There are a bunch of cities that don’t allow pet sales in pet stores.
http://bestfriends.org/resources/jurisdictions-retail-pet-sale-bans
I think it’s the same mentality seen on COTH about legislation regarding slaughter, carriage horses, or circus animals.
Some of the reputable breeders, recommended by breed clubs or people successful in upper tiers, produce A LOT of litters per year. It seems accepted by their community (sport or breed ring). My opinion? The volume doesn’t sit right with me.
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Presumably, if you are a responsible breeder, you don’t sell your puppies to pet shops, so it’s a non issue.
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I’d rather buy a pup from an Amish (or any other) family that has a bitch & a few litters a year than a show ring breeder that puts out a bunch of pups annually. The “breed the best to the best” mentality has brought us bulldogs that can’t breathe, Siamese with eyes on the far sides of their heads, and Arabs that look like seahorses. I’d happily take average bred to average… with a clean, clear bill of sale.
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You might have a clean bill of sale but not a clean bill of health. I’d be shocked to hear of an Amish breeder that conducted health screenings and suspect most breeding pairs are chosen for convenience than for particular breed traits like soundness and temperament.
There are 189 breeds recognized by AKC. I wouldn’t judge them all by the Bulldog fanciers.
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Very, very few of us who breed for performance or the conformation ring are producing large numbers of puppies. I know of one hunting breed kennel with extensive staff that does produce well in excess of 100 puppies per year. We also have homes waiting before puppies are born and take back any dogs we created at any point in their lives.
But why the ** would you buy a puppy from parents without the appropriate health testing? Which is what you get most of the time buying from the Amish.
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If there was a Borzoi at the shelter I’d snatch it up in a heart beat. Love those dogs, and swear I will live with one before I die.
Where I live, at our high kill shelter I could pick up any and all types purebred dogs, excluding most sight hounds. However rest assured there are quite a few French and English bulldogs available every month, along with ________ fill in your breed of choice canine.
I find this hard to believe. Where do you live? Finding a Borzoi in a shelter would be like winning the lottery. The chances of that are so slim it’s nearly impossible.
My breed has a strong breed rescue organization, especially in the east and west coast. A purebred Brittany would be pulled very quickly from a shelter. In the midwest, however, they are probably fairly common.
Retail rescue corners the market, state-sponsored monopoly.
Considering the myriad of purebred dog health issues that all the testing in the world cannot foresee nor guarantee, yours, though popular and oft repeated, is an empty line of reasoning upon exploration. The future is not guaranteed when you buy a live animal. A 100% healthy critter today can eat something that doesn’t agree with it tomorrow and end up in the doggie ER. Or break a leg, or tear an ACL, or lacerate a cornea. Life happens. Live animals are sometimes healthy and live a long and happy life, and sometimes have health issues and die too soon (they all die too soon, let’s face it).
This is life. Life has no guarantees. No matter how much $$ and certification and diagnostic health tests you throw at an animal, life too often has other plans.
Not to mention, not one single dog in retail rescue comes with a health guarantee. Not one, not ever. But what they do come with all too frequently, is a pediatric neuter which almost guarantees they will have a future health issue that was 100% preventable by not neutering the animal prior to full maturity. Retail rescues won’t budge on this issue for nothing so tell me again how retail rescue is doing what is best for the animals–and the superior source for those seeking a pet.
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All this type of legislation does is give retail rescue a finger in the pie. Millers will sell to retail rescue groups who will then sell to pet stores and viola; pet stores will sell retail rescue dogs. What’s changed? Only retail rescue’s profit margins.
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I had said I wish I could find a Borzoi at the shelter. I don’t think you read my post correctly.
Also BESIDES sight hounds, you can find pretty much every breed there is, and pure.
If you’re going to breed, there is NO excuse for not doing the standard health testing available for the breed in question to at least stack the deck in your favor. I may not be able to test for cancer, but I can certainly make sure I don’t produce a dog affected by DM or vWd. I can decrease the risk of hip, elbow, and cardiac issues. I can screen for eys issues.
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I mean that I find that hard to believe too. I agree that it would be hard to find a Borzoi. But I think it would be pretty darn hard to find many purebreds in shelters anywhere. Many are just not very common, anywhere. I am sure there are a lot of purebreds; I just doubt that you can really find “any and all” breeds.
Agreed. Just because you can’t prevent everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to prevent the issues that are known to be inherited and can be screened from. Not doing so is being cheap or lazy. Or both.
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Oops sorry, gotcha.
I should have said, if you looked daily over a period of a few months, you can easily find many many purebred dogs.
I have taken several screen shots of purebred dogs at the local high kill shelter available today, but can’t figure out how to post them.
If anyone would kindly direct me to instructions on how to post pics, I will gladly share.
GOOD! I worked at a large chain pet store (recently in the news) as my first job in high school. They bought from puppy mills. It was heartbreaking to know about the conditions these dogs come from. There were no responsible small time breeders who sold to this store (at least not when I was there which was over ten years ago). This store is consistently in the news regarding puppy mills and things don’t seem to ever change.
I eventually quit once I realized what was going on. I do not know if it is common elsewhere for small breeders to sell to stores, but I can’t imagine it would pay that great. We bought puppies for very little and the markup was ridiculous. That $2,000 great dane someone just bought? We got it from the puppy mill for less than half of that. There were numerous medical issues that arose and a pet store policy is not going to cover what buying directly from a good breeder would or even the guarantee that some rescues/shelters provide.
Pet stores aim at getting those who are completely oblivious and have money to spend on that cute puppy face. You can find a better bred, healthier, and better raised puppy directly from a breeder and even if they are the same price as a pet store going to the breeder is the better situation.
I do not think this would shut down puppy mills. Backyard breeders, puppy mills, etc can survive without pet stores. You can go directly to them and cut out the pet store middle man (in some cases… the large mill corporations I would guess things work differently). There were always be sketchy people in the world. Still, I think this could cut down on the practice. I appreciate the effort and think it is a good move for California.
Just give the zip code and anyone who’s interested can Petfinder it. I also have a hard time believing your local shelters are routinely seeing purebreds.
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It’s May. By summer, you probably mean June-August. That’s not quite “instant gratification” in the old pet-stores-boooo way of a person seeing a cute puppy in a window and going “I wanna puppy!” That’s a 1-3 months waiting period. I think it’s pretty reasonable that people today, primed with the idea that they need to be serious about getting a pet and having mulled over breeds and formulated what they’re going to say to everyone who asks where they got the dog and why didn’t they rescue, arrive at the point of finding and contacting a breeder and by this time want to get moving within 3 months on their new family member. And yes, I realize breeders don’t and can’t produce puppies on demand - but considering breeders spent the past 40 years being among the most vocal supporters of the idea that ‘casual’ pet owners shouldn’t breed, they shouldn’t be stunned that casual pet owners don’t know anything about breeding animals, down to the basic biology that limits and controls when a dog can be bred.
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From when I breed to when puppies go home, it’s five months. If litters are spoken for before being conceived (which is one of the things touted as the mark of a responsible breeder), expecting to contact a breeder in April/May for a puppy in June is looking for instant gratification.
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