Just recently we adopted a dog. The dog, a purebred 8 year old toy poodle showed up on our remote ranch in the middle of the New Mexico desert. The animal had tags on it so I called the local Vet who looked up the owner. It turned out that the animal had in a period of less than one year after investigation had a total of three homes. Her first owner was put into a convalescent home and she was adopted by the lady who had paid for all the shots. This lady does volunteer work and takes in dogs that need homes and had taken care of her until another friend of hers begged to take this poodle. The tag traced to #2. The dog went to home number 3. Home #3 did not understand that poodles are by instinct hunting dogs and home #3 kept chickens. Unfortunately this poor little poodle decided to go out and silently without hesitation eliminated virtually the entire chicken coop in about twenty minutes. Owner #3 was upset and gave the poor dog away to the first person that would take it, she did not care about the quality of the home. She simply did not take the dog back to the person she had begged to take the dog in the first place. Owner #4 had a toy poodle chained in the back yard in a rural area. There is evidence in the behavior of the dog that she was severely beaten by either #3 or #4. Nobody knows for certain. She cries out in the middle of the night on occasion and screams and cries if startled. She escaped from #4 and spent 2 weeks in the New Mexico desert surviving in unimaginable ways. She was caked with mud, covered in diesel crankcase oil and full of stickers and parasites when we found her starving dehydrated and shaking under ranch equipment. Daytimes temperatures were over 100 degrees, the only water around here are cattle watering troughs dug into the ground and nobody knows how she survived. When we found her she ran and ended up by strange coincidence less than 3 feet from a live rattlesnake. Fortunately the heat had already gotten the snake and it was very lethargic and in the process of dying itself. Nobody knows how this little girl survived to this day, her survival was a miracle.
The one thing to remember is that adopting what we call a "used dog" from a shelter has one problem and that is that unless the shelter or animal control acquired the dog because of abuse charges that they will not always be aware that an animal has been abused. A private party may not tell the truth as to why the dog needs a new home and must leave theirs.
We have had her about 8 weeks now and she is beginning to calm down and the cries and screaming in the middle of he night are getting better. This is a wonderful dog that is extremely intelligent and loving even towards the cats that already lived here when she moved in.
Like adopting a child that came from a bad home you have to understand that trauma can be a part of the past of a given animal. If you understand that things go OK over time.
I have never paid for any animal that I have adopted. There are too many out there needing good homes when bad things happen to good people. Many newspapers have ads for dogs that are FREE to good home. The main idea is to find a great dog that fits you. Please don't limit your search to a purebred dog and be careful of certain breeds because certain very tiny breeds are not easily housebroken. Their urinary tract is very small in size and will not hold very much before urination is needed. If I had sought out to adopt a dog my first choice would not have been a poodle. I have never had such a loving and grateful dog. She is an angel when clipped and groomed, during bathing, and her only problem is that she wants a "sightseeing tour" when she is taken out to do her business.
Just look at your local throw away newspapers and there will be a large number of free dogs to good homes.