Adoption, purchase vs. rescue

Many people use the word “RESCUE” wrong, let’s define the differences. To RESCUE means to save from life threatening, dangerous or distressing situations, ADOPT means to legally take and raise to the best of your ability, PURCHASE means to acquire something for money. Now that we have clarified the meanings let me say this, if you adopted a pet from a shelter, YOU DID NOT RESCUE IT. If you answered an ad from kijiji or Facebook and purchased a pet or got it for ” free to a good home” YOU DID NOT RESCUE IT. If you bought an animal from a breeder, say it with me YOU DID NOT RESCUE IT! When people use the word rescue when you infact did not rescue the animal you diminish from those who indeed did rescue an animal. The people who actually rescue usually put their lives on the line to take down puppy mills, go into dangerous situations to free animals who are tied up and starving to death, remove animals from hoarding situations, people abusing their animals for personal gains, removed from abandoned buildings due to be bulldozed, etc. I can give you hundreds of examples of REAL RESCUE situations, some that would make you weep, so people please stop using the word RESCUE to ease your guilt of purchasing, or to sound better when explaining how you obtained your animal, or simply because you like a good sobe story, for empathy or simply out of ignorance of the word RESCUE! I talk to thousands of people every year and 99 times out of 100 when I ask how did you come to owning your pet they say ” I rescued it” well if all these people were in fact rescuing their animal our shelters would be damn near empty! In fact they are over flowing and animals die every day due to lack of space. No one will pass judgement if you simply say the truth to how you got your pet, in fact most won’t really care, they only care or seem to care when the animal has a sad story behind them, which by the way only makes you feel better to tell it, the animal doesn’t care, it’s just happy to be safe. So people please stop abusing, over using or misrepresenting the word RESCUE. It simply diminishes the actual people who work damn hard and do the dirty work of getting these animals out and into safety, they are the only true people who Rescue.