My philosophy:

No one has any business buying or breeding an animal when there are so many animals without homes--on the streets, in the shelters, in rescue situations and foster homes.  Now, if this actually happened, obviously there wouldn't be any pets left.  I'm pretty certain we aren't at risk of extinction, though, so go ahead and contact your local shelter or rescue group the next time you are looking for a pet.  I recently read that every person in America would need to adopt two dogs and six cats to take care of the shelter population.  That ought to be enough pets for you.

I spend a lot of my time involved with rabbit rescue.  I didn't even know rabbits could be house pets until we had neighbors who had a black rabbit named Groovy, who had been a prize at a county fair, hopping in the living room and using a litterbox behind the TV.  Several years later I was on my own and remembered Groovy.  I wondered if there were rabbits available for adoption.  There weren't any at my local shelter at the time, but I made a fascinating discovery on the Internet: there was a group of people who thought exactly like I did about pets!  I found the House Rabbit Society (HRS).  While my experience had been exclusively with pet guinea pigs, I had already been getting them from shelters at that point and knew that I only wanted a rescued animal and that I would not support a pet store or breeder.  I was interested in getting a little bigger animal that wouldn't eat my guinea pigs and might not be confined to a cage (I had never had a dog or cat).  I loved the ideas of HRS.

After reading a lot of information at the national HRS site ( www.rabbit.org ), I contacted the Michigan chapter of HRS about adoption.  I was interviewed and then I went to a foster home to see what it was like to live with rabbits and also to meet prospective adoptees.  Since I was new at rabbits I asked the foster caregiver to recommend an easygoing rabbit for me.  I ended up adopting Luke, who was brought to my home so the HRS folks could check out my place to make sure it was safely bunnyproofed and to see that I had the proper supplies.  Luke recently passed away at somewhere over seven years of age after a brief illness.  He was a very special boy and it was terribly difficult to lose him.

About a year after adopting Luke, a friend had two bunnies who had been Easter presents for her kids the previous year (this is a bad idea, btw!).  She was busy with the two kids and a big dog and a cat and work and just didn't feel she could care for the bunnies anymore.  I offered to take them so they wouldn't go to a shelter or petting zoo.  A couple of years later, Cow is still my giant silly bunny who comes running when she is called, and Arliss was Luke's stinker of a girlfriend.  I'm now trying to find her a new friend to keep her out of trouble.

A few months later our Indiana HRS chapter, which I had been following on the Internet, had a need for foster homes for several rabbits.  I took in a bonded pair, Honey and Felix, and they are still with me, awaiting adoption.  Last October, Silas came to live with me; he was found hopping in a yard in Seymour, IN, where I lived at the time.  He is a friendly little guy just about to get a forever home!  All of our foster rabbits can be seen at www.indianahrs.org.

So now I have my two rabbits, three foster rabbits, my three guinea pigs, a dog (she arrived this summer, also a rescue), a fish and a frog.  I am rarely lonely thanks to all of these guys!  They keep me busy and drain my wallet, but then again the rabbits got me a job last fall (through an HRS contact) with better pay in a better location so I can't say too much.  My house is full of hay and fur, but they sure are cute babies!  I really wish I had the resources to help more animals, but to provide any sort of quality life for my pets and the fosters, I have to limit how many I can have.  Meanwhile I try to stay active with online groups about animal adoption and I get the word out whenever possible about spaying and neutering, adoption, and staying away from pet stores and backyard breeders.

While it would be great if everyone would adopt their next pet from a shelter, I realize not everyone wants to go that route.  I strongly encourage finding a responsible breeder to purchase a dog; never buy a dog from a pet store or a backyard breeder (that's when your neighbor thinks her dog is so cute there ought to be more of him, or when the average joe thinks he can make money breeding his pet dog).  You are setting yourself up for the heartache of behavior and health problems when you don't find a responsible breeder.  Research breeds that are appropriate for your situation; there are lots of resources online and at the library to find which breeds are good with kids, or don't need much exercise, or shed minimally, or whatever is important to your lifestyle.  Making an impulse buy because a border collie is so cute does not prepare you for the extremely high energy of the breed.  If you can't take that dog running and fetching and herding for hours every day, you will be frustrated as she chews up your house or develops obsessive spinning habits to relieve her energy.

About Animal Rescue

I do rabbit rescue.  Most people are understandably unaware of this line of work.  If you think of your local animal shelter, you probably think of stray dogs and cats in cages and kennels.  Some of them are lost and their owners find them, some are adopted, and some are euthanized.

There are many rescue organizations outside of municipal shelters, and many of them work with these shelters to find homes for animals who would otherwise be put to sleep.  Breed rescue groups are contacted when a shelter gets a purebred dog; members of these groups will generally foster the dog in private homes, provide veterinary care, spay/neuter, and find the dog an adoptive home subject to the rescue group's contract with an adopter.  Usually this involves guarantee that the animal will be kept as an indoor pet, provided proper care, and returned to the rescue group if the adopter ever decides not to keep the dog.  Rescue groups will also provide "sanctuary" for sick or injured animals, which guarantees them a permanent home in the foster system even though they may have special needs which make them unadoptable.

Aside from breed rescue groups, there are also groups which rescue puppies, mixed breeds, cats, rabbits (hooray!), birds, small animals, reptiles, farm animals... anything you can imagine.  Many work with shelters to receive animals who "run out of time" because the shelter has become too full, or they will take animals with "behavior problems"--often it's just that the animal can't stand being caged so long and it acts out.  Once in a foster home, many behavior problems solve themselves or are easily trained away by experienced fosterers.

There is a national group called the House Rabbit Society, which has a lot of useful information at www.rabbit.org.  There are many local chapters of HRS, and I am involved with Indiana HRS (www.indianahrs.org).  We have lots of bunnies in foster care waiting for adoptive homes.  Many of them came from shelters that were too full, and some were found as strays in a yard or on the side of a road in a ditch, often with injuries from cats or being thrown out of a car.  Sometimes they are dumped at veterinarians' offices or discovered in neglect in someone's backyard hutch or barn.  All of them are given veterinary care, spayed/neutered, and litter trained before they are adopted.  We mirror what many more traditional animal rescue organizations do, but we do it with rabbits.  Please remember rabbits are not disposable Easter toys, they don't like to be held, and they live 8-10 years.  They need to be spayed and neutered.  The most important part of their diet is hay.  They are social and should not be cruelly banished to a backyard hutch where they often die of neglect, disease, or even being scared to death by a raccoon or dog.  Visit the House Rabbit Society's website for lots of good information on owning a rabbit.