Originally posted by Amber
Alot of familys, like ours cannot go to a shelter to just pick and adopt a dog. Why? Because my family has needs to know HOW the dog will end up when its older. Because we can't have a dog that will end up shedding because my brother's allergies. Or we can't get a dog that we have no idea how big it will be. We can only have small dogs, because its what we perfer.

Thats why we turned to a breeder to know what we were exactly getting into. I wouldn't want to be unfair to a shelter dog who didn't match our needs, and have something horrible happen to it. Like place in a new home for example.

And thats my reason.
That is exactly what my family went through, my mom has allergies and couldn't have a dog that would shed or would make her allergies act up.

We looked at many breeds, Bichons, Malteses, Poodles, Shih tzu, and other dogs that would 'fit' into our family. We looked at shelters, petfinder.com, etc. But, we also needed a dog that would be ok with my 2 younger sisters (at the time they were 2 1/2 and 7 -ish)

Being unable to find a dog that would meet our needs after looking for a few years at many shelters we turned to a breeder. Like Amber said, we didn't want to be unfair to a dog for something they couldn't help, like shedding and making my mom have an allergic reaction.

BTW, I have absolutely nothing against shelter dogs. I have talked to my parents that if we are to ever get another dog, I want to look into more shelters than we did. When I get my own house someday and have no 'limits' than it will be easier to find an adoptable dog, but for now my family and I are just lucky to have found a great dog!

I hope my post made sense, I'm really tired right now. Please excuse any mistakes.