In the search for a better food for my dog Gizmo ( Better to me means higher protein and fat, and less chance of being poisoned.[8|]) I have been looking at Innova and Eagle Pack dog food. "On paper" they look good---so I looked up dealers in my area.
The closest dealers in my state for each of these foods are pet stores that sell puppies.
Now as a rule I do NOT buy things from stores that sell puppies. I do not want to directly support a business that profits from the inhumane treatment of animals, and I do not want to indirectly support puppy mills by helping a pet store stay financially healthy.
Am I the only one here who does this? Someone suggested to me that I was nuts and should just buy the food wherever is easiest and cheapest for me instead of going out of my way to buy from a non-puppy-selling store.
Am I nuts???[sm=eek.gif] Do you shop in pet stores that sell puppies if you have a choice?
To be honest, I was surprised the two stores in question sell these "high quality" foods....but they do.
Is anyone else surprised to find brands like these an aisle or two away from puggles and yorkies with yucky eyes?
[sm=hardhat-black.gif]Now here's the part where I get a tad mouthy in a pet store....
One of the stores my DH now calls the "Little Shop of Horrors" and it seems like the focus of their business is puppy sales and some fish. You step inside the front door and there are maybe 9 raised "pens" (for want of a better term) with puppies of a variety of breeds in them. They are set up so you can just reach in and scoop up a puppy to hold. AWWWW how cute
The puppies take up about half of the main floor space---which to me means they are the store's bread and butter. The pups are IMHO
ricey--- $1,000 and up for a lab pup registered with a shady registry and no health info. on the parents. (I think the cheapest pup was the sheltie I describe below and he had been marked down to $800 because of his age. Some designer mixes were $1,200.)
While none of the pups looked like they had an obviously serious health problem, the majority seemed to have dull coats and eyes and some discharge. A few of the small terriers were reacting to their placement and pen-mates by thrashing the other pups and biting people that picked them up. One of the 2 sheltie pups scurried from anyone who came to the edge of their pen. He was allegedly 16 weeks old and had been there for much longer than most of the other puppies. He was also in the pen closest to the front door.
The labs (different prices for different colors, higher for females hmmm...) seemed to be faring the best--two of them were a little timid but the other three were typical labby "everybody is my friend." The designer mixes were being hyped like crazy by a couple of the sales people to some customers. "Hybrid vigor" and all.
A little girl let a puppy go near the front door and I scooped it up to return it to a pen, which is when I shot my mouth off a little.
The guy giving the speech by the pen of designer mixes thought I was considering buying the pup and kindly included me in his lecture to a couple holding another puppy. He was expounding on how mixes are NATURALLY HEALTHIER than purebreds. (I'll have to call my breeder and tell her the cardiac, hip, elbow and eye certifications would have been unecessary if she had just out-crossed to another breed. I am sure she will find my advice very helpful. [sm=rotfl.gif])
Me to salesguy: so what health tests do they do on the parents?
Guy: they make sure they are healthy, of course. And with these crosses you don't have to worry about health problems created by in-breeding. (ta-dah! he said with a confident %$##$^ grin)
Me: so how do they check for genetic problems that are common in many breeds if they don't test them? If you cross two dogs of different breeds who both have bad hips you'll still get bad hips, right?
Guy: well of course they make sure the parents are healthy and we guarantee the pup will be healthy.
By now he was getting I was not interested in buying the puppy I was holding and he directed his sales talk back to the couple.
I butted in again as I slipped the puppy into the pen. Me: as long as you guarantee them for 2 years---because that's when the Orthapedic Foundation says is the youngest you can make sure the hips are okay. Hip problems cost a bundle to fix. Will you help pay to fix a puppy's bad hips?
He goes into a speech about the guarantee.....if its within the first year .....and they love pets too, and of course they would "do something" financially----even refunding the cost of the puppy. Why, they would actually lose money if they did that, but they stand behind their puppies. He said that last part very seriously as if he expected us to be impressed.
Me: What about the other four grand? ---'cause bad hips could run 5 grand to fix and that's a big chunk of change.
This is when another sales guy higher up on the food chain came over to "help" and I decided it was time to get hubby and kids away from the fish tanks and leave.
I won't buy anything there. DH says he doubts they would want me visiting them on a regular basis anyways[sm=lol.gif] I haven't been in the other pet store in almost a year---I went in on impulse not knowing what it was like inside and won't go back.
So I am going to go to a couple of stores that are more out of the way and get some Innova and Eagle Pack food for Gizmo to try...I'll drive a bit more and maybe spend a bit more but I will feel better about WHERE I am spending my money.
Elizabeth
PS I am not a purebred snob, and I've owned a wonderful mix----my anger is never anti-dog, it is anti-people. The idea that mixing two breeds means they avoid ALL hereditary health problems is a crock. By that logic my old Liam should have had perfect hips instead of the crummy ones he actually had. Quite honestly, it had been a looong day and I would have gone off on HD if the guy had been trying to sell me a lab pup...and if he had been hawking "imperial shih tzus" I would have gone nutty on him about how "imperial" is a marketing term.