Be Selfish: Adopt an Old Dog

Catelyn Silapachai
3 min readMar 10, 2020

Forget about animal welfare; adopting an old dog is one of the most selfish decisions you can make. It’s so simple. One day you have no pets, and you’re happy. The next day, you have an old dog, and you’re still happy. The rest of your life is exactly the same, now with all of the benefits of unconditional love.

Let’s contrast that last scenario to that of getting a puppy. When you bring a young dog into your home, you effectively say goodbye to uninterrupted sleep, clean carpet, anything wooden, anything soft, anything leather that you might have owned. Those are the givens. The training is the variable. Will you spend your hard-earned money on professional dog trainers? Will you read all the books and attempt it yourself? Will you do nothing and let this wild beast take over your house and home? How will you find the time to go home from work to let the puppy out midday for the next 6 months?

I’m tired just re-reading that. Friends, there is another way. You might have heard about someone adopting an older dog and thought: “Wow, what a good person.” They aren’t good people. They’re selfish. They want to be loved unconditionally and do as little work as possible in return.

Imagine coming home from work to a dog who didn’t mind that you were gone for the whole work day. Not only did they not mind, they didn’t even notice. They’re still taking…

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Catelyn Silapachai

I write about books, parenting, politics, and religion. I live in Austin, Texas with my husband, daughter, dogs, and plants.