Pet Store Puppies

Justicemom said:
and if that BYB decided they wanted to breed their toy sheltie?
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I know, I know! But reading Dr. Mac's response just makes it even more ambiguous.

Its really hard to take a firm position here. I thought I had one once. It was pretty black and white. No puppy mills, no BYB. Its unfortunately not that simple.

But in reality, just too many shades of grey...and hence why legislators waffle as well. And vets, and rescues and pet owners, etc. And why we have an explosion of designer dogs that no one can regulate and people are insistent are breeds.....Sorry, no, a Golden Doodle is NOT a breed (but they think it is!!!!)

I don't the answer truly, but Dr. Mac....but if I was you and having to advise a customer, I would say NO to breeding. Breeding should really be left to those that know what they are doing and know what they are getting into - birthing and raising pups to 8 weeks. Doesn't matter if purebred or mixed....and puppy is a puppy and a litter takes a ton of work, and should not be done on a whim (because they would be cute)
 
BarbV said:
I don't the answer truly, but Dr. Mac....but if I was you and having to advise a customer, I would say NO to breeding. Breeding should really be left to those that know what they are doing and know what they are getting into - birthing and raising pups to 8 weeks. Doesn't matter if purebred or mixed....and puppy is a puppy and a litter takes a ton of work, and should not be done on a whim (because they would be cute)
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Who says this is a whim, or that these folk are not up to the work? Surely Dr. Mac would be the best judge of his clients suitability and ability to do a good job. Every breeder had to start with a first litter - potential problems notwitstanding, breeding dogs is clearly doable else none of us would have puppies. Maybe it's because I grew up in the country, where animals reproduced with little intervention - actually watched my first cat having her babies when I was about 9 ( Mom was sure mad I didn't come get her to move her off the bed!). As with humans, horror stories aside, birth is a fairly natural thing and when it's not, we have hospitals and vets.
 
BarbV said:
I know, I know! But reading Dr. Mac's response just makes it even more ambiguous.

Its really hard to take a firm position here. I thought I had one once. It was pretty black and white. No puppy mills, no BYB. Its unfortunately not that simple.

But in reality, just too many shades of grey...and hence why legislators waffle as well. And vets, and rescues and pet owners, etc. And why we have an explosion of designer dogs that no one can regulate and people are insistent are breeds.....Sorry, no, a Golden Doodle is NOT a breed (but they think it is!!!!)
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Precisely.
There is a changing paradigm here.
We are still thinking in terms of 30- 50 years ago. Many people were letting their dogs have puppies, dogs were running free, lots of unwanted very nice dogs in shelters looking for adoptions, 'don't add to the unwanted dog population' etc. Factory puppy mills were a small part of the equation - most pet stores used local puppies.
When I was a dairy farm veterinarian in upstate NY, in the 1970s, we had a client farm that was connected with a broker supplying puppies for Macy's in NYC, and it was quite a unique setup.
There were those who went to good breeders , paid higher prices for the 'quality dogs' carefully bred to maintain the breed standard, and continued to breed them. Others were expected, (optimistically, but the system basically worked), to spay or neuter.

While we still think in those terms, in RI, and I'm sure many other places, these situations no longer exist, and our current assumptions about where people should get their puppies no longer make a great deal of sense.
 
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EJHUNTL said:
Who says this is a whim, or that these folk are not up to the work? Surely Dr. Mac would be the best judge of his clients suitability and ability to do a good job. Every breeder had to start with a first litter - potential problems notwitstanding, breeding dogs is clearly doable else none of us would have puppies. Maybe it's because I grew up in the country, where animals reproduced with little intervention - actually watched my first cat having her babies when I was about 9 ( Mom was sure mad I didn't come get her to move her off the bed!). As with humans, horror stories aside, birth is a fairly natural thing and when it's not, we have hospitals and vets.
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Are you kidding me! I see this all the time!! Wouldn't it be cute to breed my dogs?! This is how designer dogs came about. I have countless people coming into my store, knowing nothing about breeding but wanting to consider at least one litter of their so perfect dog. We constantly have to gently leAd them away from this.

If they do breed, they aren't puppy mill but they are posted on kiijjiji or similar and got to unqualified homes, and many then end up in rescues or shelters., because they weren't ready. It's not always about puppy mills.
 
Barb, I can assure you that my daughter's corgi is not going to end up in a shelter or rescue. Plenty of "registered" dogs do. My sister in law no co-owns a bichon/poodle mix, this is year 4 for Beau with summers at the cottage and winters with his other owners in Ottawa. Again I can assure you that he's not going anywhere ( goofy nutball that he is). Her schnauzer lived to about 19! So what if a labradoodle is not a breed, they can make great pets and plenty of purebred dogs can be hell, and vice versa. We happen to live not far from a labradoodle breeder - her puppy sign is up at least once a year. Her dogs are really gorgeous, one of the cottage owners had one, too big for my liking but a very sweet fellow indeed. I'm not going to shell out $800 for a designer dog but how other people choose to spend their money is none of my business. Mutt or purebred, you takes yer chances, with love, training and good vet care it mostly works out. I don't see any difference between me and my registered sheltie and sister in law and her mutt - we both take great care of our dogs.

