Fighting Ignorance

While browsing through a Chihuahua discussion group on Flickr, I ran across this one particular thread where this person was contemplating acquiring himself one Chihuahua or a pair of them.  One of statements caught my eye:

…I'm going to get my dogs from a local breeder, by the way, I am all for rescuing dogs or adopting dogs, but most of those pets tend to have issues and/or need extra or special care which I do not feel like I can deal with or provide.
So I doubt if I got one it would have behavioral issues from being alone. It's still possible. Nonetheless, I am wanting two because even without noticeable effects, your pet's mental health is much better off having another member of the pack always by their side when I'm away...

Oh, boy, did that set me off.  I had no choice but to reply:

It is absolutely not true that rescue dogs tend to have issues or special needs. There is no reason to ever assume a rescue dog is inferior or flawed. Nowadays many, many dogs that end up in shelters come from good families forced to move somewhere where they can't take their dogs because of the bad economy. It's not uncommon to find beautiful purebreds of all breeds in local shelters.
Have you ever seen Beverly Hills Chihuahua? The star Chihuahua, Papi, was discovered in an animal shelter.
Breeders are the real problem. Shelters and rescues are full of perfectly fine dogs needing permanent homes and yet these breeders keep adding to the population. And you know what happens to the ones that don't get adopted. They get euthanized, which is a nice way of saying "killed".
I realize that your original post was months ago so this information can't help you now, but anyone reading this should know that the number of Chihuahuas and other small breeds in shelters have boomed. In some places the Chihuahuas actually outnumber the Pit Bulls.
Please make going to a breeder a last resort, or even better yet, not an option at all.

Folks, please don’t ever let anyone devalue the worth of a shelter dog.