What Dog to Get

We debated as to whether we should purchase a pure bred dog for weeks. Should we pay hundreds of dollars for a purebred and if so how hard will it be to find one that did not come from a puppy mill. I kept finding myself looking at Rat Terriers and sobbing more. 

Rat Terrier Puppy (Molly) Dec. 08, 2001

I decided I would do some research on dog breeds. We did decide that we wanted a terrier of some sort and it shouldn’t be a rat terrier. We felt that if the dog was too close to Molly we would always try to compare them and it wouldn’t be fair. Not to the new dog, Molly, or us. Being the way that I am (overly analytical), I went to several dog breed related sites digging up everything I could on the various breeds of terriers. The best site I found for this information was Dog Time. I also recommend checking through the Westminster Kennel Club for information. 

While researching I put a numerical weight to specific traits and waded through all of that to find something along the lines of a border or fox terrier would probably fit with our life style best. Click here for the file I put together if you are interested. Then I started searching the Internet for fox terriers. 

Smooth Fox Terrier

As it turns out fox terrier price range is around $700. This was a significant issue as we were not willing to dish out a large sum of cash for a dog. After looking at the many websites dedicated to fox terriers we started cruising craigslist.org, petfinder.com, and several other places. There were so many dogs that needed homes…needed love…deserved so much better.