Fido, Rover and You

How much is that puppy in the window. The one with the wiggly tail?

Tommy Lipinski is waiting to meet his new best friend.

Lipinski doesn't look like someone to be trifled with, and neither does his choice in dogs -- pit bulls.

Still, standing at the counter of the Dewey Veterinary Hospital in Las Vegas, anxiously waiting for his new pet to be brought out to him, it's hard, even for a grown man, not to revert, for a moment, to little Tommy.

"Can I have my doggie now?" he whines to no one in particular.

Doggie debate

So you want to get a dog. Visions of Fido and Felix dance in your head.

A dog may be man's best friend, but it's also a big responsibility -- something most people tend to forget that when they're gazing at a pair of pleading puppy dog eyes.

Considering adding a dog to your life invites a daunting set of questions, the first of which should be ... whether you should be adding a dog to your life.

Do you really have the time and lifestyle that can accommodate a dog? Can you afford the cost of food, shots and visits to the vet? Do you have a yard or a cramped apartment? Will you have time during the day to walk and exercise it, or will it spend its days alone? Will your whole family welcome the dog, or will someone in the family resent the intrusion?

Next, you must decide what kind of dog is right for you. Small or large? Aggressive or mild-mannered? High-maintenance or low? A purebred or a mutt?

And after you've resolved those issues, the hardest part remains: Where is the best place to find your dream dog? A shelter or a store? A professional breeder or the Humane Society?

'A lifetime commitment'

"A pet is not just a toy," says Jane Lokken, administrator of the Dewey Animal Care Center. "There's a lot of work to it. You've got to clean it, feed it, get its shots. It's not something you just put in the garage and give food and water. It becomes a member of the family."

A key responsibility of those providing pets to people is making sure the person is up for the job.

"An animal is a lifetime commitment," Judith Ruiz, director of the Humane Society of Southern Nevada, notes. "It isn't something you can move in and out of. It's very traumatic for the animals to suddenly become the incredibly disposable pet."

"Think things through clearly," she orders prospective pet owners: "how much time (you) have to commit, the cost to taking care of the animal, the size of the animal for your living arrangements, if you're going to be moving soon.

"We try to place healthy animals in permanent homes," she explains. "We don't (like to) place puppies in homes where people are going to be away 10 hours a day. We don't like to place young puppies in homes with preschool children who may (mistreat) it.

Apartments aren't necessarily bad, she says, "if people have the time to commit to it, stimulate it, take it out for walks and exercise."

Judy Palmieri, owner of the three Frisky Pet Centers in town, says a small percentage of her customers buy on impulse. "It's an emotional decision, they see a puppy and it's so cute and they want it," she says "Lots of times, by the time we go through our guide, they change their minds and we lose a sale, but we think of it as protecting that puppy. There's nothing worse than selling a puppy and having someone call back saying they didn't realize it would be this much responsibility."

Owning a dog involves more than putting out some food and water. Don't forget to consider maintenance -- brushing the dog's teeth, cleaning out its ears, brushing its hair.

"Nine times out of 10, people do not figure on the maintenance of the animal they are receiving," says professional groomer Silvia Baumeister, former owner of the Trip & Clip grooming business and now the staff groomer for the Frisky Pet Center. "The person selling should inform them this dog will need maintenance -- brushing one to three times a week for a long-haired animal, grooming every six to eight weeks, depending on breed. For short-haired dogs, bathe it every two to three months."

Another thing to consider is the yearly expense.

Prices range from as little as $13 at the Dewey Center to the $40 for cats and $60 for dogs charged at Las Vegas' Animal Foundation. A dog at the Frisky Pet Center can be as low as $99 and go up to $2,500, for the pricy and rare English bulldog. Breeders charge from $50 to $1,500, according to a sampling of newspaper ads, but most prices seem to fall within the $200 to $450 range.

After that comes vet expenses, licensing fees, shots, pet food, and grooming costs.

Finally, potential dog owners should be sure that there won't be other problems: that they are not allergic to animals, or that the apartment management doesn't have rules prohibiting dogs.

"You hear it ever day," Lokken says of people forced to turn in banned animals. " 'I didn't think my apartment manager would find out.' "

People have called up after having a dog for several years, saying they need to give it up. "It becomes a problem to keep it; it becomes a bother," Ruiz says in disbelief. "I would live in a tent for my animals before I'd give them up."

Although the Dewey shelter and the Animal Foundation allows pets to be returned within a given time period in case it doesn't work out, a pet store may be less lenient. The contract at Frisky Pet Centers sternly notes that "we do not warrant pets for reasons including allergy, incompatibility, landlord tenant, or marital problems."

