I am big on the “ethics” part and then too I know that good people with pets sometimes just get busy.

For instance, I don’t let dog pooh sit on the ground or in the yard - and I try to pick it up right away even with several big dogs - and I see people with big dogs (sometimes only one dog) and the back yard is so filled with pooh that the poor dog(s) can hardly find a place to step. Maybe this isn’t an ethical issue - but it’s a health issue. Busy, lazy, ignorant….????

Getting good vet care is important too. I wondered how poor people can afford pets - most times my vet visits cost me at least $250 to $400 and if there’s something serious going on then it goes up from there. So my friend said that the poor will have to make tougher decisions, ethics besides, so many pet are in shelters and don’t have home, she’d rather see them in poor homes than put to sleep or left in concrete stalls.

No perfect solution exists - and people that buy from pet stores are not trying to do evil. And if it is so wrong, then they need to be outlawed.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound argumentative, but if *anyone* has a responsibility to learn about responsible pet ownership and purchasing, it’s parents with young children. The last thing a parent should be doing is teaching their kids that a puppy can be bought at the mall, like a new iPod.

Call me cranky, but I’m done with making excuses for people who still buy puppies from pet stores. I don’t feel sorry for them, I don’t care how stressed or maxed out they are, I don’t care how many kids they have. Responsibility is part of being a grown up, and a busy life doesn’t give you a ‘get out of jail free card’ for ethics.

So they say: I’m stressed and really they don’t care or are too lazy to care - yes that too.

Still some are busy and people cut corners - especially families and also the dogs live lonely solitary lives in the back yard or garage and that is just as bad.

Maybe some just don’t care. People generally do what they care about….but as a society we are maxed out. Rushing here rushing there no time for walks or smelling the roses…..no time to make informed choices.

Especially families with young children - and if both parents work…..lazy? maybe and maybe not.

I’d be more likely to believe that if pet store puppies of my breed didn’t regularly sell for $1000 more than a puppy from a top quality breeder who tests. I’d happily substitute the word “lazy” for “stressed and maxed out”.

Many of these people do love animals and don’t want them hurt and perhaps they just don’t see that they are part of the problem.

My sister-in-law bought a puppy from a pet store when they were walking in the mall. I told her not to and fussed at her, but she just thought me off base.

We need to change some laws but that would put these pet stores out of business, at least some of them, and for the most part our government protects commerce - even if it hurts.

How very, very true. I spoke to a man less then two months ago who was calling about buying a dog. He made it perfectly clear that he wanted a dog with ‘no strings attached’ that he could ‘breed if he wanted to’. When I politely and carefully explained why this was never going to happen with one of my dogs, he cursed and hung up. Less than a week later, he called to leave a gloating message telling me how he’d bought a puppy at PJ’s, and was going to ‘breed it and put snobby %&*^) breeders like you outta business’. I saved the voice mail, btw. I might add it to my blog.

You can never win against the truly ignorant. They don’t care. They don’t care their on-order puppy had to sit in a cargo hold for 24 hours to get here from Europe. They don’t care that puppy mill dogs suffer. They want their puppy, NOW, and they want to be left alone to do what they want with it.

Unless something goes wrong, of course. Then all they want is some ‘poor me’ sympathy. I’m almost all out of it, personally.

Carol

Comment by Mary O’Connor-Shaver

I wish that were true. Unfortunately, the first reports of puppy mills came out in the ’60s, in Life magazine. In the early ’80s, another big media push. And now, in the age of the Internet, there’s no way that anyone doing even the tiniest bit of research can not know about puppy mills.

My only conclusion is that a whole lot of people truly don’t give a damn about anything more than their own immediate gratification. They know about puppy mills, and don’t care as long as they can plunk down their credit card and take a cute puppy home now.

As a member of the Central Ohio companion animal rescue community, I’ve been working very diligently with animal advocates through the U.S. in addressing this very critical issue for Ohio citizens.

For more information on our efforts, I invite you to visit our website http://www.BanOhioDogAuctions.com and read the article “New bill targets puppy mills, auctions” in the Winter, 2007 issue of The Animal Insider - http://www.animal-outreach.org…..01-07.pdf.

It is my firm belief that until the public truly understands and appreciates the cruel aspect - not to mention the corruption and consumer fraud - connected with “dealing dogs”, puppy mills will continue to generate millions of dollars for their breeders and distributors.

I *WILL* be using it! farming dogs . . . I think not.