pet connection

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.

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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.

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I’ll put up our syndicated newspaper page with the story of these two in the next day or so, since we have to wait for our client newspapers to run them first.

But I’ve made “live” the transcripts of the interviews behind the story: Christie’s QandA sessions with Richard Avanzino of Maddie’s Fund and Nathan Winograd, author of “Redemption.”

You can find both interviews here.

There has never been a better time to read what these two activists have to say. That’s because while nanny-state mandatory pet extinctionneutering legislation advances, city by city, state by state, there’s no evidence that punishing responsible owners and reputable, ethical breeders with laws the irresponsible will simply ignore helps at all.

Taking a system that doesn’t work and working harder at it doesn’t make it work any better. Blaming a broken system on “bad people” and “greedy breeders” isn’t going to change a sheltering paradigm that has long accepted that killing is the only way to deal with what appears to be a pet overpopulation problem — but is really a lack of vision and leadership by the shelter system. (Read our past posts on mandatory spay-neuter laws here. Past posts on no-kill are here. )

Animal-lovers have a hard time believing there’s another way, in part because they have been misled by the disingenuous leadership of animal-rights extremists who believe that the only eventual end to the exploitation of domestic animals is through extinction. Beaten-down shelter workers who are understandably tired of the killing have a hard time believing there’s another way, and it’s natural for them to blame the people who put the animals in their care to be killed because that’s the way it has always been.

But there is another way. And as the saying goes, you can either lead, follow or get out of the way.

For those who criticize us here at Pet Connection — or in the other places our writing appears, such as Christie’s Your Whole Pet column on the San Francisco Chronicle’s Web site, SFGate.com — as “greedy breeders” (as California breeding-ban proponent Lloyd Levine does in dismissing all who dare criticize the draconian plan of a man isn’t even a pet-owner — and who give puppy mills a free pass!), here are the facts:

– I have never bred a litter, and I have run a breed rescue. My pets are both purchased and rescued, purebred and not, and I compete in dog sports with my retrievers. I may well breed a litter one day, but if you count me as a “greedy breeder” for doing so, you ought to consider I have cared for my own pets and rescued, fostered and placed dozens of others for 30 years, spending thousands of dollars a year to do so. If I’m in it for the money, I’m sure doing things wrong.

The “profit” on a properly-bred litter rarely exceeds the costs that go into to it, and never does if you consider the costs not just of screening parents for congenital defects, but also showing and competing or otherwise proving the worthiness of your dogs to be bred, as well as the countless hours spent properly socializing puppies in your home to be good family companions. And like all responsible, ethical breeders, I will be responsible for those puppies for life, no matter when, no matter what.

If I breed a litter, which I may never.

I absolutely and unequivocally support those who do breed ethically and responsibly, include the breeder who co-owns all my flat-coated retrievers, a rare heritage breed I love and believe in preserving.

– Christie is a well-respected member and two-term director of the Scottish Deerhound Club of America, and has shown and bred this elegant, rare heritage breed. She hasn’t bred a litter in years, and may never again. Like me, she has owned mixed-breeds and purebreds, and loved neither any less for their paperwork or lack thereof. If you want to find out how reputable and ethical a breeder Christie is, ask anyone who has been lucky enough to get one of her Deerhounds. They are mostly all lifelong friends now, united in the care of these great hounds and in the fight for the breed’s survival.

We are proud to count reputable, ethical breeders among our friends, and we support their efforts to maintain both our heritage breeds and physically and temperamentally sound representatives of the less-rare breeds, as well as working dogs such as stock dogs and police dogs.

We despair of the multitudes of clueless, careless and ignorant quick-buck backyard breeders, and we actively loathe the evil slime known as puppy-millers. Both are responsible for millions of sick and neurotic dogs that live miserable lives even in the most caring of homes. (As well as lives of unspeakable cruelty for “breeding stock” in hideous mass-production facilities.) I can’t speak for Christie, but I firmly believe hell cannot be hot enough for puppy-millers, and I also wish the backyard folks could catch a clue.

Unlike what animal-rights extremists tell you, it is NOT true that a breeder is a breeder is a breeder. Learn the difference, and shun the bad ones. (You can read my “No Christmas Puppies” posts from a couple years ago to find out more.)

Christie and I believe in the vision of the no-kill nation not because we make a living selling animals — the very idea of us “profiting” from our animals made me laugh as I typed it. Rather, it’s because we love and respect pets, and we believe that others are the same as we are and will open their hearts if respected and encouraged — not dismissed by the shelter industry.

We believe that a no-kill nation is not some fuzzy, can’t-work, pie-in-the sky idea, but is truly the only true way home for millions of pets who die because of entrenched thinking that cannot get out of the “we must kill them to save them” rut.

Lead, follow or get out of the way.

Update: More reading. Christopher on Border Wars appears to have spent the entire holiday weekend writing. “Sheeple” beware. … I write about a French proposal to replace greenhouse gas with horse poop (complete with own of my own pictures of French draft horses!) on one of my other blogs. Black Beauty alert. … BAD RAP reminds us that any dog can bite, even Snoopy. … Terrierman plays with a new camera. … LassieGetHelp plays with numbers . … and Willie Nelson reminds us all that it’s better to smoke dope than fight dogs, or something like that. Luv ya, Willie.

Finally, a milestone reached: My 500th anti-pet hate-mailer programmed into the “auto-delete” e-mail filter! Keep writing, you anal-retentive freaks (why are they so obsessed with pet poop?), because I never seen your e-mails, not at all. I’m really sorry your mommies never loved so you have to hate people who love pets and imagine they don’t love people, too, but honestly, get a therapist. Have a nice d-d-d-a-a-a-a-y-y-y.

