There are essentially no puppies being sold by the Amish which are anything other than what most of us would classify as commercial breeders/puppy mills. Where’s the health testing for the parents? Just because it’s a crossbred doesn’t mean that health testing becomes a moot point. Your choosing to buy this puppy just reinforces the breeding of dogs in what many of us would consider deplorable conditions. And the ongoing breeding of a specialty crossbred which is going to be suitable for very few homes. The argument that if you didn’t buy the puppy someone else would is bogus. Now you’ve become part of the problem by being part of the market for intentionally irresponsibly bred dogs. Your puppy may live a good life, but what about the rest of the littermates which are cute now, but unsuitable long term for 90% plus of the general pet owning public?
[QUOTE=BLBGP;8217182]
Please stop with the sweeping generalizations. To say “no shelters have puppies” or “dogs are harder to adopt than children” does a disservice to the good shelters out there working hard every day for animals. The shelter 1 mile away from where I am sitting right now adopted out multiple puppies (as well as many other pets) last week. They don’t have written adoption applications - it’s all done through casual conversation to make the process fun, easy, and good for everyone involved. Pets are s/n, microchipped, vaccinated, etc. so they can go home immediately. The rooms are open and airy. They are open admission and don’t turn pets away. They follow up with adopters and provide services if needed to help pets adjust to new homes. There are many shelters like this throughout the country. And yes, there are also rescue/hoarders, and puppy importers, and backwards shelters, and ‘no kills’ who won’t let pets out.
Say “the shelters near me don’t have puppies”. Say “Bob’s rescue refused to adopt to me”. Say the truth, not your version of it.[/QUOTE]
Works both ways: All potential adopters are puppy dumping idiots who can’t be trusted.
There does not seem to be any room for the average owner, who takes well enough care of the animals, does not breed tied up dogs til the innards fall out or goes nuts over certain aspects of pet keeping.
Too bad it’s the vast majority.
Meh. No regrets and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks to all the rescue people on the thread gnashing at the teeth and foaming at the mouth, it’ll be too soon if I ever entertain the notion of dealing with a rescue ever again. Excellent advocates for their cause–really winning over hearts and minds left and right.
I presume you did not visit the Amish breeder facilities then.
http://www.thepuppymillproject.org/puppy-mills-a-side-of-the-amish-that-you-never-knew/
Dump on rescues all you like, but how can an animal lover support this? Just mind boggling.
This is kind of relevant to this thread. A friend of mine saw over the weekend that the local county animal shelter had a number of parakeets up for adoption. She got there first thing this morning to pick one out, and found out a local rescue had swooped in and picked them all up before she got there. The shelter took her name to pass on to the rescue but she told me she most likely won’t follow through as rescues just get too invasive. And she wanted to be able to pick a bird out not have one picked out for her.
Your friend did not bother calling the rescue to find out their policy. The pet shop obviously did not want the parakeets since it let them go and perhaps would have disposed of them had the rescue not stepped in.
It’s not like a rescue “Swooped in” and picked up parakeets without permission. If the pet shop wanted to keep and sell them, they would have.
I had a great experience with our rescue pup (from Labradors and Friends in San Diego). They did have some younger puppies, but I fell in love with an older (8-9mo) pup. We did have to fill out a form asking about our family activities, how we would handle behavioral issues, yard and fence situation. They looked over my application carefully - noting our high fence as this dog can jump, that we had a large-breed, high energy dog before and listed a well-respected vet clinic in our area.
They were ok knowing that we both work and the dog will be alone during the day, but would get walks/runs and outings morning and evening. To the best of my knowledge they never contacted any references, and they certainly didn’t do a home visit.
I’ve since met a number of other dogs and owners that met through this organization, and everyone has had good things to say.
OP- while I understand your frustration, particularly at that one organization, please believe me when I tell you they aren’t all like that. Some rescues really are doing a great thing to help unwanted dogs find homes.
One point I do understand, those in rescue DO deal a lot with morons. They are RESCUING. One half of every transaction is with someone who is giving up on some part of dog ownership. Or returning a previously adopted dog.
My issue is that so many rescue groups seem to “see” the prospective adopters with the same negative attitude. Clue number one that I’m not the irresponsible, dog-dumping type MIGHT be that I approached a rescue in the first place, looking FOR a dog.
