog was a craigslist scam. She was sold as a purebred boxer to someone and the previous owners started to notice that she wasn’t 100% boxer and surrendered her to a shelter.
That being said, there are some CUTE and unique looking craigslist finds. Be sure you are in a position where you do not need post-adoption support from the home you’re adopting from.
Wherever you get your puppy from be sure to ask for any medical notes from the vet- specifically vaccines, dewormers and any exam findings. If there are no records, then buy at your own risk.
Puppies who have not been vaccinated against parvovirus are at high risk for contracting this deadly disease. Parvovirus vaccines cost pennies compared to the extensive, critical vet care it takes to save a puppy’s life in the chance they’ve contracted parvovirus. Craigslist sellers rarely offer a warranty, money back guarantee or support if this happens to your puppy.
Puppies for Sale
Undoubtedly, here will always be puppies for sale. I cannot stress the importance of doing your research on the breeder and asking questions. The number one thing you need to know about spending money on puppies is to know WHY you are paying the price the breeder is asking. Ever since COVID puppies are in high demand and breeders and backyard breeders alike have been able to increase the price of puppies.
The Top Mistakes to Avoid When Adopting a Puppy:
1. Overpaying for a designer breed
These days there are thousands of breeders out there that are marketing breeds like cockapoo, schoodle,puggles, goldador, yorkies, pomskys and more! Most of these people are marketing mutts with purebred prices. If you have your heart set on a cross-breed with a good pedigree, do your research.
2. Adopting the first puppy you meet
The excitement of getting a puppy can be overwhelming! Your soul-mate dog could be the first one you meet, it also might not.
ALL puppies are cute. Most are energetic, easy to get along with and happy to see you, what’s not to love? There are tons of puppies in the world looking for homes. The perfect fit is out there!
3. Assuming you can’t adopt a purebred
Purebred rescues have become more popular over the years. You may have to drive a little further to find one for the breed you’re looking for and there’s probably less selection on puppies and more selection on older puppies or adult dogs.
However, there are lots of reasons that purebreds end up in shelters. Health and behavior concerns, moving to a new home, or the caretaker passing away could result in someone having to surrender their dog to a shelter.
4. Adopting the wrong breed for your lifestyle
Of course husky puppies are so cute! But did you know they are bred to run and pull ALL day long?
Adopting a dog that is not designed for your lifestyle has a huge potential to create tension in the future with you and your family. All dogs were bred for a purpose. Make sure you do your research and honest self-reflection on what kind of breeds best fit your lifestyle.
When a dog cannot fulfill the job it was bred to do, the drive to do a job will express itself in other ways like herding kids, biting at ankles, pulling on their harness or becoming destructive within the house.
5. Puppy Fever
I repeat, Every. Single. Puppy. On. The. Earth. Is. Cute.
I believe that every person who wants to adopt a puppy should have the opportunity and go through that experience as many times as they want! However, a puppy is only a puppy for less than year, and will spend 12-15 years as an adult dog.
Be prepared to take care of the dog the puppy will become and you are prepared to make the life-long commitment to that dog.
6. Not socializing the puppy enough after adoption
Usually, we don’t know too much about adopted puppy’s background, parents, siblings, or previous owner. It can be hard to tell what important social milestones the puppy has missed until much later in life when the issues are difficult to correct.
In order to do this, it means taking your puppy on walks, day care, introducing them to people, places, and other animals in a calm positive manner. For this reason, do NOT take your puppy to the dog park until they are at least 8 months old and have learned proper socialization skills. Dog parks have the ability to become a recipe for puppies to be bullied into submission and eventually fearful of other dogs.
Ultimately, the best thing you can do is properly socialize your puppy to make sure that any confidence that was lost over their first few months is gained back. The goal is for your puppy to become confident going into any situation. It makes life easy for you and for them!
Congratulations!! Now you should feel prepared to find the perfect puppy for your home! This post was all about where to find puppies for adoption,
Other posts you might like:
New Puppy Checklist PDF | 33 Must-Have Puppy Essentials
Is My Puppy Happy? | 11 Clear Signs Your Puppy is Living Their Best Life
New Puppy Vet Visit | 13 Must-Ask Questions for your Vet