Puppy Adoption Done Right!
Edit: The post below was written by Linda, a veterinarian student. In order to gain “on-the-field” experience, Linda worked with a local veterinarian during the summer and as such, was able to assist the vet when he treated the animals that were brought to his practice. Some of these animals were very ill puppies who had been acquired from puppy mills.
In her accompaying email, Linda shared that: “With few exceptions, animals that came from puppy mills exhibited common symptoms such as fear, trembling, anxiety, shyness, lack of depth perception, light sensivity, aggression and more.”
We had already published our own article on pet adoption but her witness account was so poignant that we decided to pubilsh it here, in its entirety.
Are you thinking about adopting a puppy from a puppy mill? If you are, then think again. As a general rule, puppy mills are bad for puppies. Oh, I am sure there are some mom and pops places where the little fellows are treated like princes and princesses, but they would be the exception to the rule.
A puppy mill is a place where people breed dogs to make money. Think about this. Without customers, these places wouldn’t exist. Dogs are considered a commodity, an asset to be sold, and profit maximization is of paramount importance for these establishments. When you are buying from these people you are supporting a population of animals who are not treated in the best conditions and as a result, can actually be quite ill. I am in my third year of college. My dream is become a veterinarian. In order to achieve that goal, I have been volunteering my time at my local vet. This experience is an eye opener for me. Through this experience, I am in contact with animals who come to us with their aches and pains, and look for a soothing hand, the comfort of a kind world, and the expertise of a veterinarian’ examination. There are times, as it always is with living beings, there isn’t much we can do for some of the animals that come through our door. As a future vet, I don’t think I will ever be able to reconcile myself with the inevitable reality that some animals have indeed reached the end of their road. Their fates makes me sad, but it is a part of life which is offset by the joy of being able to treat an animal, make her whole, bring him back to health, return them to the land of happiness.
And there there are the puppies that have been adopted from puppy mills. Mail order puppies, little bundle of sores and pains for whom life is not a happy place.
We live in an era where pets can be found through the internet from people who breed them for money…
One of the most revealing thing I have learned through my time as an aspiring vet is how quickly the vet I work for can diagnose that a pet’s been bought from a puppy mill. This vet is a wonderful person, but he’s been in practice for a number of years. Without a doubt, vets are empathetic and caring professionals. They can be brutally honest as well. At least mine is. He’ll examine the puppy for a few minutes and then will say something like:
Did you get him from a puppy mill?
And here’s something else that’s amazing. With very few exceptions, the pet owners become quite uncomfortable at having to answer this question, and their discomfort only serves to confirm that they knew what they were they were doing. Yet, inevitably, their answers always goes like this:
Yes, but I didn’t know it was a puppy mill when I went to pick him up.
Here is how you can tell you’re dealing with a puppy mill:
- The place you are buying for “specializes” in dog breeds that are uncommon in your area,
- They offer several types of breeds at the same time.
- They are keeping in places that are not sanitary.
- They cannot give you the name of their vet without telling you the’d have to look it up.
- They are keeping the animals in cooped up, dirty areas.
Adopt a pet, save a life.
Did you know that every year, there are millions of puppies that die in shelters in the USA? About 3 million are killed a year because no one will adopt them. The more people buy their dogs from puppy mills, the fewer are adopted from shelters.
Mom and Pop Breeders
Breeders who sell puppies from their home like to say they are not your typical puppy mill, because of the small numbers of puppies they sell to the public but the reality is that these puppies are bred for the purpose of being sold. These backyard breeders tend to make female dogs have puppies until they can’t any longer and they sell as many dogs as possible. If you are not careful, you could be supporting people financially instead of helping dogs that are in need of help because they are in a shelter. While it may be easier to get the type of dog you want from this kind of person, if you want to save lives it’s really important that you don’t work with them.
Health problems are far more likely to happen to animals that are in puppy mills. They have to sit all day in filthy conditions because they are not cared for all that much or sometimes not at all. The people running the business are not going to care if puppies are born that have medical conditions that are dangerous and quickly kill them after you buy the puppy. There are plenty of ways that the health of a dog could be compromised by the lack of care that you find when you look at these kinds of sellers.
It may not seem like it, but puppies that are taken away from their mothers too soon and that are not taken care of very well are going to have behavioral problems. Think about if someone were to keep a human child in a cage without much more than a little food and water that’s not even clean. People would be furious about that because it would lead to that child not having a good future and could lead to death. Why should people let puppies go through the same thing if they can help it?
There is actually no excuse when it comes to wanting a pet to not save one from certain death. Even people that are just trying to get rid of a dog they can’t take care of are better to work with than mills. Consider that when someone doesn’t want a puppy, if they can’t get someone to come get it, they will probably have to take it to a shelter where it could be faced with death. You don’t want to be responsible for this and it’s also nice to know that you helped instead of contributed to the overall problem.
How will you know that a puppy mill is going to even be giving you a good deal? They want to make money, and so they don’t care if you get a sick or injured puppy. They may be masking serious problems and just lying to get you to pay them for what they have. Then, when you get the puppy home and something happens, you can’t really have them do anything about it. With shelter animals, they are at least well taken care of and get to see vets if they are having any serious issues so they can get better.
Look to a shelter or private parties that are not running puppy mills if you want to do the right thing. You now know why this is the best idea. There are so many dogs and puppies in the world that aren’t being cared for and chances are there are a lot of them in your city right now.
