I hated that you couldn’t do anything with her but stand her up to look pretty, and that playing make-believe with her was about as interesting as playing with a pointy-headed stick. (Which may actually be all that Barbie really is, anyway.) And that was before I got old enough to figure out that she didn’t look like anyone ever has or could without bulimia and plastic surgery. Or before I got older still, and realized that the standard set for large, high and surgically augmented racks on women young and old and the accompanying fetish for the kinds of shoes that would be considered abuse if forced on us by law meant that there are a whole lot of women looking — or trying to look — like idiotsBarbies instead of, you know, women.

No, the Barbie or two that came my way was ignored (but at least not tortured, which still creeps me out). For me, Breyer horses, all the way. Before you could buy accessories for them, I made my own: String halters, tissue-paper blankets and felt saddles, all lovingly preserved by my mother. (OK, honestly: Tossed in a box and forgotten for decades until my mom  told me  in no uncertain terms that I needed to get my stupid plastic horses and other childhood debris out of her garage.)

When my niece went through her very brief Barbie stage at age 8 or so, her parents dutifully threw her a Barbie-themed birthday party. I was chided and considered a Bad Sport for refusing to support that crap, and brought her a Breyer, which I continued to do pretty routinely for the next decade.

It worked.

My smart and beautiful niece is an equine studies major now, a witty three-sport athlete who can lift hay bales and saddles, back a horse-trailer into a parking space sized for a compact car and is more than woman enough to wear  a strapless short sundress and drag the eyes of a couple hundred men off the finish line at the Del Mar race track with a flip of her hair. She rode her horse to pick up her high school diploma, the day after graduation ceremonies.

She is an action figure, not a Barbie.

So what does this have to do with pets? Turns out my Barbie hate and my intense dislike for the Paris Hilton tiny-puppy-mill-dog-as-fashion-accessory craze have dovetailed neatly, if rather depressingly, into a Barbie that comes complete not only with the standard Barbie idiocy, but also with fashion accessory plastic puppies.

No, they didn’t name it Puppy Mill Barbie, which would have been far more accurate, of course.  The model is Barbie® Potty Training Pups^TM, yours for around $20 in your nearest big-box China crap retail outlet.

Puppy Mill Barbie comes with three purse-sized puppy mill dogs, toys, dishes and “papers” for “potty-training” — although the word on the street is that the puppies leak from the wrong places, probably from some puppy-mill caused illness.

For anyone tempted to get a toddler indoctrinated into the cult of idiocyBarbie early, please note that Puppy Mill Barbie is not suitable for girls under 3, because the small parts may be a “choking hazard.”

I can attest to that. I’ve been choking on the vomit in my mouth from the very second I laid eyes on the thing.

A rabbit inspired an abused woman to seek help, which then led to the rabbit being cured of cancer.   I didn’t make this up. Even I’m not that imaginative.  A tip of the hat to loyal reader Mary Mary for this one.  The bunny story comes to us from USA Today.

In November, Joy Gioia, head of the St. Louis chapter of the House Rabbit Society, which takes in and re-homes some of the growing number of pet rabbits landing in animal shelters, got a heartbreaking call. It was from a woman who’d been abused by her husband for a very long time and had finally screwed up her courage in October to flee … with nothing but her rabbit.  She’d lived on the streets for a time, she told Gioia, making do with handouts. When food was scarce, she made sure there was enough for the dark-furred bunny she had named Ruby Angel because the white mark on her nose resembled an angel.

[...]The rabbit was saved not just from more abuse, but from cancer. When Ruby was spayed two weeks ago, as is the practice when HRS accepts rabbits, she was found to have uterine cancer. The cancer had not yet spread, so Ruby has a future.

Recovering with four-legged friends requires less pain medication: Although this feels intuitively true, data now backs it up.   Specifically looking at joint replacement surgery patients, the study says that patients  with pets needed up to 50% less pain medication then those who didn’t.

