Does anyone else ever feel guilty about domesticating their rescue? My family pets have always come from breeders and I can say with certainty that those dogs would immediately perish in the wild lol. My current puppy, though, is a rescue that was picked up off the street by animal control. We love her to death and spend as much time with her as possible, but I can't help having this feeling that she'd be happier on the streets where she came from. Obviously, that's not realistic because I'm not the type of person to set my pet loose on the streets. I just think she misses running around free, not being crated at night, being allowed to run up to people and dogs whenever she pleases, and being able to eat whatever garbage and scraps she comes across. We spend so much of our time telling her "no" and training her not to do normal dog behaviors (eating, barking, jumping up, chewing) and I just feel awful about it sometimes. It doesn't help that her favorite (allowable) activity is playing with dogs at the dog park, something we cannot replicate at home, and that she has very little interest in toys. Besides the dog park, it seems like she's only happy when she's being destructive or when she finally tuckers out and falls asleep on the couch in the evening.
I know, intellectually, that we are doing everything we can for her and that she's got a pretty nice life compared to other dogs. Does anyone have any advice on how to get rid of these guilty feelings, though?
submitted by /u/exhausted_always
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