AIBU to think I should get the puppy?

[GiveUmEll]

We have a tri-colour beagle who is 6 months. I ideally would like to get another puppy and have been looking at the sweetest baby Cavapoo puppy. We went to a kennel the first time we bought our boy and have gone back to ask about the puppy. We chose the Cavapoo and have been in motions to buy it, signing paperwork and putting a deposit down. She has met our daughters and they talk about her constantly! But, I went to the breeders today to give her the rest of the money and she said that she wasn't going to sell her to me anymore because her niece wanted her! I said that we'd payed and she just refused to let me give her the money and buy our puppy. I can't tell my girls that we can't have the puppy anymore, they'll be devastated! I want my dog!

Puppy farmers are scum. Why on earth would you say "It's a massive farm!" as if that's a good thing!?

I think she means the land size PNGirl

Not as bad as a ChampagneShite, mind...

ChampagneShite??

**

Our last one was from an actual farm where they had a litter every few years. We met mum, dad and siblings.

Puppy farms do not vet treat the mothers and hundreds get abandoned on the brecon beacons when they are too old to have more pups. Some have no teeth. It's heartbreaking.

But nobody's going to buy an animal without seeing the mother are they

I think there's abusive animal owners who may or may not live on a farm and breed from the same mother over and over .... And then there's farm owners who have a dog who has puppies and they sell them.
Both seem to fall under the title of puppy farms

This is a "kennel" which the OP referred to.

Www.dogs4us.com

They buy pedigree puppies from Welsh puppy farms, which are in pens, without the mother obviously. We rescued one that someone bought from here. It had salmonella, mange, and nearly died at 10 weeks old.

Oh god, what if there's something wrong with him, what do I look out for?!?!?!?!

Presuming there was no health testing going on at this place it would be sensible to familiarise yourself with the hereditary health conditions that can affect beagles, just in case.

There's a list of them here.

Not all can be tested for but a decent breeder would thoroughly research the lines they were planning on using to be as sure as humanly possible that none could pop up in the litter.

As a side note, licensing from the local council for a dog breeder is almost always a very bad thing. The vast majority of councils only require on once someone is breeding more than five litters a year. No decent breeder is ever going to be producing pups on that scale.

If I change Puppy farm to Puppy Battery cage would that reinforce how bad they are?

I know farm can create images of butterflies and meadows

There are proper kennel club registered breeder out there. They have done all the proper checks on the dog and bitch

They will have blood lines of the parents.

They cost more than your back yard breeder though. But that's because they are worth paying for

Puppy farms exist to churn out a profit at the expense of the dogs themselves. To breed a litter well is expensive and time consuming- a labour of love.

Ideally you only breed from a bitch who is a good example of her breed and true to type- i.e. Meets the breed standards in terms of temperament, looks and drive. The breeder should know her lines well, their weaknesses and plus points and put her to a dog who compliments this. Doing this you hopefully breed puppies that you can expect to behave in line with breed traits and look as expected. To find out if your bitch is a good example you require others to judge her, that can be in terms of showing or working, or in whatever discipline it is you have in mind, eg agility- but there is a clear purpose you are aiming for.

You need to ensure that both parents and their lines are healthy. You do this in several ways. You can have hips and elbows X-rayed and scored. This increases the likelihood that puppies produced will have good joints an unlikely to develop dysplasia/arthritis and need surgery. Again knowing the lines and 'family' scores help you build up a picture as to whether your bitch should pass on good hips/elbows.

There are genetic conditions that can be screened for by DNA testing. For eg in my breed you can screen for PRA which in affected dogs can cause blindness by 3. Both parents could be perfectly healthy genetic carriers and you would never know without testing until it was too late.

You chose a stud that compliments your bitch in terms of her failings, and ensure he is as healthy as possible too with the health tests as recognised for each breed. The stud that suits may well be the other end of the country.

To make sure you travel at the right time many owners have their bitch hormone tested. Many have her scanned during pg too.

That's before puppies even hit the ground.

They and their mum require constant care and the very best food etc to give them the best start possible.