“Evidence suggests that animal-assisted therapy (AAT) can have a positive effect on a patient’s psychosocial, emotional and physical well being,” said Julia Havey, RN, study presenter and senior systems analyst, Department of Medical Center Information Systems, Loyola University Health System (LUHS). “These data further support these benefits and build the case for expanding the use of pet therapy in recovery.”

You can read the rest of the article here at ScienceDaily.

Indiana looks to control puppy mills: If you live in Indiana and run a commercial dog brokerage operation, starting New Year’s Day you’ll have to register with the state board of animal health and pay the state $1,000 a year.  The threshold for brokers: 500 dogs or puppies sold annually.  For breeders: it’s 20 unspayed females who are at least a year old, and the fee will depend on the number of dogs (after 20, presumably).  One important note from the article:

The law doesn’t affect animal shelters, rescue operations, hobby breeders, and anyone who breeds at least 75 percent of their dogs for sporting, service or law enforcement and military purposes.

Common sense advice on handling pets around people at the holidays: A valuable annual reminder from The Other End of the Leash.  It never hurts to keep in mind some of these guidelines before the aunts and uncles, nieces, nephews and assorted cousins descend upon you, or when you head across the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house (hint: dog sitters can be worth their weight in gold).

The best newspaper lede of the week: “So you think you know about dogs?  Sorry, you do not”.  That’s the beginning of a column from the Denver Post that made me laugh out loud and think.  The message behind the humor is sobering, which makes it even more effective. …

I’ll be back Monday if not sooner. Got a good link? In the comments to share.

Image: Ruby Angel, from USA Today.

That we come up with some bumper-sticker sized slogans to help people realize there is a difference between a  reputable, ethical breeder and puppy-milling scum.

And that the difference doesn’t have anything to do with “papers,” either from a registry like the AKC or from an entity like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees factory farms for puppies.

The last thing? It’s likely part of the problem, since the goal of the USDA and the puppy-mill industry is not eliminating mass-breeders, but making them acceptable to a public that doesn’t know that there’s more to developing a family pet than putting the mother on non-porous flooring or in a cleaner cage.

So … we have Christie’s long-time offering: “Family homes for family pets.” But does that “read” to anyone just walking into thinking about a puppy?

Or … ?

Pitch it the comments. If we get something we all like, I’ll have our graphic artist make a sticker and sell it at cost in our store — or maybe a add-on going to small rescue groups?

Not sure how we pick a winner, but I’m happy to offer an autographed set of our  “Ultimate” books — including the newest that will be out next month, “The Ultimate Bird-Lover.”

The Petland store  in Roseville, Calif., has shut down. Before Christmas, which is always the peak season for impulse puppy buying.

At right is the sign on the door.

Congratulations to Jennifer Fearing of the California office of the HSUS for keeping a small but dedicated band of volunteer picketers on the street in front of the retailer the first Saturday of every month. While no doubt the economy had more than a little to do with the closing, I doubt the constant presence of picketers helped.

These people made a difference, and  I’m happy that one time I was one of them.

Let me say this: I don’t give a damn that those in the black helicopter crowd think the term “puppy-mill” was invented by animal-rights groups (it wasn’t) and that they don’t believe puppy-mills exist (they do) or that they don’t think it’s a problem if they do exist, if only the millers would clean up a little like those “model operations” you always hear about (family pets shouldn’t be raised in factory farms, even clean ones).

If you don’t think puppy mills are hideous, you either lack a heart or a brain, either way, your opinion rates for nothing with me. And I say that as a reputable, ethic breeder who doesn’t think people who care about preserving and protecting our heritage breeds need to side with puppy-milling scum in fighting forced spay-neuter and limit laws.

Reputable breeders — who are often involved in rescue as well — toss their credibility with other animal-lovers when they side with puppy-milling scum.

I called the HSUS out when they had it coming. This time, they have congratulations in order. Read more about their investigation of Petland.

