This shelter enables puppymills!

DPU my problem with your position is that there's two different issues at hand - buying from a pet store and paying a trainer when you have a pet store dog.  Not every person who has a dog or pet store dog pays trainers, many people never go to professional training.  So how does these professionals making money off pet store dogs justify buying a dog from a pet store?  I respect your position about trainers and in some respects, I agree, but for me these are two separate issues.

Liesje

DPU my problem with your position is that there's two different issues at hand - buying from a pet store and paying a trainer when you have a pet store dog.  Not every person who has a dog or pet store dog pays trainers, many people never go to professional training.  So how does these professionals making money off pet store dogs justify buying a dog from a pet store?  I respect your position about trainers and in some respects, I agree, but for me these are two separate issues.

Liesje, you often try to connect things where there is no connection.  Buying from a pet store is a personal decision based on whatever reasons the buyer deems relevant.  The advocates of the failed strategy are willing to sacrifice the well being of the existing puppies in order to influence the puppies' owner to not produce, sell, or place the puppies.  If the puppy makes it through the petshop and is adopted, the trainer that has advocated this strategy reverses their advocacy and welcomes the new owner and dog and takes their money for training,  The whole point of the strategy is to influence the original owners and sway the potential buyer from making a purchase.  But there is no consequences if influence doesn't work.  There is no protesting outside the store.  There is no keeping tabs on condition of the store.  There is no parking of an exterminator truck outside the store....no conseqences whatsoever.  The trainer has the opportunity to create a consequence and can easily advertising the consequence so that factor can be included as being relevant or irrelvant in the buyer's decision.  McDonalds does this very effectively.  No shirts, No shoes, No service.  A trainer can at a minimum increase the price by a token amount for training pet shop dogs just to make a point or create a consequence and from I hear from trainer, can easily justify this action.  But this is just an idea. 

DPU

Liesje

DPU my problem with your position is that there's two different issues at hand - buying from a pet store and paying a trainer when you have a pet store dog.  Not every person who has a dog or pet store dog pays trainers, many people never go to professional training.  So how does these professionals making money off pet store dogs justify buying a dog from a pet store?  I respect your position about trainers and in some respects, I agree, but for me these are two separate issues.

Liesje, you often try to connect things where there is no connection.  Buying from a pet store is a personal decision based on whatever reasons the buyer deems relevant.  The advocates of the failed strategy are willing to sacrifice the well being of the existing puppies in order to influence the puppies' owner to not produce, sell, or place the puppies.  If the puppy makes it through the petshop and is adopted, the trainer that has advocated this strategy reverses their advocacy and welcomes the new owner and dog and takes their money for training,  The whole point of the strategy is to influence the original owners and sway the potential buyer from making a purchase.  But there is no consequences if influence doesn't work.  There is no protesting outside the store.  There is no keeping tabs on condition of the store.  There is no parking of an exterminator truck outside the store....no conseqences whatsoever.  The trainer has the opportunity to create a consequence and can easily advertising the consequence so that factor can be included as being relevant or irrelvant in the buyer's decision.  McDonalds does this very effectively.  No shirts, No shoes, No service.  A trainer can at a minimum increase the price by a token amount for training pet shop dogs just to make a point or create a consequence and from I hear from trainer, can easily justify this action.  But this is just an idea. 

 

For someone accusing me of making connections where there are none, I still don't get the connection.

Again, where people get their dogs is none of my business, but I don't see how anyone can not admit that buying a puppy from a pet store financially supports millers and brokers.  If you are OK with that, then buy dogs from pet stores.  If you are not OK with that DO something about it rather than blaming dog trainers (?????). 

Better yet, just take the dog training out of the picture for now.... I know someone who bought two puppies from a pet store.  They've never gone to training besides what the owners have done in the home.  The fact remains that purchasing those puppies gave money to the puppy miller and encouraged them to continue.  No one is saying that those puppies don't need a home or aren't important, but seriously if we are all expected to adopt or purchase EVERY dog we come across that needs a home, we'd all have a few hundred dogs.  There are so many ways to help dogs and get a point across without having to purchase the dog.

DPU

.....  The advocates of the failed strategy are willing to sacrifice the well being of the existing puppies in order to influence the puppies' owner to not produce, sell, or place the puppies.  If the puppy makes it through the petshop and is adopted, the trainer that has advocated this strategy reverses their advocacy and welcomes the new owner and dog and takes their money for training,  The whole point of the strategy is to influence the original owners and sway the potential buyer from making a purchase.  But there is no consequences if influence doesn't work. .... 

