Interesting article about pet store puppies

[Annette47]

Penn Vet study finds pet store puppies come with increased risk | Penn Current

[Snowshoe]

INteresting.

WE have a link to C-BARQ in the Neutering Articles sticky.

[Maxx&Emma]

That is very interesting. In a perfect world puppy mills and commercial breeding, (like at least one unethical Lab "breeder" I am well acquainted with), would disappear from the face of the earth.

[barry581]

You would think with the number of dogs in some type of rescue or shelter situation, puppy mills would go the way of the dinosaur. How many of these puppy mill/pet store dogs end up in rescue or shelters??? That is what really needs to be studied. Until something is done to regulate this, it's all a moot point. As long as the general public continues to support and buy from pet stores and back yard breeders none of this will change.

[Mudlark]

You would think with the number of dogs in some type of rescue or shelter situation, puppy mills would go the way of the dinosaur. How many of these puppy mill/pet store dogs end up in rescue or shelters??? That is what really needs to be studied. Until something is done to regulate this, it's all a moot point. As long as the general public continues to support and buy from pet stores and back yard breeders none of this will change.

That's something that I absolutely cannot begin to get my head around - WHY do people buy from these places? The excuse of ignorance at to what goes on at a puppy farm, or where puppies in pet stores come from, disappeared with the advent of the internet. There cannot be anyone left who doesn't know these things?? So do they just not care? Is the "I want it now and I'm only interested in how it makes me feel, not how it might feel" syndrome so powerful that they can ignore obvious cruelty?
I went to great lengths to get my last two puppies - not only researching bloodlines etc, but researching the breeder. Then visiting the breeder and pretty much doing a home inspection - anyone can say anything on a web site but you can't hide things so easily when you wander round the place! I also needed to feel that I was being assessed and interviewed as to my suitability as well!

If I can do it - and I have all sorts of constraints like finding travelling difficult - then anyone can! If people bought only from those who loved the puppies they produced for their whole lives - so would take them back, anytime, anywhere - what a difference it would make to rescue needs.

[Labradorks]

I don't get it, either. I have seen intelligent people (people I work with or acquaintances on Facebook) with full internet access and the ability to research, purchase puppies from the internet (the new petstore/puppymill) and feel OK about it because the website was professional and clean and if they are paying several hundred dollars for the dog, that is another assumption about quality. Also, they get sucked into "rare colored", "AKC registered", "field champion lines" and dogs from another country like "Australian Labradoodles".

I'm not at all surprised by this article, but it seems outdated given that purebred dog rescues take in many, many petstore dogs. I suppose if they focus on shelters, they don't know for sure since shelter dogs rarely come with papers. When I did rescue one of our goals was to avoid the dog going to shelters due to the stress it causes and many shelters adopting these dogs to the wrong families. We did about 75% owner surrendered Labs and typically got their AKC papers. The vast majority were from puppy mills in MO or OH or PA. They'd go through brokers to petstores and $700 was the going rate. The rest were from BYBs with about one dog per year originating from a decent -- never great -- breeder.

We saw all kinds of out of character Labrador AND Golden temperaments including dogs that attacked unprovoked, lots and lots of realy bad separation anxiety, severe resource guarding, dog aggression and out of control prey drive (i.e., dog jumping through plate glass window trying to get a squirrel).

Sad.