Now, let me also say …

I have a hard time seeing any regulatory or legislative action that will protect reputable breeders while shutting down puppy-mills. That’s why I think education is everything. For only when people understand what they’re buying in a retail puppy outlet and stop supporting cruelty will the puppy mills go away.

That’s why I hope this small victory gets more people out there with more picket signs. So we can see more notices like the one above.

Miami veterinary surgeon Dr. Marc Wosar, who has put oodles of tiny poodles and other little dogs back together as well as taken the bad bits out of them, took time out from a surgical seminar in lovely La Jolla, Calif.,  to give an extensive interview. (He also helped me with some timely advice on Heather’s pain patch, which had gotten wet. Since it was still sticking tight, said Dr. Wosar, she was still getting the pain relief. He made us both feel better, and no doubt helped to extend Heather’s time on this earth.)

Deborah Wood also was generous with her advice. She’s a person I’ve “known” for years but never had a long conversation with until this article. She is an expert on training small dogs, and recently took her expertise as a writer/trainer into a new arena: As director of her local animal shelter.

Too bad we didn’t have more room. As it stands, though, the piece is small but mighty meaty!

What else didn’t make the cut: If you want a small dog, adopt from a shelter or rescue or buy in person from reputable, ethical  home-based breeder. Small breeds and mixes are popular with puppy-milling scum, and the puppies that make it out of those hell-holes are especially challenged with health and behavior problems.

Not to mention: When you buy from a pet store or puppy-mill Web site, you’re supporting the continuation of a system of cruelty that’s truly mind-boggling. Your puppy may be safe now, but his mother isn’t.

[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.

A $4.8 million default judgment awarded to former customers of a now-closed Bel Air pet store should help deter similar businesses from selling sick animals from puppy mills, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said Tuesday.

A lawsuit against Pets of Bel Air — where customers reportedly included such celebrities as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Demi Moore and Denise Richards — was filed in December 2007 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It alleged the store sold puppies that later became sick or died because they were bred in so-called puppy mills.

The complaint alleged Pets of Bel Air “sold … puppies for a premium price and thereby duped California consumers out of millions of dollars.”

Judge John P. Shook approved the default judgment last Wednesday after the defendants ignored court orders to turn over business documents to the plaintiffs and respond to motions in the case.

Here’s the rest.

My late gram used to say if you have a good vocabulary, you don’t need to have a potty mouth. I say, call a shitty little dog a shitty little dog, and Bridget does. Now that’s communicating!

Bridget knows how to stop them from being that way, and she does a nice job of sharing. I’d embed the video, but it blows apart our page. So go check it out.

Picking up on some things we dropped …

Thanks to Omidog! for noting that the Ohio firefighter who shot his dogs rather than pay to board them while he was on vacation got 90 days and lost his job.  Thanks to the fire chief for recommending his termination.  … Shirley at YesBiscuit! righteously rips into a shelter that takes a nice found dog in the front door and takes him out the back soon after in a body bag – and then tells the grieving owner of the lost dog that the animal was vicious. The owner is suing. … For the Love of Dog posts about an Indiana police chief who shot a charging dog, except, well, the witnesses tell a different tale about the dog’s demeanor.

Notable posts: …

Nathan Winograd on raising the bar for fight-bust dogs. … Terrierman writes on dwarfism in dogs … Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly (who orders yummy pizzas when you’re talking to her on the phone 3,000 miles away, not fair!) on, well, just everything. She’s having a rough stretch, but it makes for some very thoughtful reading. Dolittler, go.  … SmartDogs on fighting puppy-mills by targeting the buyers of their OTHER products, such as organic milk. … BADRAP has put all its Greatest Hits and handouts in one place. … Got more? Kick a link into the comments.

Year after year, a huge round of applause would sweep Madison Square Garden following a  single statement from Mr. Caras:

“Not one of these dogs of these dogs,”  Roger Caras would intone,”came from a pet store.”

