In your adult life, where have you gotten your dogs?

And why did you get a dog and how much did you spend?

I have never paid a dime for a dog.

The first dog I got as an adult was a cocker-mix. She looked like a miniature lab. My brother-in-law’s father had a cocker spaniel who escaped from the yard and went and sold her body on the street for treats or something. Probably to a black lab. So then she had puppies and we went and picked one out. We just wanted a dog as part of our family. My only real requirement was that the dog was not a little yappy dog, and was not a large dog, due to space constraints. I don’t think it’s fair to the dog to have a big dog, like a shepherd, in a small yard.
We had Snuffy for 15 years. She was such a great little dog. When I had my daycare there was one child who just fell to pieces when she got time out. She’d cry and cry, and Snuffers would go sit by her and she’d throw her arms around Snuffy and sob into her fur. Snuff would just stare at me reproachfully, with her expressive, liquid brown cocker eyes. I felt so guilty.

Next came Dakota.. She’s a pure bred German Shepherd that someone didn’t want any more. She wasn’t mindlessly mean enough for what he wanted, so he gave her to us. You all know her story, and how amazing she is, so I won’t reahash that.

About a year later we got Dutchess so Dakota would have a friend.
Dutchess is a border collie. Got her from an ad in the paper for free puppies. Went to the farm and picked her from the litter.
Border collies are supposed to be super smart, but Dutchess does her best to hide it if she is! She’s such a spaz! But she does have flashes of brilliance here and there that just amaze me. We should have worked more with her.

Dakota is about 13, and Dutchess is 11, I think. They’re inseperable. But lately we’ve had to curtail Dakota’s stuff because she just hurts.
Sadly, when we went camping over the weekend I put Dutchess on a leash and walked her down to the beach to go swimming….and left Dakota behind for the first time. I kind of wanted to cry. We planned to drive down as close as we could get so Dakota could go, but we never got around to that. :(

So, tell us your dog stories!