Don’t Get Me Started

Imagine you have spent your entire life in a cubicle.  A space so restrictive you never, even once, were able to stand up in.  Sitting or curling up on a metal grate that gave you bedsores and didn’t always allow for all your bodily wastes to pass through.  A prison cell you were confined to day and night, without exception, other than when you were taken out to be raped or give birth.  This is often the life of a dog who is kept solely for the purpose of making puppies at so many breeding “businesses”.

 I once had the honor of meeting two of these ladies. They had been adopted by a caring woman who wanted to do something about this insidious part of our society.  They were small breeds, already around 12 years old, but probably had at least a few years left in life.  They were lucky ones, to have found an angel offering them loving care in their twilight years.  Neither of these girls could walk.  At all.  Having spent their lives in such cages, their legs had malformed to the point they were unusable.  The woman carried them.  They rode in the shopping cart at the store. They were beautiful, adorable dogs who had never done anything wrong, and despite the horrors of their past – were more than ready to please and love people.  Animals could teach us a thing or two about forgiveness.  We could learn a thing or two about what we do that needs to be forgiven.

Every year, millions of pets are euthanized – not hundreds, not thousands…millions.  We all know this is a situation that has gotten out of hand, and the cruelty and disregard for an animal’s life weighs heavy on our social conscience.  We can ignore it, we can assume someone else will tend to it…but we can’t make it the right thing to do.  And it won’t go away on it’s own or by pretending it doesn’t happen, either.

According to statistics from the Humane Society of the U.S., one female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 dogs in just six years.  A female cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 in only seven years.  Clearly, if you’re “in the business”, you can reap big money breeding.  Of course, that involves keeping your costs down to a minimum, so cramming as many animals into as small a space as possible, avoiding vaccinations and vet bills, and feeding them as dirt-cheap as you can will give you the best “results” – the greatest profit.    Puppy mills have made for big headlines in the media these days.  What is shown are some of the more grievous, dire accounts of commercial breeding.  Lesser in scope, and in public awareness, however, are many more breeders who pump out the pets as fast as they can.  These, too, should be brought to our awareness – filmed and reported on, and called to task.  For these, too, produce more animals which are in turn cycled into the system, and some of those end up on shelters’ death row as well.

Responsible breeders, ones who carefully and humanely breed pets, are not part of that group.  They do not force a female into a lifetime of nonstop breeding, do not produce massive volumes of new pets.  They are careful to follow high quality guidelines to provide for optimal health, and follow through whenever possible afterward.  They generally do not profit much, if at all, from their activity.  With proper care comes considerable cost.  There are not many truly responsible, trust-worthy breeders.

For the sole purpose of making money, certain pet stores have cropped up throughout the country, including in your own town no doubt, and peddle pets as if they were inanimate objects – to be purchased, and “owned” by people. These stores not only have a galling disregard for the health and welfare of the pet, they also have a complete lack of concern for their customers’ health, safety, and satisfaction.  It’s just all about the sale to them.  The more insulting habit they have is of presenting their pets as “adoptable”, “needing home” – anything that smacks of shelter and rescues’ efforts to find homes for homeless pets.  Sorry, just not the same – lost/stray/owner-surrendered pets in need of a home, and pets created for someone’s big fat wallet.

The excessive breeders who feed into these highly profitable pet stores, and the stores themselves, provoke a greater and greater increase of pets flooding into already-overwhelmed shelters.  Who knows how many of the “older” dogs found in shelters were dumped by breeders, once they were done using them for breeding.  They are pushing more and more pets in through the door, causing that many more pets to end up at the back door – euthanasia.  It is sad.  It is ethically wrong.  It is morally and humanely incomprehensible.

