pet connection

Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly has had it with puppy-milling scum and their retail sales outlets. And she wants you to know what veterinarians see when people bring in those sick dogs:

[A]bhorrent conditions are common. Animals are more often sick and congenitally diseased than not. Puppy mill origins are the norm. And still there’s a seemingly bottomless font of willing buyers prepared to pay up for the right to buy what very well might be a purebred disaster sourced from a disreputable establishment where abusive farming practices are the norm.

Every retail pet shop I’ve ever visited (and I’ve made it a point to visit a great many) has always disputed all the above points. In the face of sniffles and severe congenital ailments alike, pet shops have patently denied the defects, pointed to certificates, cited “championship bloodlines” and —— most egregiously —— often ignored my requests that they water their “widgets.”

And hey … these are the “cleaned-up” pups for public display! You wanna see real hell? Visit the puppy-mills themselves, where the parents of the “merchandise” spend their entire lives in misery. Oh, sorry …you can’t.

You’re not “rescuing” when you buy a puppy-mill dog from a pet store or Internet site: You’re perpetuating a cycle of mind-numbing cruelty. And don’t think you’ll do better by buying a “hybrid” — a Puggle, Maltipoo, whatever — from these outfits, because you won’t.

Don’t buy so much as a flea comb from these places. Just walk on by.

And if you do step in, be sure you understand what they’re telling you, and what it means. Dr. Patty explains it all. And then walk on out.

Adopt a pet or buy from a reputable breeder. Here are some tips.

Earlier this week the  Humane Society of the United States released an investigation linking the pet-store chain Petland to puppy-mills, a morally bankrupt industry that treats dogs as machines, cranking out puppies for sale as cheaply as possible as often and as long as they can, often in horrific and cruel conditions. Petland fired back by pointing to its “adoption” programs, which had people who follow this issue snorting over the chutzpah of the company to claim such high ground. The HSUS thought it pretty remarkable as well. In HSUS boss Wayne Pacelle’s blog, he writes:

Unable to defend the puppy mill cruelties that dooms breeding dogs to barren lives in cages without socialization or the kind of human affection that pets deserve, Petland rolled out the claim that it has an “Adopt-A-Pet” program. The PR team at Petland knows that “adoption” has as many positive connotations as “puppy mill” has awful ones, so why not bob and weave.

But Petland using the word doesn’t make it true.

In fact, we were sure they’d try to raise the subject to divert public attention. So before our investigation was made public, our experts called every one of the 133 Petland stores operating at that time in the U.S. We asked if the store participated in the “Adopt-A-Pet” program—and if so, where the adoptee dogs come from.

To start out with, 56 of the stores said they didn’t bother with adoptions.

Then we heard some strange answers: 23 stores said they offered cut-rate adoption prices on older puppies that had not sold, 16 said they offered puppies for adoption when the animals were returned by previous customers, and seven stores said they wanted to offer homeless dogs for adoption but they couldn’t get a supply of pups from local shelters. Little wonder about that last claim. Animal shelters know that retail puppy-sellers and the whole puppy mill industry are large contributors to the overpopulation of dogs in the U.S. Why support them?

Now, to be fair, we found some Petland stores that claimed to offer puppies that were brought in by local people, sometimes from “accidental” litters. A few stores said they would occasionally refer customers to shelters. Some said they actually did offer shelter dogs for adoption—but I have to wonder.

So do we. We wonder how those in the puppy-mill indsutry can enjoy the Christmas season knowing how much suffering they cause.

Don’t buy a puppy from a puppy-mill retail outlet or a direct-from-the-puppy-mill Web site. If you do, you are the reason this industry keeps doing what it does, despite 50 years or more of investigations and expose that show the rot as its core.

Do the right thing. Adopt from a shelter or rescue group, or buy from a reputable, ethical breeder. (Hint: good breeders don’t sell through third parties, and they don’t ship with a few clicks and credit card from a Web site shopping site).

Over on Raised by Wolves blog, dog trainer and SAR dog handler Heather Houlihan lays it all out for anyone who’a thinking of patronizing the sick, immoral and inhumane puppy-mill industry with a pet store puppy purchase this holiday season. It’s an absolute must read:

‘Tis the season in which puppymills make their profits. What consumers do in the next month determines whether Amos and Ada fire up the puggle factory for spring production, or cut their losses and go back to making oak furniture and rhubarb preserves. You decide whether March sees the opening of a shiny new GNC in that mall slot, or another year of shivering Yorki-poos behind glass.

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We can only repeat, over and over again: If it is for sale in a pet store, it came from a puppymill. If it came from a puppymill (and it did, it did — do you get this? — it did), its genetics are highly suspect, its early environment was impoverished, it has been stressed and exposed to communicable disease before its immune system developed, it is at ultra-high risk of becoming a dog with serious, unfixable health and behavior problems, and you will get no help or sympathy from the seller when it does. You are buying an expensive heartbreak for yourself and your family. Furthermore, you — you personally — are perpetuating animal cruelty that would make you puke if you saw it, heard it, smelled it. You and your Visa card have sentenced this puppy’s mother, father, and their now-inevitable successors in the puppy production line to continued lives of unremitting misery.

