On Kijiji.com in my area I clicked on dogs, puppies for sale. The first page alone displays 25 ads. Here are 16 of them:
Shih Poo
Jack Russell x Cairn terrier
French bulldog x Pug
Schnoodle
Micro Teacup Poodle
Yorkie pups offered at 6 weeks
Boxers offered at 6 weeks
White boxers offered at 6 weeks
Maltipoo
Maltipoo x Pug
Yorkie poo
Schnauzer / Poodle
Jug
Chorkie
Pom Shi
Shih Chi
So 16/25 of the dogs, or 65% on the main page are from BYBers and mills. Say each advertisement is for 5 puppies. 5 x 16 = 80 dogs available on the first page for pure profit.
I feel very strongly about this because I have a rescue puppy from a mill, but know that people pay good money for these dogs. It’s ignorant for someone to go out and buy one of these puppies without doing background research, but with this over-saturation of mixes and mutts for sale at elevated prices it seems normal to the uninformed buyer.
1) In many areas there are laws that you must keep your household pet up to date with rabies vaccinations. Why aren’t their spay/neuter laws for dogs that cannot be proven as show dogs?
2) How can we make the "uninformed" buyer aware that the cute puppies they are buying are sickly and will end up costing them in the long run? We have a community-like setting on Yahoo answers where most of the users here know about BYBers and puppy mills. Your average joe on the street doesn’t!
3) Why not make selling dogs ILLEGAL unless licensed? Reputable breeders could license themselves by proving that their puppies are health checked, registerd, and the parents have clean bloodlines.
What do you think could be done to make the public more aware of puppy over-population, BYBers, and puppy mills?
I think the only thing that could help is education.
Each one of us has to educate a potential dog owner on a good place to get a dog, just like we do for people here (though it might help to be nice, and use a little less swearing 
).
I don’t think the government are going to do anything about it, and even if they did, they’d be ridiculed because the majority of the public don’t believe that animals are important.
Making dogs illegal would be dangerous because a lot of people who have unlicensed dogs (their dog’s "accidental" litter, a puppy from a friend, people who don’t know about laws etc.) might avoid taking their dog to the vet for fear of being caught.
In the end, we have to remember that a large number of the population forget their morals and ethics for the sake of comfort (cheap, nearby BYB with no waiting list). People who hate child labour buy clothes from Primark. People who hate animal abuse eat at McDonalds. It would take a lot to change someone like that.
Tags: Pug
I think the only thing that could help is education.
Each one of us has to educate a potential dog owner on a good place to get a dog, just like we do for people here (though it might help to be nice, and use a little less swearing
).
I don’t think the government are going to do anything about it, and even if they did, they’d be ridiculed because the majority of the public don’t believe that animals are important.
Making dogs illegal would be dangerous because a lot of people who have unlicensed dogs (their dog’s "accidental" litter, a puppy from a friend, people who don’t know about laws etc.) might avoid taking their dog to the vet for fear of being caught.
In the end, we have to remember that a large number of the population forget their morals and ethics for the sake of comfort (cheap, nearby BYB with no waiting list). People who hate child labour buy clothes from Primark. People who hate animal abuse eat at McDonalds. It would take a lot to change someone like that.
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1.) I would be absolutely infuriated if I was forced to neuter my dog before I chose to. It’s my right to evaluate the risks against the benefits, and I chose to wait until he was two years old to avoid certain potential problems. (For instance, neutering large or giant breed dogs before one year of age has been found to significantly increase the dog’s risk of developing osteosarcoma.)
2.) I’ve never used sites like Kijiji, but couldn’t you [and/or others] post warnings? Write up a short but effective explanation about mixes and BYBs. Get out and spread the word where people will find it.
3.) Tru dat, I suppose. Granted, it might result in some sort of grand-scale puppy black market.
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I know exactly what you mean. I grew up in a dog-loving family and now I got a dog-loving family of my own. I have a tendency to want to save every stray dog I see and then I think about these puppy mills that are churning pups out faster then butter, while there are stray dogs out there walking around. I know some people want "certain breeds" and all that, but truthfully the special love and bond developed between you and your dogs isn’t based on the price sticker he came with or the breed or bloodline he came from.
People think they want a dog and after getting it don’t realize that you have to train them not to poop in the house and puppies JUST WILL tear up shoes and cord, etc… They get aggravated that some attention has to be given to the dog in order for it to be trained to do right…. I hate it when I hear that people gave their dog(s) away because of things like this…. The person the dog was given to could do the same thing and before long, the dog is passed down thru so many people that someone just finally lets him go one day and he becomes a stray…. All the while, the puppy mill he came from is still churning out pups for sale….
It’s horrible and sad…. and it’s literally impossible for us to be able to take in every stray or bust into a puppy mill and save all the dogs that are kept caged basically their ENTIRE LIFE for mating and having pups…. The momma-dogs are sickly, kept in poor filthy conditions, confined in a cage or pin their entire life, yet the money that’s made off the puppies she has doesn’t go towards a vet visit for a heartworm check up or flea-meds. Puppy mills are wrong for SOO many reasons, but these people are not even taking care of the momma-dogs that produce the puppies which is the whole reason they make the money. You can’t look at it that way and not see anything, but pure unnecessary evil.
Dogs caged up with their own fecis, suffering from ear infections, heartworms, mange, mites, covered in fleas, neglected of love, medical care, & any human kindness are the dogs who born these expensive (or even not-so-expensive) breeds of puppies that people buy, contributing to on going animal cruilty working at its finest…..
The problem is lack of awareness…. LOTS of people don’t know these things…. or some people know that it’s coming from a puppy mill, but that don’t have a clue of the exact reality of puppy mills….
We have to REALLY get people informed with the hard-core truth of just how evil these things are and make it aware how that buying a puppy from these puppy mills is not saving a pup/dog, but instead funding the peoples pockets & bank accts who are going to continue the evil until they’re stopped. When a whole litter of pups are sold, it’s time do it all over again, and again, and again, without any proper care for the life the pups are born through.
I understand if people are willing to pay good money for dogs then other people are going to breed dogs to sell… I just don’t understand why proper care of the dogs is not just as important as the money if that’s the way the money is being made. I don’t know why there are 25 adds of dogs for sale in your paper and always about the same number or more for sale in my newspaper (along with ‘dog free to good home’ adds) and these puppy mills are still pushing out more & more….
I don’t know about how to get laws passed or how to make sure that every dog gets neutered & spayed, along with shots and vaccines, but I do know that regular good-folks would not knowingly buy from puppymills or their supporters the pet stores they sell the pups to. Problem is they don’t know it…. We have to flood our cities & states with awareness and facts of what goes on and which pet stores are backed by puppy mills….. The more people know, the less support puppy mills make….
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I like the idea of #3 – licensed breeders….but how difficult would it be to monitor that?
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