interested in dogs

Question
hi.  i am 16 and am looking for a good friend, a dog that is...  I read some books about them and etc.  I know some basics.  But i wonder how and where i can get them, without being so expensive and all...
thanks.  

Answer
Think of the price you pay for a dog as the down payment.  You will then have vet and food bills for its entire life.  They need flea and heartworm preventative too.  If you are good at working out of a book, you can skip the obedience classes.  At 16 you can still do 4-H.  In my area, clubs form soon after the first of the year.  Even many urban
areas have 4-H.  For info look in your phone book under government listings
for extension or cooperative extension offices.  Ask specifically about a dog
or canine club.  The dogs see all the people and dogs in the household as a
pack with each having their own rank in the pack and a top dog.  Life is much
easier if the 2 legged pack members outrank the 4 legged ones.  You can learn
to play the role of top dog by reading some books or going to a good obedience
class.  A good obedience class or book is about you being top dog, not about rewarding standard commands a treat. Start at http://www.dogsbestfriend.com/

There are many nice dogs available for free or almost free.  If money is a factor, I would look for one at least 6 months old.  New puppies need to go to the vet every few weeks for shots.  

Consider the animal shelter.  There are many nice dogs, and you can see how
they look with little or no grooming.  You can also see how they behave.  Look
for dogs that want your attention, but are not going wild. Leave the ones that
retreat to the back of their cage.  Look at their teeth.  Look for ones that
still show a 3 lobed, clove like pattern on the front ones.  Leave the ones
that fight letting you look at their teeth too much.  If the points are worn
off the teeth, it is an older dog that may break your heart by dying too soon.
Pinch the web between its toes.  It hurts.  It is OK for the dog to pull away
or whine, but it shouldn't growl, snap or show its teeth.  Think about size.
In a small apartment, a Golden might knock over the lamps when it walks
through wagging its tail.  Since the shelter likely will kill most of the
dogs, you may as well pick out a nice one.

One of the best sources for dogs with a predictable personality is the rescue
dogs.  These are dogs that lost their home, but were taken into a foster home
to be retrained as necessary and placed in the right home for them.   You may
find a rescue near you starting at
http://www.akc.org/breeds/rescue.cfm  The rescues charge a fee to help cover their expenses, but is much less than the price of a puppy plus all its medical expenses the first year.  

www.petfinder.org is good too, but doesn't retrain or carefully match to the new home as well.  You can find dogs in the want ads, ''Free to a good home.''  Often they may be problem dogs.  Good obedience training plus coming back here for help could allow you to make a nice dog out of somebody else's problem.  Many people buy puppies and have no idea of how to make nice dogs out of them.  

www.akc.org and www.purina.com have breed selector pages on their site.   You
might try them.   Don't take a recommendation for some obscure, hard to find
breed too seriously.  Dogs don't read breed descriptions and often fail to follow them.  If you get a mixed breed from a shelter or rescue, it will be welcome at 4-H.  

There is an enormous amount of nonsense around on dog chow.  Contrary to what those selling more expensive chows say, most dogs will thrive on most commercial dog chows.  I am not even sure there is anything worn with Old Roy from Wal-Mart.  And for little more, you can have Purina, which I know is fine.  My son is feeding it to the Fox hound they recently got from a shelter.