Actually the whole point of advocating that people not buy from puppy factories is to impose consequences on the PRODUCERS of the puppies, not the purchaser. If someone ignores the plea not to financially contribute to the continuation of puppy factories, then you are correct, there are no consequences to the intended target - those involved in the commercial mass production of puppies. Since the mass producers have received their financial reward once the puppy has been purchased, there is absolutely no point to imposing consequences on the purchaser after the fact. At that point the best that can be done is to help the owners give the puppy the best life they can, and hope that in the process they become well enough educated to make better decisions in the future. Over the years I've had many many puppy mill products in the classes I teach as an unpaid volunteer. Although many of those owners go on to become heavily involved in dogs, not one of them has ever purchased a second pet store puppy, and some of them have become involved in rescue. So, I don't feel too bad about the fact that I "hypocritically" gave them assistance after they had made a bad decision.

buster the show dog

Actually the whole point of advocating that people not buy from puppy factories is to impose consequences on the PRODUCERS of the puppies, not the purchaser. If someone ignores the plea not to financially contribute to the continuation of puppy factories, then you are correct, there are no consequences to the intended target - those involved in the commercial mass production of puppies.

Ahhh, so you are finally coming to the conclusion that the strategy is a failed strategy because it relies on the unpredictable consumer and if the consumer does not buy, then the puppies suffer and the owners weathers it.  If the consumer buys, no reprecussions at all but there may be a slight encouragement.  Although you say one or two have taken a different path, the trainer offering services maybe making the petshop dog purchase a good experience.  Who know what they really will be thinking 15 years down road when they are ready to adopt another dog.

Seems to me the target is the buyer since they control whether your strategy works or it doesn't work.  And, since petshop still exist and are a legal outlet for purchasing pups, you are loosing and need to come up with a better strategy that directly deals with the owner.  May take a little courage, but I am sure with so many singing that off tune song, one idea can be generated.

puppy mill products

This is why you can sacrifice the well being of the puppies.  These are living and sentient and that should be enough to encourage at least one alternative idea that keeps the puppies from suffering just like what WiHS did.

 

If people do not buy puppies from the petstore or from a parking lot, then the people who breed dogs for a quick cash sale will quit doing so. But, as is often the case, a pet store buys a box o pups from a broker, the broker has already paid the breeder. So, it would take a while for this to trickle back to the breeder. Meanwhile, pet stores can always count on the impulsive buyer who doesn't know very much. And even if we could get enough people in an area to quit buying dogs from puppymills, the millers and brokers would just sell in other areas, or out of the country. That's the risk and price of a free economy. I don't think it's possible to stop all puppy mills but we could at least try to enforce animal welfare laws. Make the millers keep such a clean and well-run shop that they will raise their prices to re-coup costs and people might quit buying from them, then. Maybe not. The only way you can sell a labradoodle is to find someone willing to buy a labradoodle, which is evidently not so difficult. Driving to the bank yesterday, I passed through a small town (barely a wide spot in the road) but there was a sign of someone with CKC registered labradoodles. So this soi-disant legitimization of a cross-breed (mutt) only ensures that people will keep breeding willy nilly.

We once had a member here that paid a pretty penny for a labradoodle. And he stuck by his decision, thinking that he had made the best decision possible for himself and his family. So, there is that to contend with, too. That not all people agree on what is proper breeding.

I guess I didn't make a point, just offering my claritin-d addled musings.

 

I have never bought a dog or cat from a pet store. Rabbit, gerbils, hamsters, fish and birds, yes..but never a dog or cat.

If you have, I can forgive you. Impulse buys are common, I too have almost fallen for the "cute, gotta save it" factor. Lack of money in hand stopped me, common sense then took over. Does it break my heart? Sure does, I have even cried. But I am woman enough to admit I cannot save or support them all.

If you have, and your lucky, you might get a healthy happy companion, if your not, you can face years of heart ache watching something you love live in pain or worse, die. Hopefully you will become better educated, appalled to learn that the cute little puppy came from horrible beginnings. That it's parents are used over and over again, know no love or human kindness, and just die, slowly, painfully and alone. Does anyone ever cry over the dead one's body, or wish it a safe journey on? I highly doubt it.

If it disgusts you to know how puppies come to live in a pet store window, or sold at a flea market, great. Because you now have the power to help stop it. By not buying your next friend that way. Just don't do it. Break the cycle. Walk away, go ahead and cry, I understand.