Honestly why would a small hobby breeder have any more of a difficult time screen potential new owners than a small registered breeder? Is there a course or something? In the end it all boils down to your ability to judge character, people lie . . .even rescues have been fooled. The breeder who sold me Hanna had never seen me before the 2 hours I spent with her puppies - she had to make a judgement call afte asking questions and watching me with the puppies. She did end up coming to my house to do the microchip and we have kept in touch by email, but I could just as easily have dropped out of sight .

Lots of people adopt mixed breed dogs from the pound and no-one suggest they can't become excellent companions - unknown background and all. The guilt trip is reserved for people who got it from the small breeder - adopt that puppy from the pound a year later and suddenly you're a saint. For whatever reason I happen to know quite a few people with dogs and aside from one friend with a toy poodle, I'm the only one with a registered pet. All of these dogs are well looked after - cause I wouldn't hang with the sort of person who mistreats animals.

Responsible owners/small breeders can and do meet. For me I'd rather someone checked an ad on kijiji and went to the home to see how the puppies are being raised rather than pick-up that puppy at the pet store, where chances are you'll have no idea where it came from or how it was handled from birth. YMMV
 
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This is what its all about, this is what is going on in the state of Maine right now. These two quotes explains what is going on perfectly and what Dr Mac was referring to..

There's a protest against one of Maine's five legal pet stores this weekend. The protest is organized by paid employees of the privately-held kill shelter Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland. Maine's privately-held kill shelters import thousands of animals to sell from completely unknown sources, but pet shop puppies from licensed and inspected kennels should be picketed?

Meanwhile,

This animal shelter that is importing dogs testified against breeders and pet stores stating "overpopulation" Now that the competition is out of the way, they import puppies and dogs on a regular basis!! What better way to have a monopoly then to outlaw the competition! No wonder they can sell these dogs for $400 each in Maine!

"The privately-held kill-shelter Animal Welfare Society of Kennebunk, Maine is the radical animal rights boot camp of Maine. They testify against dog breeders, they protest pet stores, and they provide a field office for the HSUS lobbyist.
 
Incidentally, having reread this thread, I do feel compelled to point out that I am absolutely NOT trying to disparage all the excellent, selfless, humane work done by many legitimate rescue organizations.
As Lightplum's quote shows, there has been something of an inundation of 'truckload rescues' with 'adoption fairs' of late, and it is very questionable if this is an improvement to take up the slack for pet stores largely supplied by mill puppies.
This is a different situation entirely from the good rescues - I do a lot of work with several. But it is challenging to educate our potential clients about the difference.
 
The Quahog said:
Incidentally, having reread this thread, I do feel compelled to point out that I am absolutely NOT trying to disparage all the excellent, selfless, humane work done by many legitimate rescue organizations.
As Lightplum's quote shows, there has been something of an inundation of 'truckload rescues' with 'adoption fairs' of late, and it is very questionable if this is an improvement to take up the slack for pet stores largely supplied by mill puppies.
This is a different situation entirely from the good rescues - I do a lot of work with several. But it is challenging to educate our potential clients about the difference.
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Thank-you Dr. Mac for posting this.

For those people who work their hearts out to foster, give all necessary vet care...often spending a good deal of their own personal money, and striving to place each little dog that comes under their care in carefully screened homes, it is always tough when we get lumped together with these truckload/adoption fair "rescues" (and I realize that was not your intent). I honestly don't see much difference in them from pet stores. In fact, some of these so called rescues constantly have so many litters of pups available for "adoption" (at many hundreds of dollars per pup) that I strongly suspect they may in large part be fronting as puppy brokers for mills and BYB's.

Rescue groups are no different from any other groups...some are excellent, some fair and some are truly awful. So many people hear the word "rescue" and automatically think "wonderful" and sadly (although there are many truly good rescues) that can be very far from the reality. It is always "buyer/adopter beware" when you start the journey to find a new little companion.

Trini
 
trini gilmore said:
Thank-you Dr. Mac for posting this.

Rescue groups are no different from any other groups...some are excellent, some fair and some are truly awful. So many people hear the word "rescue" and automatically think "wonderful" and sadly (although there are many truly good rescues) that can be very far from the reality. It is always "buyer/adopter beware" when you start the journey to find a new little companion.

Trini
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I think we need more education about what to look for. Maybe some rescue money should go into local PSA's? Much as I'm not a huge fan, Oprah did a really good job of exposing puppy mills and it would be a really good thing if potential owners did some reading and maybe consulted their vet before choosing a puppy. It's so easy to fall in love - puppies are pretty much all too cute for words - as buyers we should care about how our new pets' parents were treated. Nothing replaces going to have a look for yourself and if the seller want to bring the pet to you or meet elsewheres that should be a huge red flag.
 
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