Do not believe the lies of the super-kyoot clerk. This puppy did not come from a “reputable breeder.” (Except in the sense that “reputation” used to carry when my mother was in high school.) No reputable, ethical, caring, competent, knowledgeable breeder ever sells a puppy through a pet store, broker, or any third party to persons unknown. Never. Never ever. The person or corporation who owns this puppy’s unfortunate mother does not give a rat’s ass about his mother, the puppy, or any part of you that is not backed by Citibank.

And a clean, sanitized, concrete-and-stainless, passed-USDA-inspection “commercial kennel” is still a puppymill. (If a breeding kennel is large enough to be USDA-licensed — it is a puppymill.) Regular use of bleach is not indicative of love for, knowledge of, or commitment to, the production units breeding animals caged there, nor for their products puppies or the unseen suckers buyers.

Don’t buy a a puppy from a pet store or from a direct-from-the-puppy-mill Web site. Not because they’re cute, and not because “she needs me.”

The only thing that will stop the mass-production of puppies in high-volume commercial kennels is when buyers say, “We’re not supporting this anymore.” And that’s the only thing that will ever shut it down.

Do you care about animals? Don’t support cruelty. Adopt from a shelter or rescue group or buy from a reputable, ethical, responsible breeder. Don’t buy from a pet store. No excuses.

I don’t know how many times and in how many ways we have to say this:

If you buy a puppy from a pet store, you are supporting a system of cruelty that has been well-documented again and again and again for more than 50 years. You, yes you, are making puppy mills possible.

Grow up. Take responsibility for your actions. And say NO to puppy mills by buying directly from a reputable, ethical breeder or adopting from a shelter or rescue group. There is no excuse for supporting cruelty with your puppy-mill retail outlet purchase.

This year’s first installment of No Christmas Puppies (click for all our past posts, going back for years), courtesy of MSNBC.com:

After an eight-month investigation, the Humane Society of the United States accused Petland, the national pet store chain, of selling dogs bred under appalling conditions at puppy mills around the country.

The animal protection group made the charges at a news conference in Washington Thursday. The investigation involved 21 Petland stores and dozens of breeders and brokers. The Petland stores are being supplied by large-scale puppy mills, although customers are routinely informed that the dogs come only from good breeders, the Humane Society said.

We write about this every year. Nothing will stop this sick and cruel mass-production of puppies except for customers to not support this industry. No reputable, ethical breeder sells through a third party. Not ever. And no reputable, ethical breeder ships from Internet sites to people who place an order with a few clicks and a credit card. Not ever.

Talk to me about how you love your pet-store puppy and you’d better stand back because I am going to singe your eyebrows off.

I’m glad you are taking good care of your puppy-mill purchase. I’m glad you love her. I’m glad you haven’t had the health and behavior problems that are rampant in these carelessly bred, unsocialized dogs. How nice for you, and for your one dog.

But don’t expect me to sign off on your behavior, because I will never let you off the hook for dooming thousands of dogs to a brutal lives in crap-filled wired cages exposed to the elements because you wanted that puppy in the window. Not ever.

People who run puppy mills are heartless bastards. And they wouldn’t be in business without buyers.

If you’re one of those buyers, shame on you.

Update: More from the HSUS on their Petland investigations. If you are thinking maybe it doesn’t matter where you buy a puppy, you are wrong.

Every animal-advocacy group in the country put out a media release yesterday asking the new president to address the issue most critical to our nation’s very survival:

What kind of dog the first family should get.

For the record, I hope the Obamas get a nice little shelter dog, maybe some kind of mopsy, fuzzy-faced terrier mix. An adult, not a puppy, because a well-chosen adult dog often fits in better and more quickly into busy households, especially those with little dog experience.

Yes, it would be a good thing and a good example. But honestly? I don’t much care beyond that they get a nice dog who fits with their family and brings joy to their lives.

See, the Obamas choice of a family pet ranks about 1,074,037th on my list of things that it’s important for President Obama to be thinking about.

In my own Top 10? Along with the economy, the wars, healthcare and energy independence, I would put food.

Food.

Food.

and then, Food.

To say we are vulnerable to terrorist attack though our food supply is to state the absolute obvious. We don’t even need to have people want to hurt us: It’s already happening, just because of corporate greed, corruption in China and shoddy work from a government that’s supposed to protect us, not industry profits.

Melamine. In pet food, livestock feed, infant formula and heaven know what else. Salmonella, from the over-industrialized food system. Antibiotic resistance, from factory farming.

These issues are so much more important to me than getting the politically correct dog for the adorable Obama daughters.

I’m disappointed with the animal advocacy groups . With the lone exception of the Animal Poison Control Center of the ASPCA (hat tip to the courageous Dr. Steve Hansen of the APCC), they were mostly silent during the pet-food recall and they remain so on the issue of food safety still. A safe food supply effects us all, pets included, and I would hope to see some of them step up and say so.

So let’s all enjoy the photo op moment of the Obamas getting their family dog. And then, let’s move on to something that really matters.