pet connection

Two years ago, a couple days after Christmas, a girl of 11 or so approached me as I was coming out of Petsmart.

“Do you want a free baby bunny?” she asked. She had been crying, and she held a tiny brown bunny. I talked to her for a few minutes, and figured out — a little reading between the lines — that non-custodial dad had decided at the last minute to give his kid a baby bunny, without a shelter, food or dishes. Custodial mom had nixed this idea, and had driven the kid to Petsmart parking lot to dump the bun.

“If I can’t get rid of it,” said the kid, “mom says to just turn it loose in the parking lot.”

I took the bunny. I didn’t take the urine-soaked cardboard box he’d been living in or the wilted iceberg lettuce that had been standing in for food. Instead, I put the soft little guy on my shoulder and drove home, assuring the girl that her rabbit had found a good home. I’m not sure she really cared, and I am quite sure neither of her idiotic parents did.

Velocity is still with me. I had him neutered and he lives happily on a healthy diet of grass hay and fresh greens.

Heaven knows how many throwaway pets that family has gone through since. Honestly, it makes you wish people had to pass a test to be parents.

I’m thinking of that story because he’s happily munching his favorite meal — beets with the greens left on them — and because over on Lassie Get Help, Luisa has a good post on the same subject, albeit about dogs in particular. Go over and see what the U.S.D.A. believes is a space large enough that “breeding stock” need never leave it. What she says about people not knowing about puppy mills is sadly quite true. Christie and I have both been stunned to realize that many people have no idea. (That’s like how when the Michael Vick thing first broke, a guy I work with said, “I don’t see what’s the big deal. When I was growing up our dog would fight sometimes. Dogs fight, right.” He didn’t realize that this wasn’t a couple of dogs scrapping at a dog park, and he was blissfully unaware of organized dog-fighting.)

None of the regular readers here would buy a pet without any planning — and I surely hope none would support a puppy mill by buying from a pet store or direct-sale Internet puppy site — but if your Web browsing has brought you here because you’re looking for for a last minute gift … please stop and think.

Better you should teach your child compassion and responsibility than that living, feeling animals are something to toss into a parking lot because you can’t be bothered. Because it seems to me that a child who grows up with such an attitude isn’t going to look too kindly on the needs of aging parents.

Just saying.

… and don’t buy from a pet-store or direct-sell internet puppy site. From Newsweek:

Some of [the dogs] live in rabbit hutches with no heat, no air conditioning, no protection from the elements. Sometimes they don’t even have a roof over their heads. I’m thinking right now about the puppies in Oklahoma, with the ice storm they’re having. There are dogs right now in puppy mills there that are shivering and huddling close together, trying to stay warm. But as long as they are alive, and producing more puppies, the people running these places don’t care about the suffering.

They don’t care about the suffering. Do you? When you buy a puppy from a pet store or Internet puppy site, you’re making sure this industry continues.

The power to stop puppy mills in in your hands.  Don’t support this cruel industry.

This morning  just after dawn I slipped on the ice in my backyard. Ice. In California. Slipped, fell and landed with an embarassing and somewhat painful splat on my wood deck.

Why was I out on my wood deck in a nightgown, coat and clogs without socks at a little after dawn?

I was waiting for Otter to pee.

Of course, she wasn’t about to do that with me on the ground, and soon I was covered with sweet puppy kisses. I stood up as quickly as I could — not easy, since I was sure I had broken something — and then tried to encourage her to take care of her business.

Please, Otter. Please. Please. But oh no: She had found a leaf instead, and happily retrieved it for me. See? I’m a good puppy retriever? See? See?

What could I say? “Good girl, Otter,” I told her, taking the leaf she offered me. “Now puppy go potty before I freeze to death.”

Why would anyone want to raise a puppy in the winter? Even in California? I’ve long advised against the whole Christmas puppy thing for many reasons, key among them that Christmas puppies are usually available only from puppy-millers (either through pet stores of direct-sale Internet sites) or careless and clueless backyard breeders.

