National Puppy Day in the United States Date in the current year: March 23, 2024

Paige has devoted her life to creating philanthropic holidays aimed to celebrate pet animals and raise awareness of animal welfare. They include National Cat Day, National Dog Day, National Pet Day, National Horse Protection Day, National Mutt Day, National Wildlife Day, and others. Paige’s efforts have helped save millions of unwanted pets, and holidays that started out as national are actually considered international now.

The inaugural National Puppy Day was celebrated on March 23, 2006. According to Paige, she created it in order to remind people about unconditional love that puppies bring to the lives of their caretakers, as well as to help orphaned puppies find new loving families. One more goal of the holiday is to raise public awareness about the horrors of puppy mills for commercial breeding, where puppies live in unhealthy conditions and are not taken proper care of because most puppy mill owners just want to make money and don’t care about animal welfare.

Most puppy mills lack space, so puppies live in tiny cages that are rarely cleaned. Many puppies die of various infections soon after birth because it is very hard to contain the spread of infection in such a crammed space, and those that survive often lack social skills and don’t know how to behave around people.

However, puppy mills aren’t the only issue here. Animal shelters are overflowing with puppies in dire need of homes because many people don’t neuter their dogs and allow them to reproduce uncontrollably, and then puppies are just thrown out like trash and left to die.

So there are at least two reasons why you should adopt a puppy instead of buying one. First, when you buy a puppy from a pet store, you most likely indirectly support puppy mills because the sad reality is that most pet stores buy puppies from puppy mills. Second, why buy a puppy when there are so many rescues that need a loving home? If you want a pure breed puppy, it’s not a problem, because there are a lot of pure breed puppies in shelters.

National Puppy Day was created to encourage people to adopt puppies from shelters and rescue organizations, and it even has a specific goal: its organizers want at least 10,000 puppies across the United States to get adopted on National Puppy Day.

If you can’t adopt a puppy, you can still celebrate National Puppy Day by donating money, food, supplies or toys to your local shelter, volunteering, organize a peaceful demonstration in support of banning puppy mills, or spread the word about the holiday on social media using the hashtag #nationalpuppyday. And if you already have a puppy, buy him or her a treat or new toy.

Although National Puppy Day originated in the United States and was originally designed as a national observance, it has become international due to the power of social media. So it doesn’t matter where you live, you can celebrate Puppy Day if you want to and encourage other people to do the same!