marlania
Posted : 7/14/2006 6:58:30 PM
ORIGINAL: jensw
Anyway, I just thought it was an interesting story to demonstrate how breeding is a lot more than "Oh that dog is cute, and my dog is friendly. Let's have puppies." [&:]
I've been trying to beat that into some peoples' heads for few months now. Warning: incoming rant.
My friend has been staying with some folks (why, I'll never know) who have two boxers, male and female. The female went into her first heat a few months ago and guess what happened...yep...puppies a few days ago. Now, to my friend's credit, these are not his dogs, and he takes exceptional care of his own dog, who I rescued and he adopted. I know I put that dog into a good home (with his mom), so this isn't my friend's fault that the people he's staying with won't listen to him...he's been preaching as well, but sadly, he can't make them do what they don't want to do. If it wasn't for him, the dogs wouldn't be fed, bathed, de-fleaed, etc., and there's no way the bitch would have made it through her pregnancy. The owners won't take the male or female to the vet, of course, so the best my friend could do was get some vaccines from the feed store, as the dogs have never been vaccinated. (He's waiting to vaccinate the bitch until the pups are weaned). That, sadly, brings me to my next topic. I get a phone call from my friend asking, "8 weeks is the minimum to leave the pups with the mom, right?" I told him yes, and he said, "Well, are you sitting down?" At this point, I was thinking, "Geez, what now." The people said they're SELLING the dogs at 6 weeks, and they want 400 a piece for them. When I heard this, I seriously lost my mind for a minute. He then told me that they were trying to get the papers on the parents so they can sell registered puppies. At this point, I blurted out everything I thought about all that, and how ignorant they (the owners, not the friend...he's knows all this stuff) were for thinking papers made the breeding legitimate, and the best part is they have no idea which registery it is. They just know that when they bought the dogs from another BYB, they had papers but didn't get them at the time. So they're still trying to sell the dogs for 400 bucks because they're "purebred." I use quotation marks because these are the smallest boxers I've ever seen, and in no way do they conform to the breed standard. Then, on top of all that, I get another phone call from my friend saying, "You're never going to believe this. Instead of spending 120 bucks to spay the bitch, they're bringing in all 9 puppies to get their tails docked." So, at this point, I'm completely disgusted, and I've told my friend that the people will never get her fixed and continue to let her breed despite the fact that it's completely unhealthy for her. They'll let this continue as long as he's there to take care of the dogs and pups because it's not their problem. They have no idea how hard it is to take care of a litter, and as soon as they do have to take care of one, they won't fix the mom. They'll probably just get rid of her. ARGH!
Okay, off my soapbox. Sorry for the detour, Jen.