to want to buy a puppy from a reliable person

[AuntiePickleBottom]

how can i tell if the owner is not just breeding for profit.

What did I want in my dog?

I wanted a dog that I could walk for two hours a day.
I wanted a dog that retrieves.
I wanted a dog that probably would enjoy swimming / water.
I wanted a dog with short hair.
I wanted a dog with a reputation for being willing and fairly easy to train.
And most of all I wanted a dog from a breed with an excellent and gentle temperament.

And that is what I have got

I thoroughly researched the health problems related to the breed i wanted. By using the health testing schemes and also by being able to look back at my dog's pedigree and check the health tests of her grandparents and even great grandparents ( also part of my screening) I hopefully have minimised as much as possible my dog developing these conditions.

No I didn't report the dodgy breeders. There is no recommendation as yet that breeders do these checks, although the KC accredited breeder scheme is sort of attempting to improve these things. Not sure I could report someone for having their bitch and puppies house in a dirty smelly shed? But I will certainly look into it, as will I look at the WAG consultation.

i hav wanted a dog for so long, but lived in a flat until october 2009, now the garden is safe and dd understand ~no~ i feel it is the right time

My parents used to take in rejects from breeding kennels. I will never forget one dog they brought home, a male Rough Collie - beautiful animal he was, a pure pedigree. I wasn't there when they collected him but my mother told me how he cringed away from his owners and practically crawled across the floor. The next morning after they had collected him, I was the first one up and as I went down stairs I saw this dog scoot across the floor in the living room. I found him struggling to get in to the small gap between the sofa and the wall. He lived there for 3 days, wouldn't move by choice- we had to drag him outside to do his business but when let back in he would vanish behind the sofa.

After three days he came out and I was the first one he came too, I think its because I was always first one up what with having to get up really early for a bus to college and I used to talk to him and give his bum a bit stroke. He slowly walked across the floor to me and put his nose on my knee, but when I raised my hand to stroke him he flinched away and vanished behind the sofa Over time he became more confident and bonded with the rest of the family, but he was definitely my dog - he even 'told' me I was pregnant. I'd got married, moved out - came home to visit and he wouldn't leave me alone, followed me everywhere. He'd never done that before not even when I'd been on my period so took a test as DH and I had been trying and sure enough, two lines.

Giving him his first bath was fun, he was matted with muck and his bum - it was covered in matted crusty, dried shit. They'd never clipped back his arse hairs much less groomed him.

Previous owners wanted rid of him because he wasn't doing his dogly duty. They wanted to breed from him but he never sired a litter despite multiple attempts.

Anyway, that long winded story was my worst experience from a breeding kennel and because of it I wouldn't touch them, not even for some hypothetical nice breeder who is only in it because they wuv dogs soooo much.

On the occasion you read something in the local paper about a kennel being shut down and the owners fined for animal cruelty - is anyone ever actually surprised? Horrified yes, but not surprised.

Elsie is very pretty, Slubber.

Thankfully my black Lab cross (so close to Lab that he fools most people), who is nearing 11 years old and who is a rescue dog, is in equal good health.

Val out of interest who's the rescue in London you mentioned upthread who'll rehome to flats with no garden? (I'm presuming it's probably a staffie rescue?)

By complete chance a link to this has just landed in my in-box, written by Helen at South Western Animal Protection - Britain, A Nation Of Dog Killers?

I know SWAP personally - Helen works tirelessly to raise awareness and save lives. The story she tells is a bit long but well worth reading.

It isn't just me who says it....

Thank you val. She is a fantastic dog.

I don't want anyone one on this thread to think that I am in any way anti rescue, quite the opposite, if I were to get another dog, lab rescue would be my first port of call.

I think throwing out excellent breeders ( like midori) with the bathwater of puppy farmers and bybs is not a helpful solution to reducing the number of unwanted dogs and puppies.

My neighbour is an irresponsible breeder, she has 3 staffie type dogs that have escaped into our garden on more than one occasion because she refuses to fix the fence. One has recently had pups and they have had health problems. She's turned up on our doorstep twice with pups that were dying, in a panic. In her panic she squeezed one so hard she ruptured it's internal organs.
I've called the dog warden who did nothing. Luckily she's stayed away from us since her dogs killed one of our ducks and savaged another one and we handed her the vets bill (which she won't pay).
We had to fight the dogs off with planks of wood. No-one seems prepared to do anything about it and I'm living on edge, waiting for the next incident.
She deserves to be prosecuted but no-one cares.

