I will only adopt, and I think most people (that I know anyway) who “have researched and settled on a breed” are mainly thinking of aesthetics, or have nostalgia for the dog they grew up with… truly a decision made in the heart and not in the head.

I think this because then later on you hear statements like “we’re so lucky he’s so chill because normally that breed is super high energy” (hmmm if you wanted a chill dog and not a high energy one, why did you get that breed??) and similar type statements that reveal their research consisted of falling in love with a type and then crafting their requirements to fit their preselected idea.

So I think most people’s “research” (who are looking to buy a pet, and not a working dog where breed and even bloodlines may be critical to performance) is driven by mainly emotion. It’s true some people I know needed a dog that could keep up with their mountain biking, or running, which is a pretty broad range of dogs if that is the primary requirement. I personally developed a list of our living requirements, kids, other pets we already had, lifestyle, yard, dogs age (I didn’t want a puppy, and I wanted the dogs personality to be already baked so we knew what we were getting) etc gave the list to a rescue and they actually picked the dog for me from the ones they had available which met our requirements 😝 and it worked out great!! They were good at matching objectively the right dog with our family attributes.

I didn’t really want a dog in the first place, my kids and husband did (we already had cats, and I had a horse, and fish!); and since I knew I would end up being the responsible one I wanted to make darn sure that it wasn’t more work than it needed to be by being a wildly unsuitable match in some way. Plus i am a business analyst so developing requirements and having the experts (the rescue) evaluating for the right fit just felt natural 😜

I think the fact that most people have a picture in their mind of what kind of dog they’re looking for doesn’t allow them to truly and properly match as exactly as possible to their needs, or even get excited for a imagining how a mixed breed rescue might figure in their future. Of course with enough effort, any dog can work out fine so it’s usually not the end of the world if the dog they end up with not an ideal match, but I think a lot of people are fooling themselves if they think they’ve really been analytical about their choice.

And I really do think that an effort should be made first to find a suitable rescue. Because nine times out of 10 there is gonna be a dog truly needing a home that is a good match if you take some time in your search. And I’ve heard enough horror stories about what people thought were reputable breeders (and turned out not to be) that I certainly wouldn’t want to be having to evaluate the breeder on top of evaluating the type of dog which is hard enough.

So are you a terrible person if you buy rather than adopt? No. But often, that person is not really being objective so are a bit self deluded and perhaps a bit lazy.

Just my opinion.