Four million highly adoptable dogs are killed each year
in this country's "shelters." That is 1 dog every 13 seconds.


For the Love of Dogs Vermont
is working to change these statistics.

Dogs end up in shelters for many reasons, most of them having nothing to do with the dog's temperament. Some people find puppies cute and irresistible, so they take them home and soon realize they are a lot more work than they bargained for. A perfectly wonderful dog suddenly ends up in a shelter. Some people, through divorce, relocation, medical issues, new jobs, a death in the family, and the like, find that they just can't care for their dog any longer and their dog is suddenly homeless.

So why rescue a dog?

  • Because when you rescue a dog, you not only save his or her life . . . you save the life of the dog who took the space you helped free up.

  • Because rescue dogs are happy, healthy, well-socialized animals just waiting for the right family to come along.

  • Because adopting is cheaper than buying. Rescue dogs are already spayed or neutered and vaccinated and given a clean bill of health when they leave the shelter. When you purchase a dog at a pet shop, online, from a puppy mill, or from a breeder, you will pay the purchase price plus the cost of vaccinating and spaying or neutering plus other medical costs associated with helping that dog reach its optimal state of health.

  • Because everybody wins when you rescue a dog.

View our current list of Adoptable Dogs.

Additional Facts:

In a good portion of the south, spay/neuter laws do not exist for dogs; this leads to the critical problem of overpopulation. These dogs end up in high-kill shelters that have limited space for the number of dogs collected and ultimately leads to millions of dogs being destroyed each year.

Approximately 60% of all shelter dogs are euthanized. That's a staggering number.

Thinking of buying a dog from a pet store or online? Many of those puppies have serious behavioral and health problems that may not be readily apparent. You may not be aware that the money you spend on that puppy will go into the pocket of the puppy mill owners.  Puppy mills are factory-style breeding facilities that put profit above the welfare of the dogs. Most dogs born and raised in puppy mills live in shockingly poor conditions and receive little or no medical care. Moms are kept in cages to be bred over and over, sometimes for years, with little human companionship, little interaction with other dogs, and little hope of ever "living a dog's life." Once a mom has produced beyond her potential, she is either abandoned, sold, or killed.