I also understand the need for standards. My issue is that so many of the policies published by rescues are just…there’s no way that those policies work to exclude poor homes and include good ones. The hardwood floor/collie thing that someone else posted is a good example. The no-stairs-for-the-dog-ever rule that I encountered looking for an LGD is another one. Tell me, if the dog is health-certified against hip/knee problems…why can it NEVER go up or down stairs? It’s not like I live in a 20th floor walk up! That dog door rule for dogs under 30lbs is another weird one. Are hawk attacks really something that city-dwelling small dogs need to worry about? Really? Are you in Alaska or something? Maybe Mongolia? I live in the country, on the plains of Canada, and the biggest predatory birds we get would really struggle with a TEN pound dog, let alone one creeping toward 30lbs…and that bird would have to be starving and probably sick to go after a house dog with a human habitation nearby. I mean sure, if someone is adopting a Chi or some other little teacup thing and predatory birds are a real issue, I would be making sure that potential adopter was aware of the risk and had a plan to address it. That’s, um, not the same as “immediately reject dog-door plans for all dogs under 30lbs.” Jeebus, some people’s dog doors exit onto fenced runs, with roofs. Or could, easily, if they were aware of that risk (and it was legitimate.) I have encountered about 10 situations now where the rescue (or breeder, TBH) organization was completely unwilling to discuss these types of issues.
The sanctimonious attitude is another reason that you see so many non puppy, non-adult dogs on Kijiji and Craig’s List. God, with the inquisition to ACQUIRE the dog…can you imagine how that rescue/breeder would treat you if you tried to RETURN IT? Brother. Easier to try and flip it yourself. That’s how we got our latest pup…7 months old, acquired by a family as a two-month old from a rescue that wouldn’t adopt to us. She seems pretty happy at our place. She’s a great dog. That rescue still assumes she lives with the original owners and is a “success.” Uh huh. And they continue to acquire dogs from MEXICO to adopt out to Albertans. All the while begging for donations.
I also don’t know that the “majority” of puppy-mill buyers end up being crappy owners. About 25 years ago, my family wanted a dog. We were not “dog people” and had no friends or connections in the purebred/show dog world. We carefully researched the type of dog we wanted, and found that some breeders seemed to have really high prices and infrequent litters, with long waiting lists (probably the better ones) meanwhile, there were similar (to us) puppies advertised in the paper at a fraction of the price, with much better availability. We bought our little bichon shih-tzu from what was probably a puppy mill, and knew two or three others who bought from the same woman. The dogs at her place seemed happy, and clean, and they had their basic vet checks/shots when we purchased. There were just a lot of them. Our dog lived to a happy 18, and was by all accounts a very happy, energetic dog. She was awesome and much-loved. The others who had bought from the same breeder also kept the dogs their whole lives, although ours seemed to be longer-lived than most of the others. If “most” of the people who bought dogs from that place ended up selling/returning them…the local shelters would have never kept on top of them. I guess I don’t know for sure…I didn’t work in the kill room at the shelter. It just never seemed like there was an avalanche of returned Bichon-Shih Tzus at the shelter.
[QUOTE=Countrywood;8217597]
Your friend did not bother calling the rescue to find out their policy. The pet shop obviously did not want the parakeets since it let them go and perhaps would have disposed of them had the rescue not stepped in.
It’s not like a rescue “Swooped in” and picked up parakeets without permission. If the pet shop wanted to keep and sell them, they would have.[/QUOTE]
Shelter.
Interesting slip of the keyboard.
I’m still w/ the OP on this one, as bad as her attitude may seem to be.
good for you for supporting puppy mills then. (sarcasm intended)
While frustration is understandable in the face of the over stringent attitude of some rescues, imo their “sin” does not come close to the abuse perpetuated by puppy mills.
Buying from a by breeder who keeps the dogs in their home and treats them well is different than knowingly buying from a puppy mill.
[QUOTE=Countrywood;8217683]
good for you for supporting puppy mills then. (sarcasm intended)
While frustration is understandable in the face of the over stringent attitude of some rescues, imo their “sin” does not come close to the abuse perpetuated by puppy mills.
