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What problems may your pet store puppy have or develop?
Puppies are taken from their mothers often at 4 to 6-weeks of age, (the younger the
puppy is when it gets to the store, the cuter--and more marketable--it is).
"Separated from their mother too soon, and deprived of any meaningful human contact,
many puppy mill dogs are poorly socialized. They may not get along with other dogs and are
often not good with people, especially young children." And because of
overcrowded conditions and continuous inbreeding, puppy mill puppies are likely to have
unsound temperaments. Aggression is common.
 | Pet store puppies require extra training effort and some of them may be beyond any hope
of reform. You will be faced with expensive training bills or the prospect of euthanasia
of your "cute" puppy because of unstable temperament. |
| Pet store puppies also run the risk of becoming very ill and may have congenital health
defects. As the dogs are bred indiscriminately, you can not know what the quality of
the animal's health will be in the future. You run the risk of buying an animal that
may cost you a fortune in vet bills throughout it's life. If this is the case then
you will not receive any compensation from the pet store. You will find their
attitude is "ONCE YOU BUY IT. YOU ARE STUCK WITH IT". |
| Another problem people who buy pet store dogs might have, is an animal who has a habit
of eating it's own (and other dogs) stools (poo). Pet store puppies especially develop
this habit, for a few reasons.
 | If they share a cage with quite a few puppies, then they are fighting to get a decent
meal, so as a result they will eat the poo in the cage, (lack of proper meals will also
result in an under weight and undeveloped animal). |
| As pet store puppies / kittens are shipped out at such a young age, they are not
properly weaned off their mother yet, when they get to a pet store they are only given
expensive pet food (like Eukanuba and Iams, which the pet store then tries to get you to
buy when you purchase the puppy) which is in dry biscuit form. The puppy's
body can not yet digest dry food, so it eats it's poo (which is soft) instead.
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Pet Shop Puppies
Every pet shop that sells puppies will assure you,
solemnly, that their puppies are different. Their puppies don't come from puppy mills, but
from fine local breeders. Pillars of the community, in fact.
| The reality is that responsible breeders will never place
one of their puppies in a pet shop or anywhere else for resale or consignment. Never, ever, ever. Any breeder who has placed their puppy in
a pet shop to be sold has immediately disqualified himself as a responsible breeder. |
WHY?
Because, as commercial establishments, pet shops are
required to sell a puppy to anyone who can pay. Legally, they are not allowed to
"screen" buyers for suitability. Responsible breeders wouldn't be able to sleep
at night wondering which of their puppies might have gone to an unsuitable home and was
not being properly cared for.
The pet shop industry has manuals and trade journals that
teach pet shop owners and employees exactly what to say to persuade you to buy. Their
marketing ploys include:
- "We buy only from local
breeders."
- What difference does this make? Whether a breeder is local
or lives in Timbuktu, whether he has produced only one litter or many -- if he has placed
his puppies in a pet shop, his breeding practices are irresponsible. Geographical location
makes no difference at all.
- "We buy only from USDA-licensed
breeders."
- USDA stands for the United States Department of Agriculture.
Their business is supposed to be livestock. They know little or nothing about dogs. As
long as a breeder's paperwork is in order, the facilities are disinfected, cages are a
minimum size, and no infectious diseases such as distemper are immediately obvious, the kennel passes.
The USDA has not the slightest interest in...
| whether the breeder knows anything about his breed |
| whether the dogs used for breeding look like their breed
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| whether the dogs used for breeding act like their breed
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| whether the dogs used for breeding are free of genetic health problems such as hip dysplasia, eye diseases, or heart
defects. |
 USDA
Breeder is a label to stay away from. The only reason someone would apply for this
license is to crank out lots of puppies.
- "Health guaranteed!"
- This "reassuring" platitude is how pet shops and
irresponsible breeders seek to get around the expenses of genetic testing.
| They offer to replace defective puppies rather than
avoiding them in the first place by requiring their "wonderful" breeders to do
genetic health tests on any parent dog used for breeding. |
Let's look at it from the PUPPY'S point of
view. Guarantees don't help a puppy at all. You get your money back, while the puppy
still has to live with the genetic health problem that could have been avoided -- if
his breeder had been seeking to produce healthy lives rather than seeking to keep his
expenses down by avoiding genetic health testing.
We're talking about quality of life here. Don't support any
breeder or pet shop who cares so little about the future life of their puppies that they
do not require genetic health testing of the parents, in breeds where such health problems
are virtually an epidemic.
| Pet shops aren't too worried about their
"guarantees", by the way. They don't have to honor many of them because most
genetic health problems don't show up for six months or a year. Either the guarantee has
expired by then, or most people won't return a dog they've had for that long. |
Obedience instructors and canine behavioral consultants
will be happy to tell you about the temperament and behavior
problems that develop in many pet shop puppies as they grow up.
 Most
pet shop puppies start out playful and friendly, but as they mature, their genes begin
to assert themselves. If their parents or grandparents had shy or aggressive or
hyperactive temperaments, those genes will show up during adolescence and adulthood.
Many pet shop puppies are nippy.
Some were removed from their mother before 7 weeks of age, a critical period of time where
she teaches them "bite inhibition." Some have learned to nip from interacting
with so many potential owners wandering through the pet shop, including kids who tug and
play roughly. Most of these potential owners thought the nipping was cute, didn't correct
the puppy for it, and so the habit becomes entrenched.
 Finally,
raised in a small cage in which they're encouraged to eliminate freely, pet shop puppies
are notoriously difficult to housebreak.
| The major reason not to buy -- supporting the
industry |
You may wish to "rescue" a pet shop puppy. That's
completely understandable. We all feel sorry for them.
But your good intentions will backfire, because you are feeding the industry by rewarding it with money.
You've emptied one cage, yes -- which creates demand for
yet another litter to be produced to fill that cage. Even if you're very, very lucky, and
your one individual puppy turns out okay, a large percentage of the others will not -- and
YOU provided the incentive for them to be born by buying the one who came before
them.
So what seems like a simple, isolated
purchase actually contributes to:
| The misery of adult females who spend their lives in a cage,
being bred again and again to provide puppies that you and others can buy |
| The misery of these future puppies born with health and
temperament problems |
| The misery of future families who buy these puppies and then
try to cope with the health and temperament problems |
| The misery of animal rescue groups trying to deal with the
flood of pet shop puppies dumped on their doorstep because families gave up on the health
and temperament problems |
| I hope it's clear that when you buy one of those cute
puppies in the pet shop window, you buy more than the puppy. You buy the budding physical
and behavioral problems created by the bad genes passed on by untested parents whom you
never get to see and evaluate. Worse than that, you
buy into a profit-hungry industry that is hurting innocent animals. Simply out of good
conscience, a pet shop should not be anyone's choice as a source for a puppy. |
As a responsible breeder, Ferragame's Yorkshire Terriers will only release a
puppy to its new home once it reaches twelve weeks of age (minimum). In addition,
Ferragame's Yorkshire Terriers have never and will never sell to pet stores.
- Terrance A. Ferragame.
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