Making the choice

So you think you can devote the time, energy and money to having a dog. OK -- which one? There are 146 breeds acknowledged by the American Kennel Club based in North Carolina (akc.org), and all have different temperaments and characteristics.

The best thing to do is to study books that describe the quality of each breed, such as the AKC's "Complete Dog Book," "Dogs for Dummies" or "Dogsmart: The Ultimate Guide For Finding the Dog You Want and Keeping the Dog You Find."

At Palmieri's three Frisky Pet centers -- in the Boulevard, Galleria and Meadows malls -- staff members, or "pet counselors" have been trained to help people select the best animal for them. "We don't want to sell a Mastiff to someone in an apartment, and the lease says they can only have a 20-pound animal," she explains. "We try to help them make the best decision.

"A lot of people are set on a particular breed," Palmieri adds. "Most come in and they've grown up with a certain dog, and those are the dogs they lean to."

The most popular dogs in Las Vegas, Palmieri says, are those that are also popular nationwide: "Our Labs are still our number one seller, cocker spaniels and beagles are popular." Dog trends come and go: Dalmations were popular when the movie "101 Dalmations" came out. This year, Jack Russell Terriers are hot because that's the dog featured on "Frasier" (Eddie, played by Moose).

And Nevada's scorching summer heat doesn't affect which breeds do well here. "The breeds do well acclimating to the weather," Palmieri says. "'We sell a lot of (Siberian) huskies and Saint Bernards."

At the Dewey Center, pretty much any breed can be found, if you're not picky about mixes, or as the shelter staff likes to call them, "Heinz 57s." Chow chows, German shepherds, golden retrievers, basset hounds, pit bulls, Shih Tzus, Dalmations, Saint Bernards, Doberman pinschers, collies, Lhasa apsos and poodles were among the dogs biding their time on a recent afternoon.

However, choosing a particular breed from a shelter takes mainly a do-it-yourself approach: Visitors take a pencil and paper and walk through the halls of the kennel to pick out an animal. If asked, staff will offer some basic advice, such as future size of the dog at full growth.

The shelter may offer the most exotic choice of pets around: "We've had horses, a monkey, a coyote, a mountain lion, goats, chickens, pigs, roosters they found running loose," Lokken says, the cock-a-doodle-doos of the aforementioned rooster in the background as she speaks.

The rooster's future seems somewhat precarious -- as a pet, at least.

"Who'd want to adopt a rooster?" one girl asks her friend as they pass the bird's pen.

The search is on

So you know what you want -- now where do you find it?

Naturally, all venues -- shelters, pet stores, breeders -- praise themselves and snipe at the rest. Breeders are said to be potentially disreputable con artists who could skip town. Pet stores are suspected of using dogs from "puppy mills," which churn out sickly animals, and keeping animals cooped up in cages. Shelters are said to be full of dogs that were abandoned because they were untrainable and problematic to begin with.

For a consumer, the warning "buyer beware" applies.

The shelter route

"You go to a pet store, you're spending a fortune. You come to shelter, you're saving a life," points out Lokken, who has worked at the Dewey Center since it opened 14 years ago.

When asked why he came to the shelter, Lipinski replies simply: "I hate to see pit bulls put to sleep."

Even those who could afford to pay a premium -- such as Andre Agassi, who adopted two cats for his then-girlfriend, Brooke Shields -- have chosen to adopt through the shelter for that humanitarian reason, she notes.

Dewey is one of three municipal shelters in the Las Vegas Valley, serving Clark County and North Las Vegas. Henderson has its own shelter, and the city is served by the eastside Animal Foundation.

Dewey gets about 80 to 120 dogs every day of the week, placing 20 to 40 in new homes, returning about five to 15 to their rightful owners every day, and passing others onto rescue organizations. Those that outstay their six-day welcome -- especially those that are deemed dangerously wild -- must be euthanized.

Lokken notes that the shelter does get "aggressive" animals. These animals have often been mistreated and have good reason to be mistrustful of humans. "People train them to be that way, or they've been a yard dog that got loose, and has been wandering the streets forever," she says.

Another option is the private, nonprofit Humane Society, where dogs are placed in foster homes of volunteers until permanent homes can be found. The agency places about 800 animals a year, director Judith Ruiz says. Most significantly, the Humane Society has the luxury of not having to put to sleep any of its animals.

The breeder route

Many pet experts recommend breeders, saying they provide the best quality animals. "Buy your puppy from a responsible and well-respected breeder," the AKC website recommends. "This cannot be stressed enough."