These days, a sizable contingent of the dog-show world wouldn’t be cheering; they’d be booing him as an “animal-rights dupe” — or worse.  That is, if he were even allowed to say anything negative at all  about pet stores.

After all, the American Kennel Club — which sanctions dog shows, including Westminster — has repeatedly tried to get the ethical breeders that make up its member clubs to accept that they need to embrace the easy registration dollars of puppy-milling scum to underwrite the costs of putting on dog shows and other competitive events. Their efforts have been largely unsuccessful, which is one reason why puppy-millers made up their own registries — and why they have jumped on the mixed-breed bandwagon, pumping Puggles galore into pet stores.

Which is not to say that all otherwise good breeders hate it when the AKC runs after the puppy-mill money. Bolstered by anger and mostly, by fear, these breeders have convinced themselves that defending high-volume breeders is the only way to protect their own dogs in the long run. And they’re so deep into their own paranoia they even deny that puppy-mills exist at all.

I knew this, of course, but I didn’t know quite how angry the spittle-spewing defenders of keeping dogs as factory-farmed livestock were until I did something pretty normal for me: I mentioned a week ago (on Twitter) that I was going to a puppy-mill protest.

Now, I knew that this would generate a fair amount of outrage, since the monthly picketing is organized by Jennifer Fearing  of the Humane Society of the United States.  And immediately, the Tweets jumped back at me, mostly bashing the “H$U$” (as the folks who always write “H$U$ and PETA” together as if they were one) always type it. One of the Tweeters even cautioned me to look both ways crossing the street.

But, hey, I expected that (well, aside from the death threat — that was just a bonus). After all, there are people who get a vein throbbing on their forehead when any number of groups are mentioned, from the HSUS to the NRA to the Sierra Club to Ducks Unlimited. (You might be surprised to know which two of the four I am a member of, although those who know I take my working retrievers out to actually work now and then will probably guess right.)

But after the first round of knee-jerk reactions, I was moderately surprised to see people tweeting that:

• The term “puppy-mill” was made up by PETA (nope, it pre-dated the founding of that group, and has been around for almost as long as I have, in the neighborhood of half a century).
• The HSUS makes up all the things it says about puppy mills, and stages the pictures. (Um, no, I can in half a day find former legislative investigators and independent journalists who have seen the worst,  on site, and reported on it for more than 40 years.)
• Some breeds would rather live in kennels. (Even if you grant that’s true — a stretch for the most social of domestic animals  — why are they then being bred in high volume for pets, knowing that most people keep their dogs in the house?)

And most egregrious:

• A puppy raised in a high-volume commercial kennel is as good a pet prospect as one raised in a home that provides genetic screening, proper socialization (both intentional through handling and visits and environmental through taking in the sights, sounds and smells of living with people), early training and a mother unstressed by the din and smell of spending an entire life in a cage.
• Dogs from high-volume operations are “necessary” because everyone doesn’t want a “show dog.” (I hardly know where to start: While commercial kennels are all about the profit — and nothing else — almost all ethical breeders work from the idea that every puppy born will need to be a healthy family pet before that dog will be anything else, be it an agility champion, a show champion or a companion hunting dog.  Breeding dogs for dough only works if you’re cutting out everything that defines  a good breeder, including serving as a lifelong reference for your puppy-buyers and always being there to take a dog you bred back, no matter what.  Good breeders don’t cut corners; commercial ones must to make a buck.

I  agree with the HSUS — and indeed any person with a heart — that filthy, high-volume breeding operations are inhumane. And I believe strongly that even cleaned-up high-volume operations are  not conducive to everything we know about how a dog becomes a healthy, well-adjusted pet. As long as an industry for the “manufacture” of family pets is overseen by the U.S. Department of AGRICULTURE, that’s pretty much all you need to know about why high-volume kennels and their retailing and Internet fronts are not a good choice when you’re looking for a puppy. (Not to mention: What about dogs used as breeding stock for life? Don’t they deserve the life of a family pet?)