Aside from the philosophical reasons for not supporting such sellers, these puppies are often ill-equipped to be good pets: They’re often unsocialized and more likely to have congenital defects that will plague them throughout their lives. Do you need a neurotic pet with expensive health problems? If that’s no what you want, why not take the trouble to find a shelter or rescue dog from a group with an active foster program, or from a reputable, ethical breeder? No, you can’t whip out a credit card on a whim with these folks, but isn’t getting a pup with a head start worth a little research, effort and patience?

Seriously.  Think about it.

But the practical matters are important, too: It’s flat-out more difficult to raise a puppy when the nights are cold and the days are short. You don’t just throw a puppy outside, after all, you have to house-train them — note the use of the term “house-train” rather then the ill-informed concept of house-breaking. To train, you limit their territory in the house, manage their timing and take them where you want them to go and praising them for getting it right. To break, you punish a puppy for making a mistake she doesn’t understand. How bloody unfair!

And what about the all-important socialization? That’s so much easier in the summer, too, because you can always find people at outdoor tables willing to pet a puppy. (I always take my puppies where people, not dogs are. Socialization needs to be safe before puppy immunizations are complete.) When it’s 40 degrees outside, you’re going to find many people at those outdoor tables. And you can’t take the puppy inside the Starbucks.

Longer days are better for training, too, even though some of that can of course be done inside.

But we’re coping, Otter and me.  It’s just more work and more effort on my part. Otter isn’t really a “Christmas puppy” and she’s not even mine. I’m raising her for a friend, and she’ll go to that friend in April. That’s a lot of responsibility!

But when she does leave me, she’ll have all the basics covered, be healthy, well-trained and well-socialized. No matter how cold it is outide.

Given my druthers, I’d rather raise a puppy in the summer. And so should you.

Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly has been on a roll with some especially nifty postings, and the comments on those posts are just as good.

I’ve never met Dr. K, but I adore her compassion and honesty, both of which come through with every word she writes. Her post on how veterinarians dread the flood of sick pet-store puppies around the holidays is something else. Love how the parents blame the veterinarian for “ruining my kid’s Christmas” when the parents were the morons who didn’t do any research before they pulled out a credit card at the mall (or clicked on an Internet “puppy-mill direct” Web site).

Anyway, here’s the post. The comments took off in a different direction when a pet-rescue volunteer piously informed all that her group won’t allow adoptions around Christmas. That sort of idiocy makes me crazy, so I happily jumped into the fray. See, every potential adopter isn’t incompetent, and for many — especially older singles — the holidays are a slow time that’s absolutely perfect for getting a new pet off to a good start. Heck, I know some businesses that even close the week between Christmas and New Year’s, whether the employees want it off or not.

Adoption guidelines are one thing; unbreakable rules are another.

As I’ve written before, some of my best adoptions when I was running a breed rescue were people who didn’t “pencil out” — a single woman who lived in an apartment, an older couple who wanted a very young dog and a middle-aged man living with his teenaged son in a very dicey neighborhood. All three homes had the dogs for life, and stayed in touch with me for years. They turned out to be a lot better home than the “perfect” family with the perfect fence, stay-at-home mom and expensive home in a nice neighborhood who dumped the dog I placed with them years later because the kids wanted a puppy instead.

Yes, I took my adoption placements seriously, but I also looked at the bigger picture and took chances on people who my gut told me would try their best. And they did!

For me, that’s the essential story of Nathan Winograd’s “Redemption”: We rescuers too often see people as guilty until proven innocent and often look for reasons not to place a pet. We gotta drop our egos and turn that around, so people and pets have a chance to be together. Who can blame people for getting puppy mill dogs, the way some shelters and rescue groups treat them?

Dr. K’s posts on small pets for kids and the feral cat-bird debate (along with the comments) are also good, thoughtful reads.

And speaking of good, thoughtful reading, Miss Christie should bring her elegant self back in here today, since she should have met her deadline crunch by now. I’m looking forward to her posts again.

Update: The animal-rights group PETA is out with a new ad for Christmas. If they understand what really going on in shelters it’s not evident. And geez, they somehow fail to note that they themselves are for the end to all domestic animals (no more exploitation of pets!), and have a 90 percent kill rate for all the pets they take in, in addition to advocating for the extermination of all pit bulls.

But I guess that’s your fault, not PETA’s. You made them do it, you evil people.