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I hate puppy millers.

Hate.

Yes, that’s uncharitable of me. I admit it. But knowing that there are people who profit from letting sick animals live in filth, exposed to the elements and producing puppies from their starved, sick bodies until they can produce no more (at which point they have been shot and fed back to the others) just makes me wonder about the ability of our kind to care about anything more than the almighty buck.

I wish these people an afterlife as miserable as the one their dogs live in now. Knowing that’s possible is one thing that gets me through this, the puppy-mill season.

See, all year long as a pet-care columnist I hear from people who cannot house-train their pet-store puppy (because the animal grew up in filth, and thinks it’s normal) or who cannot afford vet bills to fix congental defects (caused by careless, clueless greed-head puppy-millers) or who cannot deal with the temperamental nightmares these animals can be (because of more clueless, careless greed-head puppy millers and lack of proper socialization). I have no answers for these people because there are none. They were doomed from the minute they pulled out their credit card at the pet store.

Those puppies were doomed from birth. And their parents are doomed for life.

A couple years ago I wrote a reason for every day in the month leading up to Christmas why it’s important to not not not support this sick, sick industry with the purchase of a Christmas puppy. By Christmas I was feeling so little goodwill to all that it was scary. Not a good way to start the year, and I cannot repeat this particular endeavor because I have a gun and might use it.  Lucky for puppy-millers, it’s really, really hard these days to fly with a gun to Pennsylvania (where the Amish, of all people, run puppy mills) or Kansas/Missouri (where the state governments encourage farmers to get into puppy farming.)

No, No. No. Instead, I will just say this: Don’t buy a pet-store puppy. Heck, don’t buy a Christmas puppy at all. Read the series, and find out more than 30 reasons why.

This morning, USA Today (geez, they do nice work, don’t they?) has a great feature on the misery these puppy-millers cause (thanks, Pat!):

The Humane Society estimates that at least 10,000 U.S. puppy mills, most of them unlicensed and unmonitored, are producing up to 4 million puppies a year. “That’s about twice as many as in the mid-’90s,” says the ASPCA’s Bob Baker, who has investigated such mills since 1980.

The spike, experts say, is the result of a confluence of factors: sales over the Internet, where some fictional Web pages emphasize home breeding and country surroundings; a major drift toward breeding by many in Amish and Mennonite families, who sell puppies at flea markets or to brokers who supply pet stores; and a recent surge of factory-style breeding in Maine, Ohio and other states previously not regarded as puppy-mill areas.

Often, Baker says, “they’re keeping breeding stock in squalid, horrible conditions for their entire short lives and producing unhealthy, substandard puppies with genetic, behavior and psychological issues.” And that, he says, makes this not only an issue of “inhumane care” but also of consumer fraud.

Some puppy mills are small operations: 20 or so breeding dogs live in basements, garages or sheds “in cages stacked to the roof,” and remain there, without exercise or sunlight, having two litters a year until they “wear out” at about age 5, Shain says. Others are huge. Hundreds of dogs producing thousands of puppies live in relative darkness and without stimulation so they rarely bark and attract attention.

In either case, the breeder dogs get little or no medical care, experts say. Most of the females are dissipated from the endless cycle of producing and nursing litters; many have chronic ailments, rotten teeth, and ear, eye and skin infections.

“You can just imagine how healthy and well-adjusted puppies born of these animals are,” [Stephanie] Shain [of the Humane Society of the United States] says. They have a high incidence of genetic disorders and diseases, and problems that emerge months or years after purchase, she says.

Females that no longer produce large litters are “let loose in the fields,” killed or starved to death or sold at auctions where for $20 to $200 other millers buy them to get one more litter, or research facilities take them, Shain says.

Here’s the rest.

Bob Baker, by the way, is an incredible man. He is the man who single-handedly brought the issue of puppy-mills into the public view in the ’80s, when he was working for the HSUS.

No laws will ever end puppy mills. After more than 20 years of covering this issue, I know that industry forces will water down anything that starts up to the point where even if it’s passed, it’s pointless.

The only thing that will stop this cruelty is for people to stop buying pet-store puppies.

So don’t. Please … don’t.

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A couple years ago I spent the month of December pointing out how many truly heartless and greedy people crank out sick and neurotic puppies in deplorable conditions for Christmas sales. It used to be that these puppy-millers had to go through brokers to get their “livestock” into pet stores, but with the popularity of the Internet, many are now able to sell direct to an unsuspecting public.

Of course, dirtbags like this one are still out there, but at least they’re not on Craig’s List anymore. Craig Newmark, who was kind enough to respond to every one of my e-mails asking him to quit being an accomplice to animal cruelty, has made it very difficult for puppy-millers and high-volume back yard breeders to sell on his site. (And lest you think back-yard breeders are just nice people trying to make a buck, consider that they usually pay no taxes on their nice little business. I tracked one Labrador breeder in the San Jose area who was making about $30K a year, tax-free. As a person who pays her taxes — income, property, sales — I resent someone who adds to the problem of pet overpopulation and doesn’t contribute with taxes for municipal services to clean up the mess they cause. And that doesn’t begin to take into account the heartbreak involved in selling Labradors without genetic screening to families with children who will be heartbroken when their dog develops hip dysplasia and has to be euthanized because the surgery costs more than the family can afford.)

The most clueless, careless, greedy and just plain cruel of breeders are still selling on the Internet, and let the buyer beware. But at least Craig’s List (and eBay) have a heart and have opted out of this sick industry.

Looking for a pet this Christmas? You might consider that another time of year might offer your family better options. If you still want a dog now, consider adopting a homeless one through Petfinder. And if you must have a purebred puppy, check out these guidelines for some help in figuring out the breeders to avoid.

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