That said,  I would actually prefer that we end high-volume breeding operations by starving them of business, because legislative answers too often seem to aim at the wrong targets. Not to mention legislators are often misguided by those  people who hate breeders so much that they don’t see a difference between ethical ones and puppy-millers, or by those who are so deep in animal-rights philosophy that they are really pushing the PETA agenda of no domesticated animals at all.

By the way, there IS a difference between HSUS and PETA, and that agenda is it.

With puppy-mills, real change will come only when everyone knows what’s behind those cute puppies in the pet-store window or on the pictures on an Internet site.

Laws don’t work as well as changing attitudes do.

We need to help people realize that the only sensible and ethical options are to get a pet from a shelter or rescue group, or from a  breeder who raises puppies in the home with all the proven advantages of constant socialization and early training.

As Christie says, “Get a family pet from a family home,” and that pretty much rules out any commercial operation, even the cleaned up high-volume production facilities that get pointed out as “models” from time to time. It even points out the importance of shelters developing strong foster programs to get their animals the socialization and training they need to improve their chances of making it into a forever home.

The day high-volume commercial breeding ends is the day when every pet lover is to ashamed to admit a  puppy came from a pet store. And judging from the honks of support vs. rude gestures I saw at the picketing  (a couple dozen honks in support vs. one “Get a life!”), that day isn’t too far off.

As for why I’m standing with the HSUS — a group I have sharply disagreed with on other issues — it’s simple:  I need to stand up against everything that’s wrong about puppy mills, and everything that’s right about good breeders.

I refuse to sell out animals who need me, and potential pet-owners who deserve better than the sick, unsocialized and difficult to train animals who come from high-volume operations. I also refuse to sell out good breeders, which is why I politely turned down a sign that read, “Adopt, don’t buy” because I think buying a puppy from a reputable, compassionate breeder is an ethical, intelligent option.

It’s long past time to find the common ground and work together. A first step would be for animal advocates to understand that all breeders aren’t the same, and for breeders to drop the “with us or agin’ us” attitude that makes it easy for the breeding ban people to lump the ethical in with the cruel.

And if your HSUS hate is so strong that you would rather be on the wrong side of this issue, well,  shame on you.

Now, here’s the picture. I’m on the left, with Jennifer Fearing of the HSUS. I may well be the first puppy-mill protester who has also been to Crufts and Westminster, but I shouldn’t be the last:

On Monday, notorious Florida-based puppy retailer Wizard of Claws filed for bankruptcy, resulting in the shuttering of the store and the seizure by the bankruptcy trustee of the store’s remaining puppy inventory. When The Humane Society of the United States learned the bankruptcy trustee intended to auction off the remaining puppies housed at the store, an anonymous donor stepped in to sponsor the dogs, and The HSUS brokered a deal to have all 32 dogs placed for adoption into loving, permanent homes.

The closure comes on the heels of a recent ruling by a Broward County judge refusing to dismiss a major class action lawsuit filed by Humane Society of the United States members and other individuals against Wizard of Claws for selling sick and dying puppies through its retail pet store and over the Internet to hundreds of unsuspecting consumers.

The 32 puppies seized by the bankruptcy trustee will be transferred to the custody of The HSUS and the Broward County Humane Society today. The dogs, which include Yorkies, Chihuahuas, Maltese, Pomeranians, Dachshunds, and Shih-tzus, will each be given evaluations and medical inspections as well as any needed veterinary treatment before being offered for adoption.

Here’s the rest. Lucky for those puppies, but not for their parents, and all the other still trapped in cruel puppy mills. How to stop this: Don’t buy from a pet store or an Internet site that offers lots of different breeds or mixes. Adopt from a shelter or rescue group, or buy from a reputable, compassionate breeder.