Many, but not all, good, ethical breeders are also members of the kennel club ABS scheme to try and help people differentiate between puppy farms, back yard breeders and those doing it well.

None of the above is cheap.

As others have said, sounds like a lucky escape (although obviously they should return your deposit).

Even if you are lucky enough to get a healthy pup from a puppy farm, you are consigning its mother to years of hell, and by buying from it you are partially responsible. They only way these places will ever shut is if people stop buying from them.

Unfortunately, many people would have absolutely no chance of buying from a decent breeder, as a good breeder is very fussy about where their pups go, so I guess this is the other option.

People still don't know (or care it seems) about the hell of puppy farms? Jeez

Mind you, we still have people who think it's a good idea to get surprise puppies as presents

Booked Rowan in for a vets appt and checked him out for stuff on Trionic's list. He seems okay but I'm terrified. Dh is telling me that they ARE registered with the ABS scheme because we checked when we bought him. It is a farm, a working farm with eight dogs only, I've seen them around. A Cavalier, a Poodle, two Beagles & four Sheepdogs. I know they had three litters this year. Beagle had our boy in May and three other puppies from his litter. Poodle gave birth to the litter we wanted to get our new puppy from. Sheepdog had a litter.
He's insisting that we checked for these things. Have met Rowan's mum and she was so healthy and bright. How can it be a puppy farm?? Some of the dogs were housedogs, beagles and the Cavalier and Poodle but the sheepdogs are mainly workdogs.

I want a particular (rare ish) breed of dog. We have been hunting actively for about 18 months. If I went to the internet I could have several. But if I want a dog from health tested parents, that has had necessary checks and has breeder advice and support then I have to wait.

Did you read DrunkenUnicorn's post? Do you think there's any way that they've done all those things? Have you got a KC certificate for your beagle? Do you know who the sire even is?

It wasn't from a farm in Lincoln by any chance was it?

Like Wolfe, I waited a year for our dog. The breeder I chose lives 2.5 hours away. It's not easy finding a good breeder for a specific breed

TBH it's probably not a puppy farm in the sense of the ones in Wales that keep dogs in cages and ship the puppies around. It sounds like it's closer to a backyard breeder situation.

When you described it as a "kennel" that sells different breeds and said the dogs are bred in another area (i.e. implication that you didn't see any parents) you can see why one might assume that the mums weren't running free around a farmyard?

Not a farm in Lincoln. Why sparkly?
Yes I have a KC for Rowan & his sire is the other Beagle at the farm!

The puppy farm near lincoln is called little rascals. Doesn't sound like that type of puppy farm at least. Didn't even see any adult dogs there when I visited before I realised what it was.. then ran for the hills!

My dog came from a puppy farm in Lincoln and I wondered if it was the same place.

He's 10 years old and for his breed he's in very good condition.

We didn't have the Internet at the time so had to use a work PC in lunch hour, I had no idea until I saw the place on watchdog 5 years later.

Ours was a pedigree and kc reg, turns out the papers are fake.

Cavapoo's and beagles are in the unfortunate position of having become massively over popular. It's one of those things, remember the multitude of dalmatians following the film about 101 dalmatians. There is a lot of breed snobbery about the many and varied poodle crosses, something I understand and accept, but don't share.

There are responsible breeders who run a business, rather than breeding in their own back yard. Those breeders will health check the parent dogs and provide certificates from their vet to confirm this, also that the puppies have been vet checked on more than one occasion. They breed say two litters from a bitch, never two in one year. After this, you'll find they rehome the bitch or keep it as a pet. In the end I chose my pup from one of these small, professional breeders, rather than a hobby enthusiast who lacks the professional experience to be as sure as they can be that the mother/bitch and father/sire complement each other and are healthy and not overused.

The breed specific charities dread their dogs becoming over popular because within a short period of time, they'll be inundated with pups. It happened with labradoodles and its happening with cockapoos and cavapoos. I'm not criticising the OP just making the point that all the comments above about having had a lucky escape rings true to me. By the way, my experience over 40 plus years is that a puppy isn't necessarily easier to train and care for than a rescue dog.