And what about the people who purchase these mill-pups from these stores?  Some are not aware of the true source of their pet.  Some prefer to not consider the possibility – they happened into the store and fell in love with a dog there, or they feel they are getting a better pet if they buy one that costs them more and comes with papers. “Papers”.  What exactly do these papers provide for you?  True papers will give you certified documentation of the dog’s mother and father, their bloodline.  A certification of your dog’s family tree, so to speak.  Maybe.  These certifications generally rely on the word of whoever submits the information.  Unless you’re buying an offspring from last year’s Westminster’s competition, or are a breeder yourself, papers are quite useless.   Well, they are good for one thing – to give you a false sense of the “quality” of your dog and his ancestry.  Wait… there is a second reason: it stokes your ego.  If you want a dog with “good” papers, you must go to a private breeder, who only breeds a few a year from their award-winning dogs.  Note: any local dog show awards ribbons, so it doesn’t necessarily mean the puppies from those animals are any better than what you might find elsewhere.  There are, of course, plenty of certification counterfeits as well – try determining the difference alone between ACA and AKC!

So what do you get from a “backyard breeder” or pet store?  Anything goes.  You might luck out, get a great dog with great health.  You might also get a dog who has an undiagnosed health condition, one that has a high propensity for future health concerns thanks to the sloppy genetics, lack of socialization or a dog with a nasty behavior problem thanks to having been transported hundreds of miles in an unconditioned/unheated crate, only to spend its time at the store in an unhealthy crate or cage with little attention other than major finger-poking from unruly toddlers.  Any of these situations too often lead people  (“owners”) to turn the dog over to the local pound. The math is simple: breed a dog, dog has puppies, sell puppies to store which then ups the price and sells to impatient people who then end up turning the dog in, which then ends up euthanized because there are just way too many dogs sitting in there homeless or rejected.

Is this really how we want our animals treated?  Is this what we espouse as acceptable for those animals meant to be our best friends?

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” (Mahatma Gandhi, spiritual leader of India, 1869-1948)


“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat.  I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me,  I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me….whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” (Bible, Matthew 25:42-45)


If you feel you must share your home with a purebred, maybe a descendant of  award-winning champions, then by all means do so.  That would require a bit of homework first, to research for a good source.  And by all means avoid the pet stores. (One exception would be adopting from a rescue group that happens to hold events in a pet shop). Or, check for local breed-specific rescues (you can find many on Petfinder.com)  If it doesn’t really concern you on whether your dog is purebred, visit your local shelter.  You’d be amazed how many dogs there are probably purebreds!  They just don’t have “papers” to prove it.  And if a dog appears to be a mixed-breed, all the better quite frankly.  In-breeding has been a major cause for so many canine health issues, you just might be looking at a healthier dog.

By taking away the profit these unscrupulous breeders have been reaping off the sweat and tears of our beloved pets, we can take away the practice.  How?  Simply by not giving them our business.  And spreading the word. Want an example of how this can work?   If you have Facebook access:  wwww.facebook.com/petlandwheaton.  In short, the store (Petland in Wheaton, IL) has been trying various marketing tactics to sell their pups.  They are now having to close up/”merge with another Petland”.  And this is after they tried “adopting out from rescues” and found it “unprofitable”, scrapping a program they only had for a couple months.  I suggest here that comments throughout that Facebook page sent people running elsewhere for a pet.

Why not adopt through a rescue or shelter?  And the money you save – donate it to them for the care of the others still there.  And make sure you have your children along, for the lesson on how to do right by our animals, how to live a good life.   And how to get a good pet.

“To educate our people, and especially our children, to humane attitudes and actions toward living things is to preserve and strengthen our national heritage and the moral values we champion in the world”. ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“I looked at all the caged animals in the shelter…the cast-offs of human society. I saw in their eyes love and hope, fear and dread, sadness and betrayal. And I was angry. “God,” I said, “this is terrible! Why don’t you do something?” God was silent for a moment and then He spoke softly. I have done something,” He replied. “I created you.” ~The Animals’ Savior Copyright Jim Willis 1999

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. ~ Albert Einstein


















It’s Adopt a Dog month.  What will you do?