Quodlibet, it's not a SBT rescue but as you might imagine, they make up a large percentage of the rescue's intake. It's Canine99, which takes in the abused, the hard to home, the dogs which have been used for fighting or as bait and so on and rehabilitates. They have a 100%, genuine no kill policy and if a dog cannot be homed to a normal family environment he will have a home for his life at the rescue.

PS Sorry for being so slow, I'm struggling with typing without an E key whilst trying also sending emails left, right and centre as I try to arrange a homecheck for a prospective owner.

No worries, thanks for the info!

giyadas, that's terrible. :( I'd be taking the plank of wood to the owner, it's she who is to blame.

I'd also be taking a civil case out on her wrt the poor ducks. (Actually, if it were me, her poor dogs might suddenly go missing one night - and reappear miles away in a safe environment).

Val Fair enough, i'm going back a few years here. I agree anyone working full time can't leave the dog for that length of time, but anyone who can make arrangements for that (taking with them, dog sitter etc) is excluded as well. I don't mean just let anyone adopt if they aren't suitable, but a more flexible approach. The problem is the big names are often the only ones people know, so when they say no due to these rules your average person won't know that independents may say yes, or even know that the independents exist at all. I don't know any close to me apart from the one I volunteer in, but there probably are more. I hate to say it but its the big ones (the ones who can run TV ads basically) who can make the difference on a large scale but until their policies change I can understand why people go to a breeder.

I've said to the neighbour and the dog warden that if the dogs come into the garden again that I would kill them. I was very angry, and am an animal lover, so wouldn't, but I keep a hockey stick at the back door ready just in case I need to fight them off again.
We only have one dog warden for the county and I can't seem to make him care.
There are a lot of staffies in this area and people don't seem to bothered with getting them spayed. There's a lot of status dogs, used to make their owners look hard. It makes me furious.
Can't do a sneaky rescue as I'm not prepared to go near them unless it's unavoidable.

I used to breed dogs. We are not all a nasty bunch breeding to make money. In fact, quite the opposite for me, it rare to break even. The dogs were show dogs and needed to be pedigree with parents that were proven to be health checked in every way. I had and still have a genuine love for the breed and for ensuring that the breed is not ruined by incorrect breeding.

I also did housechecks to anyone who wanted a puppy and have refused to sell dogs many, many times to poeple who I felt could not offer the dog the correct home or family to live with. It was also always a condition of mine that if they couldn't cope with the dog for whatever reason, the dog was brought back to me - this has happened too - didn't want the dogs dumping on a rescue centre that would struggle to find them homes and may have to put them to sleep - it isnt fair on the dog or the rescue centre.

I also volunteered to take rescue dogs in if the local centre was full - they came to my kennels and stayed there until they were rehomed. Once I stopped breeding and didn't have the kennels I continued to volunteer and work with rescue dogs at a local rescue centre.

Not all breeders are irresponsible and out to gain, infact, any breeder that breeds dogs to make money should be avoided like the plague. I don't like to be tarred with the brush that because I bred dogs I was killing other dogs in rescue - this is not true and quite upsetting to read for knowing that I dedicated my life to my dogs.

RESCUE DOGS ARE THE BEST...BIASED EMOTICON ALL MY PETS ARE RESCUES!

Curlymama "Loopy, we didn't want a pedigree dog because of vanity!
We wanted a specific breed of do because after doing a hell of a lot of research into the sort of breed would suit our family, we chose what breed we wanted and that was that. The fact that we have a pedigree dog is completely irrelevant, it's just the by product of us choosing a breed and finding a reputable breeder."

Exactly!

I have a pedigree dog from a reputable breeder. When I decided the time was right to get a family dog, I spent a long time researching breeds and deciding what breed was right for us as a family (including the other animals). Wanting a specific breed isn't vanity - what an absurd comment. Different breeds have different temperaments, traits, needs, skills - I chose the breed which fitted best with our family. I looked for a long time to find the right breeder, then waited for some time for a puppy. The health checks (hip and eye scores) were important to me, as was knowing her background and knowing that she had the best possible start, and was likely to grow into a fit and healthy dog.

Rescues do wonderful work, and it's a tragedy that people are so ignorant or uncaring that they impulse buy dogs from pet shops/disreputable breeders, which then end up in rescue. But saying that noone should therefore buy a pedigree dog bred with care and love by a dedicated breeder is extreme and unnecessary, and would actually result in the loss of all our beautiful dog breeds.

Do the people advocating this also feel that noone should have a child of their own whilst there are children in care, waiting for adoption, or sitting in orphanages the world over?