However, finding a reputable breeder -- especially in a transient town such as Las Vegas -- can be a challenge.

Lokken purchased a golden retriever puppy through a local breeder who promised to mail her the AKC papers in a month. "I went to the same house where I picked up the puppies -- (they were) gone, no forwarding address or phone number," she recalls. The same thing happened to a friend of hers who bought a Rottweiler. "This happens in Las Vegas all the time. Be very careful if you're going through the newspaper, make sure you see those papers or get photocopies."

Palmieri, who purchases animals through breeders, then passes them along to customers, notes that at least a pet store offers some security in that they are more established. "The Better Business Bureau knows where we are, we are licensed, and someone can always find us," she notes, "but you can't always find a breeder. They may say they will, but will they really be there?"

When things go wrong, a pet store does offer some guarantees: Palmieri recalls selling a customer a Doberman pinscher that she bought from a local breeder. The Doberman turned out to be ill. "It was hospitalized for 11 days and we paid for its treatment, and the purchaser was returned a healthy dog and didn't have to pay a cent," she recalls. "If she had purchased it from the breeder, I doubt the breeder would have paid the cost associated with this treatment; they don't have a vet on retainer."

And pet lovers such as Ruiz are dismayed by the idea of bringing more animals into the world when there are already so many out there that need a home. "With so animals being euthanized, 18,000 a year in Clark County, I feel it's best for people not to breed at this time," she says.

If you do want to find a breeder, the shelters maintain a list of breeders they consider reputable. You can also call the AKC (900-407-PUPS) or go to its website for a local referral. Twelve Las Vegas breeders are listed, specializing in dogs from Akitas to bulldogs.

The puppy store route

There is one question that Palmieri hears every day: Isn't it cruel to keep puppies in small cages?

"We explain it's like keeping a baby in a crib for the first two years," she says. "When it goes out it's in an infant seat or playpen. It's to keep them well and safe."

To convince customers, she has even posted a sign that reads: "Puppies are housed in regulation-sized kennels that meet and exceed local, state and animal welfare regulations. Keeping the puppies housed this way also helps in keeping our pups healthy, (preventing them) from catching contagious disease and parasites. Some people think this idea is cruel, but in reality there are many more reasons (than) health that young pups benefit from being in a high-tech kennel such as this one."

She elaborates on why she uses cages, as opposed to stores which are keeping animals in plastic wading pools. "When they're here, we can observe their stools, if they have parasites or blood. With a lot of dogs (in a pen), you can't observe that and maintain treatment. They're medically observed, we think we give the public healthy dogs."

Palmieri sells about 6,000 dogs a year from her three stores, including sales to local celebrities such as Bob Stupak, Phyllis McGuire and Julia Roberts, who came in to purchase a Chihuahua.

Still, many are suspicious that puppy stores rely on what are known as "puppy mills" -- places that grind out large supplies of poorly-bred animals under inhumane conditions.

"I think people are getting a little wiser about the type of animals that are sold in stores, and the lack of health care in general," Ruiz says. "Many of the puppies in pet stores come from puppy mills, and you're paying a high price for something that has not had a lot of socialization and is not that healthy."

"I think most people are under the misconception that pet stores buy their dogs from puppy mills. We don't," Palmieri says. "We buy from hobby breeders and professional breeders with (United States Department of Agriculture) numbers." These USDA breeders are licensed and meet "139 criteria," including biannual inspections and regular care, she says.

In addition, the store, as required by state law, maintains a medical sheet with detailed charts of veterinary care. Nevada law requires that information on date of birth, source, lineage and medical history of the animals be provided to the purchaser before completion of any sale.

It's worth it

If buying a pet can be such a chore, why does anyone go through with it?

"The unconditional love they give you," Ruiz says, "the companionship, the affection -- they give so much."

"Pets can brighten your day, they can put a smile on your face, when you see them doing something cute, it makes you smile," Palmieri says. "If they lick your hand, it makes you feel comforted. A (dog) is a wonderful thing. You can cuddle it. You can't do that with a bird or a fish."

After waiting a few moments, Lipinski's pit bull finally makes its appearance. Lipinsky is given the choice of collar and leash, and quickly picks out a bright red one, slipping it over the still-unnamed dog's neck.

The muscular white-and-brown pit bull gives itself a quick shake and a wiggle, loosening its muscles from the cramped quarters of its pen. He explores the length of his leash, excited by the new surroundings.

Lipinski tugs the dog toward him and the pet gives his new owner a tentative lick. A new partnership between man and beast has begun.

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