AIBU to ask anyone considering buying a designer cross-breed puppy to follow this animal shelter for a few weeks before going ahead?

[99RedBalloonsFloating]

I have had a couple of poodle crosses and am fully aware of how delightful they are. I am not anti any kind of dog for "purist" or any other reason.

We are considering getting a new dog sometime in the next few years and I've been all over the internet looking at people selling cavapoos, poochons, and various forms of doodle puppies.

I found the website of an incredible looking rehoming charity called Many Tears and have been following them for about a month. Looking at all their dogs and checking every day for new and updated dogs.

www.manytearsrescue.org/

AIBU unreasonable to challenge, in fact, implore, anyone who like me has been looking at getting a designer puppy to do the same.

www.manytearsrescue.org/

This charity mainly rehomes dogs discarded from the puppy industry. That is, puppies that don't make the cut of being able to be sold for hundreds of pounds because of a health problem. Breeding females who have had too many litters to be of any further use and are petrified of people. Dogs that have clearly been returned to breeders for whatever reason, or for some reason are unsold.

Really looking into the profiles of these little dogs just reveals how incredibly heartless this industry is, and how many people must be being taken for a ride every day by heartless breeders. I thought I was pretty savvy but have realised through studying the dogs on this website, that I wasn't.

YANBU OP, good post. Hope it helps find them a lovely family.

I do worry that many tears and rescues like it facilitate the puppy farming industry by taking the inconvenient and non-profitable dogs off their hands

People who buy from puppy farms who facilitate this cruel, vile business. Many Tears take in bitches who have spent their entire lives living in depraved conditions and being pregnant for the whole of their lives, having their puppies taken off them, often too young, just for greedy bastards to line their pockets. Many Tears offer these poor dogs a chance of a decent life when they are in such a state they can no longer carry a belly full of puppies so are discarded.

Maybe you'd prefer them to be bludgeoned to death - as many are 😢

I'm wondering why the OP is aimed specifically at people wanting to buy a designer cross-breed puppy?

Puppy farms should indeed all be shut down. But they sell supposedly 'pure breed' puppies too, so EVERYONE considering buying a puppy should be doing their homework and proritise going to a shelter.

Laiste That is very true.

We were turned down by rescue orgs because we live in a city (we have a 1/4 acre far bigger than when we lived in the country), because we had kids under 12, because I have a job (3 hours per day) and worst of all because my dd has autism despite dogs being great for autistic kids. We got a puppy and trained him instead. Rather than criticising people who get puppies, look at the stupid criteria rescue orgs use and that a second hand dog comes with problems so often

What a great charity. We’d love to adopt a dog but almost all need to be rehomed in a house which already has a dog, and we don’t!

@stucknoue - this has been our experience too with Battersea. We are a family of 3 adult children, a 12 year old and there is an adult here 7 days a week as we work from home but on different days but we didn't even get a reply!

It's ridiculous. We haven't had a dog before now because we wanted to ensure that there was someone around almost all the time and also so our kids were old enough to walk the dog unaccompanied. I despair because we could provide a fantastic home for a rescue dog.

The irony is I could walk into a puppy farm tomorrow and buy multiple dogs.

Can anyone who works in a shelter explain the disconnect between people who genuinely seem to be able and really keen to provide a good home to a rescue dog and the silence they’re often met with when trying to adopt?

@Clettercletterthatsbetter there are a few who can be only dogs!

@Laiste, yes you are right. I think I focused the post on designer cross-breeds because that's how I found the charity and it's so clear that lots of the MT dogs have been used in breeding programmes for these kinds of puppies. I also see so many every day where I live.

But you are absolutely correct.

@stucknoue

Rather than criticising people who get puppies, look at the stupid criteria rescue orgs use and that a second hand dog comes with problems so often

In what way is getting a mature dog from a reputable rescue organisation who works hard to match dogs with adopters, more of a risk than buying a puppy from a relatively unknown source?

"Second hand dog" - perhaps the rescue organisation wasn't sure you would really appreciate the opportunity to take on one of their precious dogs.

We have a 9 week old labradoodle puppy. I know the breeder, it isn't a puppy farm. My dd has ASD and the puppies are bred responsibly and for temperament - as therapy and assistance dogs. They aren't random designer dogs, but multi-generational family pets.

Our puppy will be trained as an assistance dog for our dd, she was chosen for her temperament, not how she looks.

We would not have been able to adopt from a rescue.

As a PP said, what on earth is going on in Wales to generate so many unwanted dogs? Llanelli in particular?

Very odd indeed.

Re the question of 'why will they only rehome if there's another dog already' I suspect it comes from the rehoming organisations, where dogs are either in kennels or in foster with other dogs, and they see that the dog appears to enjoy the company of other dogs.