I used to believe that if you were careful about the breeder etc you avoided all those issues. Then a friend showed me this

For those with little time it describes a rescue lady getting a call about 3 pedigree dogs and being told that if they're not collected within a week they'll be shot. These bitches have been not been looked after and have been used for excessive breeding. They eventually arrive with full paperwork which shows- as with most pedigree dogs- that they have a lot of champions in their bloodline.

At some point a responsible caring breeder sold those dogs (or their GPs or parents) to a vile puppy farm.

I couldn't go and look at a litter now and take home a dog knowing one of the others I was looking at, one of the siblings, could be heading for that life.

How do you think the puppy farms get their breeding stock?

narky a responsible caring breeder would neither excessively breed from their bitch (responsible caring breeders will probably make you wait for a puppy, could be a wait of years as they will only have a few litters from their bitches) and nor would they sell their beloved pets to puppy farmers.

I don't understand your post at all, these are exactly the OPPOSITE actions of someone who deeply loves and cares for their breed, their own dogs and the puppies they produce.

Where are puppy farmers getting pedigree dogs from? Not very easily (as puppies) from excellent breeders I imagine. Good breeders will GRILL their prospective puppy buyers.

Excellent post from Peering. I couldn't agree with you more.

narky, the number I have taken in myself or found emergency rescue places for because they were going to be shit, dumped or thrown out of a 2nd floor window is unbelievable.

Puppy farmers get their breeding stock from 2 main sources, as far as we can ascertain.

1. Idiots who advertise "free to a good home", don't homecheck and are naive or stupid, believing whatever line the new owner feeds them that the dog will be loved and is going to a nice warm, loving family home.

1. Theft.

The idiots at number one are the same type of idiots who will have bought their pup from a breeder of some description, be that "responsible", the neighbour who let their dog get caught/wanted a litter so the kids can play with the pups/doesn't think a dog should be spayed or be that a puppy farmer.

The point seems to be being missed here - it doesn't matter how responsible a breeder is, how commendable their way of breeding is. There's one on MN, she's lovely, a very knowledgable lady who takes great care with the dogs she breeds. But that's irrelevent! The fact is that it is irresponsible to breed dogs AT ALL whilst so many are dying in pounds.

And, to the detractors and all those who don't believe how serious the situation is, take a look at what the RSPCA say - and bear in mind that they are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, they don't rescue from pounds as independent rescue does and that they only deal with a fraction of this country's unwanted dogs.

RSPCA Swamped By Record Number Of Pets Dumped

OMG, I meant SHOT, not "shit", in that first sentence! :o

Apologies - I'm a bit rushed and stressed, having just been asked to find rescue on the behalf of a pair of selfish fuckers who can't be bothered with their 2 GSDs now that they have a child.

"My children are too important to be put at risk by a dog with an unknown history" - Fling that's a common misconception. Many dogs in rescue have come from homes where their history is known. By no means are they all strays without a background. "

This is very true, and depending on the background you can sometimes actually have more confidence in a rescue dog than a puppy with an unknown future adult temperament. My dog came to us from a rescue but had lived happily with a two year old in his previous home (he was rehomed only because the family got into financial difficulties and lost their house). That made me more confident, not less, that he would be good with children, and indeed he's fantastic with our young niece and baby nephew.

I don't think it is irrelevant at all Val.

Can you explain what happens if you follow your logic that there should be no breeding at all, whatsoever, by anyone (good, bad or ugly) while dogs remain in rescue?

People will ALWAYS want dogs.

Some people will want to own their dogs as puppies (and not because of oooh aren't they cute reasons, because they want to be responsible for the important socialisation stages, because they want to start training their dog from an early age, because they want to give their dog the best start in life).

Some people will want pedigree puppies, for all sorts of perfectly practical reasons.

Supply and demand. Arguing to shut off the (good) supply because there are dogs in rescue is nonsensical in the extreme. I didn't choose between a puppy bought from a reputable breeder OR a rescue puppy. MY choice was puppy from reputable breeder or no puppy at all. That decision affects the puppies in rescue not one jot.

You want a radical overhaul of dog breeding legislation in this country to reduce the number of puppies being born? Yeah me too, we are singing from the same hymn sheet.

Lecturing and insulting folk who have done their research with their feet and their money and SUPPORTED breeders who are doing it properly (intestingly from this thread the critera of what to look for in a good rescue centre and a good breeder are extremely similar) is not helping your cause.

Quite the opposite in fact.