Buying from a by breeder who keeps the dogs in their home and treats them well is different than knowingly buying from a puppy mill.[/QUOTE]
It does not sound like OP bought from a puppy mill? She bought from the Amish, who are often involved in many different ventures, breeding dogs included, but, to my knowledge, do not usually produce anywhere near so many to be classed as a “puppy mill.”
Just pointing that out.
Not all Amish breeders are puppy mills. But many are.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/20/us/amish-at-heart-of-puppy-mill-debate.html
Sheilah
Seriously? You would let a bunch of people who you have never met before, and don’t know from Adam, dictate your behavior?
Sheilah
She DID almost surely buy from a puppy mill as she bought from an Amish breeder, and she did not bother to look at the facilities where the puppy was bred. She let a “broker” show her the puppy and bought from the broker
That is how puppy mills do business, they know most people would be horrified to view how the dogs are kept ( they typically wont allow people to view it which should be a clue…). They use third parties to sell the puppies such as pet stores, brokers, or people posing as a family at times.
If the OP had asked to view the facility to make sure she was not buying from a puppy mill myself and others would not have a problem
Google Amish puppy mills for yourself.
a byb who has a pet they keep at home and bred is a different matter
[QUOTE=Countrywood;8217721]
a byb who has a pet they keep at home and bred is a different matter[/QUOTE]
Aside from all the stereotypes in your post…
it’s not like a BYB is a desired animal in the world of the righteous pet parent either…
you assume too much, in either direction.
I fail to see how the reality of puppy mills fits a stereotype.
I personally am not in favor of byb since it contributes to over population of pets but at least they are (typically) not keeping the breeding animals in torturous conditions and then dumping/killing them when no longer able to reproduce. So I would not beat up on someone buying from a byb who treats the breeding animal as a family pet. But someone knowingly buying from a puppy mill or by with similar treatment of animals is a different matter. I rarely get so involved in a thread personally but this one hit a nerve.
I am sorry to be spending so much time on it at this point.
Alright, I stand corrected.
I personally am not in favor of byb since it contributes to over population of pets but at least they are (typically) not keeping the breeding animals in torturous conditions and then dumping/killing them when no longer able to reproduce. So I would not beat up on someone buying from a byb who treats the breeding animal as a family pet. But someone knowingly buying from a puppy mill or by with similar treatment of animals is a different matter. I rarely get so involved in a thread personally but this one hit a nerve.
This is kind of another problem for people like me, who like dogs, but are uninterested in becoming part of “the dog world”…there’s this mystery hierarchy of breeders and rescues, most of whom fight with each other and can’t seem to agree on who is “good” or “bad” with the exception of themselves.
I’m not blaming you, Countrywood, or saying that you’re responsible for this…but plenty of people have a sliding definition of what constitutes a “BY Breeder” and will give you the gears for getting a puppy from ANYONE besides their personally-approved list. It’s comparable to the back-biting in the horse world, really…except that even MORE people buy dogs as pets than own horses.
Like the “do they health test” question. What kind of tests are required? Depends on the breed, as far as I can tell. Basic veterinary check-up and vaccines certainly seems to be adequate to me, especially on most cross-breeds. Even volume isn’t an absolute scale, take the “Puppy Mill” I described getting my dog from. Truly, it was not a horrifying place. Lots of little dogs running around a tidy acreage in reasonably sized enclosures, and the momma dogs in big crates in the house while the puppies were tiny. That breeder easily produced 100 puppies a year though. If these had been Mastiffs or something, yes, the conditions would have been apalling. With these small dogs? I don’t know, they really all seemed pretty content.
I don’t really know what I’m getting at, I guess. I suppose I just feel very excluded and unfairly judged by “dog people” for wanting to own a pet and take care of it reasonably well. The “standards” seem inconsistent and often unreasonable by the organizations that claim to be all about the animals. When the rescues and “good breeders” seem to go out of their way to make me feel that way, but a BY Breeder can supply me with a dog that appears (to me) to be VERY similar and suit my needs…but not make me feel like garbage, or subject me to long rants about how awful people are…um, yes. Those rescues ARE keeping the BYBs in business. Remember, I went there first.
