This is Tina. She was used as a puppy-producer at a puppy mill. When she became too sick to profitably produce puppies, she was dumped in an animal shelter by the puppy mill owner. IGCA Rescue-WI saved Tina, but one of her front legs was so badly infected, gangrene had set in. The leg had to be amputated to save her life. Today, Tina has a wonderful home where the lack of a leg only makes her more loved. Tina has graduated with honors from both basic and intermediate obedience classes, and she has earned her Canine Good Citizen title from the AKC. Even a bad start to life can’t keep a good girl down!
The following are 10 more reasons not to buy from a pet store.
- Pet shop puppies are produced by puppy mills and puppy farms where often the breeding stock is not well cared for. In many cases conditions in these places are filthy and inhumane.
- Puppies from this type of commercial breeders are not properly socialized.
- Commercial breeders do not test their breeding stock for genetic diseases. They only care about making money, so do not test for luxating patellas, progressive retinal atrophy (blindness), or other diseases common to the breed.
- Commercial breeders do not study pedigrees in order to produce dogs that are as close to their breed standard as possible.
- Commercial breeders often inbreed (mother to son, daughter to father, etc.) or linebreed too closely, especially since they have no interest in producing better specimens of the breed.
- Puppies kept in pet shop conditions are kept in cages for long periods of time and are likely to learn to soil their quarters, making them difficult to house train later.
- Pet shop personnel are not knowledgeable about all the breeds they sell and usually do not offer enough information about a breed to make prospective buyers aware of what they need to know before acquiring a puppy.
- Pet shop puppies are not always healthy.
- If a puppy purchased from a pet shop doesn’t work out for the buyer, chances are that it cannot be returned. The very presence of cute little puppies encourages emotional decisions to buy on the spur of the moment without doing much needed research and preparation.
- Every puppy purchased from a pet shop encourages the store to order more puppies of that breed, condemning the parents of the dogs to a life of hell.