If you have, and you do it again. SHAME, shame, shame on you. For you are now no better than the person who bred that puppy and the ones you bought it from. Congratulations! You are now a supporter of a puppy miller. You just handed them the money to keep on going, to produce another litter, to keep another dog trapped in a cage, another day a dog must live in complete misery.

I think the WI group did a great thing. They bought out a business that promoted misery and suffering of living animals. That is 1 less group to fight, it is a small drop in the bucket, but a drop in the right direction.

Retail is about making money. As long as a product is bought and sells it will be kept. Once the public stops buying, they don't buy it or carry it anymore. It is this way in every market, and that includes pets.

Puppy millers and brokers will never stop producing until the public stops buying. It is a business and it, as all things business are, is about making as much money possible.

Saying a trainer or other professional draw a line and say NO, I will not give you service because you bought at a pet store puppy is a lame diversion tactic and a lame excuse.

If you have bought a pet store puppy, and you plan to do it again, knowing how it got there, or knowing how it is suspected it got there and then try to explain your way out or excuse your way out, by blaming the trainer for not stopping you, is sad.

 

 

 

Excellent post, Truley.

A trainer saying no to a client that bought from a pet store will not stop the puppy mill and will not stop the person from buying dogs from pet stores. And there would be whole generations of dogs being untrained and poorly bred to prove a point?

The way to make someone go out of business is to quit buying from them. Since there's not enough personnel to adequately police commercial breeders, there will continue to be atrocious conditions, conditions that happen when a person is in it solely for the monetary value of a pup, rather than the life quality. It's american business. Produce a bunch, sell a bunch. Streamline whereever you can to maximize profit. So, for the person trying to support themselves off of breeding means they must breed dogs constantly, just like I have to work every day to bring home my paycheck. Well, in so doing, things get lost in the cracks, like the dam's health. Have enough pups and you simply don't have enough time to devote to each pup for care and socialization. There's only so many hours in a day and strength do so much, so the dogs wind up living in their own filth. And yanked from momma at 4 weeks to be sold in a pet store at 6 weeks for maximum cuteness factor.

Here's an example of who buys from a pet store. Friends of ours bought Shadow at a pet store when he was 6 weeks old. The breeder's name is listed on his purchase papers but that has done me no good, so far. The guy is not on any breeder lists of Sibes or Labs. Nor is he on the anti-puppy mill websites. He's off the radar. More than likely a byb. A redneck with a box of pups that he was able to sell as a consignment to the pet store. Shadow's purchase price was $200. So, I can't find him just to ask him questions about the breeding, not trying to bust his chops but the store will not give me information. I've called, I've gone there in person. I had Shadow with me and he nearly crapped himself being in that store. He is extremely afraid of kennels. His original owner, per the paper work, was the girlfriend of our friend's son. She lived with a dysfunctional adoptive family. They had surrendered some of her cats to the shelter, which is a kill shelter. Shadow was next, due to be turned in the next business day after Labor Day Weekend 2004. She is clueless about dogs. His original food bowl when we got him was just fine when he was 6 weeks old. And was probably eating the cheapest food that could be bought, possibly Ol Roy. So, when I got him, he had a bit of an eating disorder. I got him an adult sized food bowl and put in 3 cups but he only ate the amount that would fit in the little bowl. It took a while for him to realize he was allowed to eat more. The only thing he knew how to do was sit and shake paws. No recall, no down. Fortunately, he is good-natured and grew up with cats and a Jack Russell Terrier, so he was used to small pets. At a little over 1 year old, he was 22 inches to the shoulders and 50 pounds and getting quite fast. And our friend's son used to wrestle with him to play. This produced comical results later when I would try to correct him with the hands-on approach.

He seems to be a fine dog in spite of his doubtful beginnings. His original owner is a sweet young lady who doesn't know as much about dogs and dog breeding as we do. And she bought him impulse, wanting a dog and probably saw their sign driving around Plano, Tx. So, she is somewhat typical of who buys from a pet store. If she had knowledge of puppy mills and byb's and the inherent dangers, might she have changed her mind? Maybe not. But education is going to be one of the best ways. Education and social peer pressure. If we could make it uncool as a society in general to buy from pet stores, might that help?

You can't outlaw selling puppies without affecting the legitimate breeder who is truly helping the breed and species. All we can do is make buying from a legit breeder the socially preferred thing to do.