Our current rescue Lab has been with us a year; she's an only dog with us, but it's only because she was in foster for 3 months and after coming out of her shell she started to get pissed off with the other dogs there - she much prefers being an only, other dogs are far less interesting than people or tennis balls.

On the subject of puppy farms: kitchen breeders are almost just as bad, our dog had 3 litters before she turned 3 years old.

I have a gorgeous Mini Schnauzer from Many Tears. She was six years old approximately when she was rescued, she's been with us for two and a half years. She was a breeding machine and was seriously abused. The usual thing the farms do is kill the bitches after a couple of years exhaustive birthing and taking the pups too early. They shoot or drown them in a barrel. Izzy was kept alive as long as she was because she'd have carried large litters, so more money per birth. When she was dumped at Mt, she was only carrying three pups, who were born in Foster care and adopted. She was a bag of skin and bones, her tummy sagged near to the floor. She had leg injuries held together with matted hair. She was missing six teeth already and had a further 4 removed when she'd been here with us about 6 months. Terrible oral hygiene is because they are fed dead sheep. The puppy farmers are known to take dead stock ('fallen') and dump it in the sheds. The captive dogs have to bite and fight through the wool and the skin, and down to raw fleshp, that's often from a sick animal. It must be a terrible ordeal to be so desperate to eat.
It ruins their teeth.
It took me nearly a year of work just to get her skin back to normal. She stunk, she was greasy and thick with painful eczema. The worst part was how she was psychologically. So so terrified, particularly of the cord to my iron, she froze on the spot at the site of it. Her only company has been other dogs and she was utterly terrified of humans, we simply represented pain and terror. We're still working on it now and she's very comfortable with us, our bond with her is very strong now but it's taken a long long time. Men in baseball caps are still a trigger. She has painful behaviours, but they're lessening. She took tiny toys into her bed and treated them like her puppies, you can see how often her pups were snatched off her too soon.

She is gentle, sweet, so so brave. We adore her. Please don't buy a designer dog. It's likely she had schnoodle litters, all sorts of mixes. There is nothing like the reality of holding a shaking skeleton of a dog.. But seeing her blossom and start to enjoy life again has been massively rewarding.

And saying that MT 'helps' the farms is just ludicrous. Would shutting all Children's Social Services mean that people stopped abusing children? I don't think so..
I think a hell of a lot of pay offs are happening from the farms to the so called council inspectors who are supposed to be looking at these places.

oh clementine I am so glad she is happy with you at last.

I'm another one who reads of adoption centres who won't consider people with children under 16, part time workers, people with/without other pets etc. Some even ask for the potential adopters to not have any visitors to the home!
Battersea are notorious for not even replying..
Some of the rescues you can follow on Facebook never seem to have any dogs available to adopt but are instead raising money for dogs to have operations. That's fine but a) isn't that what insurance is for, and b) who owns these dogs with the medical needs? It's all strange.
The whole industry - from breeders to rescues and dog owners - needs a huge shake-up and a lot of legislation.

The above comment about fundraising for operations doesn't apply to Many Tears by the way.

She is @yolofish, we had a breakthrough on the sofa yesterday when she walked across my DH's lap for the first time ever to sit the other side of him. That's a HUGE thing for her to do, it took a lot of courage from her.

aww clementine thats wonderful. Our babe didnt have any of those issues (she is very confident) but she's always been petrified of the hosepipe. We literally had to give her a bath and hose her down the other day because we were both up to our knees in oil on the beach, and I realised they must have hosed her down after having her litters... it made me so sad. (But she is snoozing her head off on the sofa so she's fine!)

I would beg everyone who is thinking of getting a dog/puppy/cat/kitten to get one (or two) from a rescue. The rescues are full to bursting with animals needing a loving home, there is really no reason to go to an expensive breeder just to get a “designer” breed. Pedigree breeds are far more likely to have health problems, especially as they get older. Moggie cats and non-pedigree dogs have just as much love to give and make wonderful pets.
Please, please adopt not buy from breeders.

Completely agree. I would only ever consider a rescue dog or cat.

The government MUST do something about puppy farms. The general public also need educating about these 'designer dogs'. It's shocking.

Clementinewardrobe
That is such a heartbreaking story. My little dog is also a rescue. I have no idea what his life was before and really hope it was ashy as hard s this.
Why are people so cruel to such loyal animals?

MT get a lot of abuse from the puppy farmers hence why they are not prolific with their advertising
The Dogs Trust would not back the government puppy farming bill because there would not be enough puppies if puppy farming was outlawed.

Those poor dogs eyes tell a terrible tale