<p>The scholarship money should be for school - not for a puppy, vacation, new bike, or other similar indulgences not associated directly with school. The idea behind scholarships is to help with education and if you spend it on gifts for yourself your parents will just have to pay that much more. You should feel quite good about yourself having won it and being able to use it to contribute to your own education - especially since you say you have a lot more education expense ahead of you.</p>
<p>As a dog lover myself who has done some work with a dog rescue place (and whose D did a lot of work with the rescue place) and the owner of a rescued dog - please ‘don’t’ get a dog now. </p>
<p>Dogs, and especially puppies, need to have the owner spend an adequate amount of time with the dog, need an owner with the means to take care of a dog (spoken from someone who’s paid for multiple animal surgeries, MRIs, etc. to the tune of thousands of dollars), and need an owner who’ll ensure they can be taken care of all day every single day.</p>
<p>As a person in college your life is full of unknowns - you might decide to study abroad, study at another school, do an internship elsewhere, go to grad school somewhere, get involved with a significant other who might have a conflict with the dog, etc. You need to realize that getting a dog at this point is much more about ‘you’ than the dog and it’s irresponsible to get a dog when one isn’t truly ready for it time-wise and financially. As someone planning to go to med school it makes even less sense since I doubt you’ll have a lot of free time or money for quite a while. Also, your neighbors will appreciate it if you don’t get a dog that has to be alone in a home all day (likely barking and whining most of the time you’re gone). My D’s having to put up with one of those now and I’ve had to put up with it as well.</p>
<p>Too many dogs end up in shelters, animal rescue places, or euthanized because the owner’s ‘plans changed’. </p>
<p>The good news is that you have plenty of time to get a dog in a responsible manner after you’re done with college, are stable in a job, and can see more of that road ahead.</p>