A MESSAGE ABOUT SPAYING AND NEUTERING YOUR DOG Northeastern Boxer Rescue has a firm policy of not adopting any of our dogs into a home that presently has a dog that has not been spayed or neutered.  Unless there is a specific medical reason, verified by your dog's veterinarian, this is a non-negotiable policy. Experience has taught us that adopting into a home with an intact dog can and does cause behavior problems that usually escalate.  One of NBR's goals is to stop the revolving door lives our dogs have had and when problems arise in the new home, invariably the adopted dog will be returned - only to start the rehoming process all over again. Unfortunately, we also receive many applications from people that will use their present dog for breeding purposes.  We hope you can understand that pure breed dogs never begin their lives as strays - they are always the result of a planned breeding. The tragedy is that each and every one of the dogs you see on our site was brought into this world for various reasons - 'we just want to breed him/her once', 'we want the kids to see puppies born', 'we want to make some money', 'people always ask us for one of her puppies'.   So humans and their wishes to breed more pure breed dogs are always at the root of the overpopulation problem. NBR's breeding policy is not unlike our own lives - the responsibility lies well beyond our own front door.  An average litter of 7 puppies can eventually become well over 100 puppies and some of those puppies will end up in rescue.  At that point, *your* puppies and *your* responsibility becomes *our* dogs and *our* responsibility.   There are simply not enough good homes for all of the dogs, which is why shelters in this country kill over 8 million unwanted dogs each year.  Each time a litter is born, it reduces the chances of a dog that is homeless to find its forever home.  Each dog on our site, and the hundreds more that will come into NBR's care, is waiting for a family of its own to love. Still thinking about breeding?  Then please, go to our Available Dogs Page and choose the 7 dogs that you feel do not deserve a home of their own, a family to love and who will love them back.  Choose 7 dogs and know that these 7 dogs could have been placed in a loving family.  Could have been but may not be because you have now placed 7 more dogs on this earth and those dogs also need to find loving homes.  This overpopulation nightmare is preventable but only if each of us takes responsibility for each dog that has been entrusted to us.  It is this reason and this reason only that NBR will not 'partner' with anyone that breeds - no matter what their reasons for breeding are. All of the hard working volunteers at NBR thank you for taking the time to read this and hope that if you have not done so already, you will make an appointment to have your dog spayed or neutered immediately.  Then, please continue to the Available Dogs Page and look at the wonderful dogs that are waiting to become a loving member of your family. THE BENEFITS OF EARLY SPAYING AND NEUTERING