Clueless about what breed to get?

Yeah, I was watching shiba videos on youtube (lol) and they were crazy O__O I don't think I could handle one very well at all.

But I told my parents I want to adopt a non-puppy from the shelter and my mom said: "Nooo!! They don't listen to you!!" and  "They're not cute anymore!!" my dad says he sees my point but he doesn't want a sick dog

*sigh*

I'm going to postone doggie buying until early next year so I have more time to think and convince[8|]

 uppies don't know a thing.  [] They'll chew up at least 1 valuable item before they become adults, pee and poop on the floor at least a couple times, dig out the trash, and generally be found wherever you don't want them to be.  They better be darn cute cause otherwise most of them would have been murdered by their owners before they grew up. 

I think I'd also explain to your dad that just as many people get sick animals from breeders and people giving them up in newspaper ads as shelters.  You can't ever gurantee a healthy animal.  The only gurantee you get is that the person/breeder/shelter giving up the animal will either pay for vet bills or give you another animal.

Umm, I'm sorry, but your mom's clueless! Adult dogs do listen, usually better than puppies actually. What does she think you're gonna do? Get a puppy and it will come already trained? You have to train a puppy. You can train an adult dog, plus they're usually easier to train than a puppy as they're more able to retain what you train them since they're older. Puppies get distracted very easily. lus, adult dogs are cute. Yes, puppies are cuter, but adult dogs can be just as cute. If my mom's one dog didn't hate other adult dogs she doesn't know, there was an adult at the shelter I got Rio from that I would have taken in a heartbeat.
 
And your dad, just because you get a dog from the shelter doesn't mean it will be sick. What state do you live in? Some shelters in some states don't really care for the animals because if no one adopts them... I think you can see where that's going. But if you live in a state that tries to adopt out as many animals as they can rather than euthanizing as many as they can, they usually care for the animals and will not knowingly adopt out a sick dog.
 
If you're mom's gonna continue to be like this and your dad is so afraid of getting a sick dog, your best bet is a rescue. You can look on petfinder.com to find rescues in your state. There's a strip on top that rescues and shelters(or close) and all you do is type in your zip code and it will bring up shelters and rescues in your area.
 
Good luck with convincing your parents. And I thought this was going to be your dog?
 
Shiva

I've adopted three adult dogs from shelters, and only one had any kind of a problem at all (and it was manageable--seperation anxiety, which can also occur in dogs bought as puppies, rest assured). All have learned commands just fine and been loyal, loving, wonderful companions. None were sick. In fact, two of them came already knowing basic obedience and house-training. I only ever had to start "from scratch" with one, and even he was able to earn his CGC six months after adopting him (he was two when we adopted him and had been a hunting dog and hadn't lived in a house or been a pet dog before).

Puppies have the attention spans of gnats. It is not realistic to expect a puppy to be housetrained fully for at least 6 months. They can be trained at an early age but then they go through adolescence and basically forget everything you initially taught them and you have to do it again. They go through two chewing phases. They go through a fear phase. You have to socialize them at the right times in the right ways. No thank you, I adopt adults. I don't have the time or patience for all that.

My dogs that I adopted as adults are up my butt completely, for lack of a better term. After a few weeks in their new home, they realize how good they've got it. They are not any less loyal or loving or bonded to me than if I'd got them as puppies.

Here's me and my totally-not-bonded-to-me, uncute, sickly adult-adopted dogs:

My mom is just stubborn like that, she is all about 'cute' pets or none [:'(] She has no clue about dog, she assumes that they must be adopted as puppies or they become wolves or something. Gah >__> My dad just had a bad experience once, he's not paranoid about it. We know what to look for now (as in, don't buy the dog that doesn't move or eat).

And even though the dog is mine, my parents will have to live with it too, lol. Which is another reason I want a non-puppy, because I want my parents to like the dog, instead of hating it for peeing all over the place (buuut we have no carpet in the house so no stains at least!).

And houndlove, aaaah, your doggies are so cute!!

i still say just check out local fosters and rescues. they will KNOW the dog. and likely set you up with the perfect companion.
sometimes these things should be left to chance. the right one will sometimes come to you.... heck, most of my dogs were strays wandering down the street, or no longer wanted by co-workers.... two of the best dogs i ever owned outgrew their first homes....
they were beyond puppyhood. very mature and very good dogs.

if you want to adopt, i would check out all breed rescues in your area, the humane society, and the aspca. those organizations usually do their best to make sure the dogs are healthy before they put them up for adoption.

rescues (and sometimes HS and aspca) are likely to have foster parents who can tell you about the dog's personality (outside a shelter setting) and help match the personality of the dog with what you are looking for.

from personal experience, you are more likely to get a sickly dog from a free to a good home ad than from a shelter.