***

On the adoption front, personal: About a month has passed since Pip joined my family from German Shepherd rescue, and what a difference!  He’s still a gangly adolescent goofus, but he’s filling out beautifully and his coat has taken on a lustrous sheen. His manners have improved and his mild separation anxiety has diminished remarkably. I adore this silly boy, and he’s going to be a great dog with more training and maturity.

The command he hears most often? “Eaaaassyyyyyyy!” That’s because he plays rough, too rough for both my 11-year-old retriever (Heather) and the 9-week-old retriever (Otter). “Leave it!” is popular, too, with regard to the cat (Miss Clara) and the rabbit (Velocity).  Pip learns quickly and wants to please, so we’re doing pretty well overall.

I’m surprised, though, that for all his sheer adolescent enthusiasm he is of all the dogs in my home the absolute best with Otter the puppy. They play gentle “bitey face” games and he plays tug-of-war — and lets her win!

The prize for “most adaptable” would have to go to Clara. My lovely young cat is thoroughly unphased by the addition of a large dog and a little puppy, and seems to have come to like them both.

I’ve been writing about pets and their care for a living, more or less, since 1984. In all that time, I have completely and utterly lost any idea I ever had that laws can or even should be put in place to end the pure evil of puppy mills, mass-production facilities where “breeding stock” live in filth and fear, in cages open to the elements, for the duration of their lives as units of production.

Why? Because laws to clean up puppy mills will give us cleaner puppy mills, at best. As long as dog-breeding facilities are considered as “farming” — overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, no less — you will never see an end to large-scale kennels, because the pet and farming lobbies will not allow such infringement on their ability to “farm dogs.”

No matter that a kennel-raised pup — even from a “model operation” — has for decades been known not to be the best choice as a family pet. (Wanna read up? Start with Scott and Fuller  from the’60s.)

Mass-produced puppies, often raised in filth, are notoriously difficult if not nearly impossibly to house-train. Bred with no concern to congenital defects, those who don’t pop with parvo  right away often end up with expensive-to-treat health conditions later. Raised without socialization as the offspring of sick, stressed out moms, many of them are also neurotic as hell.

When you buy a pet-store puppy or a “puppy-mill direct” puppy from an Internet ordering site, you may be giving one puppy a good home, but you’re guaranteeing the continuation of this sick, cruel industry.

As an aside, you’re also screwing up the holidays for veterinarians and dog-trainers everywhere.

Don’t do it.

Read our “No Christmas Puppies” posts from a couple years ago, or today’s story from MSNBC.com on a puppy-mill bust in Virginia. In the credit-where-credit-is-due department, puppy mills have always been a focus of HSUS investigations, and their section on puppy mills and why you should skip their retail  and Internet outlets is well worth reading.

(The picture  above is by our Morgan Ong, of a van load of former ”breeding stock” from a Midwest puppy mill. The dogs were brought to California for pro bono veterinary attention and adoption into their first real homes ever. Many were in deplorable condition. )

***

Just so happens I’m now raising a puppy for a friend for the next six months. Want to know what you get when you have a puppy from someone (reputable breeder or shelter/rescue group with a good fostering program) who knows what they’re doing? You get a puppy like Otter who:

– Is house-trained at 8 weeks, to the extent her bladder and legs can manage it (understands the concept, can’t always execute to perfection);

– Is socialized to think people are the center of the universe and soaks up learning like a sponge;

– Understands dog body language and is playful and respectful to other dogs;

– Knows that teeth hurt (especially baby teeth) and isn’t mouthy;

– Understands the difference (for the most part) between dog toys and human belongings;

– Is comfortable with having every part of her body touched and doesn’t freak at nail trims;

– Is confident, not fearful, explores in new situations; and

– Sits for her dinner.

She’s not a wonder puppy. She’s just what you get at eight weeks when you get a puppy from someone who knows what she’s doing, works hard to socialize puppies during the first few weeks of life, and primes them to learn new things willingly and happily.

Want a puppy like this? Look for a shelter or rescue group with an active fostering program, or find a reputable breeder if you want a purebred. Hint: At this point, that means no Christmas puppy. Get over it.

No matter how cute, don’t buy a pet-store pr “puppy-mill direct” Internet puppy. If everyone just passed on these puppies,  puppy mills (even the clean ones) would end within a year. No sales = The end.