I adopted my dog Jack from the shelter back at the end of February, and I couldn't be happier.  I spent months before I got him researching different breeds and all my different options (shelters, rescues, even breeders), even though I knew I was leaning toward a mutt from the shelter.  It was good to learn about general breed characteristics because it gave me an idea of what I could expect, even when looking at different mixes.  I knew I didn't want a baby puppy because I wasn't in the position to deal with that kind of training, so I had planned to adopt an older dog, possibly between 1 - 5 years old.
 
Well, I saw Jack on a website for a shelter about an hour north of my house and decided we had to go meet him.  The shelter told me they thought he was 9 months old, which was younger than I had planned on adopting, but we fell in love with him, so it didn't really matter.  As it turned out, our vet later estimated his age to be closer to 6-7 months old.
 
If you do go the shelter route, keep in mind that what you see at the shelter may not be exactly what you get at home.  It's incorrect to say that a dog who is active/hyper at the shelter will be that way at home, or the dog who is quiet at the shelter will be quiet at home.  When we met Jack, he was pretty nuts... jumping around, wiggling all over the place, just generally feeling ecstatic about being out of his kennel.  We took him outside and watched how he calmed down quite a lot as we walked him.  He also seemed to settle down fairly well when we went back in the shelter and he had a chance to run around and explore a bit.  At home, he's generally very mellow indoors (though he has his occasional puppy moments, he can be pretty lazy in the house) and very playful outside.  I wouldn't say that he's extremely different than the dog we first met in the shelter, but if you had based your idea of his personality just on that first meeting alone, you'd have expected a much more active/hyper dog than he is in reality.  He also seemed fairly disinterested in toys at the shelter, and mostly ignored a stuffed animal they had on the floor... at home he LOVES stuffed animals and runs around two or more in his mouth all the time.
 
Even though Jack was younger than I'd wanted, he still came to me already housebroken and with a decent "sit" command under his belt.  He was also well-socialized with other dogs (something I'm continuing to reinforce).  I'm not entirely sure what his mix is (we think he has Great Dane in there somewhere, and possibly some kind of hound), but he very rarely barks.  I think mutts are awesome, personally.  He really has no extremes in his personality and is just a nice, mellow dog who is eager to please and loves having fun.
 
As for the health issue, it's important to realize that no matter where you get a dog, whether that dog is a puppy or an adult, it may have health issues when you adopt it, or it may develop health issues after you adopt it.  There are no guarantees.  A few weeks after we adopted Jack, we noticed some scabs and bald patches on his body, took him to the vet, and he was diagnosed with demodetic mange (very common in puppies).  We treated that and he's fine now.  He was also diagnosed with general "allergies", which we're trying to manage with semi-regular baths and an appropriate diet.  These issues did not crop up because he came from the shelter... it's just genetics.  A $1500 purebred puppy from a breeder could have just as easily had mange and allergies.  During his first visit to the vet (literally the day after we got him from the shelter), they did a fecal and found some parasites.  We just had to give him some antibiotics, not a huge deal.  I guess my point is that all animals get sick, but that's part of being a pet owner... you deal with it.  I agree that it's important to use common sense when deciding which dog to adopt (if a dog is acting lethargic, chances are it doesn't feel good!), but be prepared for the idea that any dog you adopt or purchase can have health issues that will need to be treated.  It just comes with the territory.  If your parents are going to freak out if your dog ends up needing to get treated for something and want to return it, I'd probably hold off on the whole dog idea.  It'd be really sad for you to get attached and then have to deal with that lack of understanding.

Everyone been so helpful, thank you! []

Also -- my parents wouldn't make return a dog because it's sick, the only reason they would give it up is if it had an agression problem and actually bit someone, so that's good news. And I understand that conditions at a shelter and at my house are really different so a dog would act differently too. I also talked to my dad again and that's when he confirmed the above ^^^ (first sentence)

But I have another question: I've always wanted a pug but unfortunately it's crazy hot here and I can't risk the overheating problem with their short snouts.... But if I got a pug mix, would they fare okay in hot weather, granted its nose is longer? I would keep it as an indoor dog but I want to let it out for at least a little without worrying too much about a heatstroke. And we don't keep the house ultra chilly while were gone (like... 78-80*) either... so yay or nay?