so I went to see some pups today and it was awful :-(

[AllergicToNutters]

They were living in rank cages outside on concrete floors. The smell was horrid. There was Dad and a Portuguese pointer in a cage, Mum was sooo skinny and looked as if she had been bred and bred. The pups looked healthy enough but the one remaining pup ( so I had no choice in selecting one for us) was shaking and whimpering. He was absolutely beautiful but I didn't take him. I felt awful. The pups were kept in a shed away from the other dogs and Mum. They were clearly not 'indoor' dogs. Very sad and don;t know what I can do.....

The place my Dad walks his dogs always has two police men wandering about at popular walking times.

They take down the descriptions of people's dogs, whether or not they are microchipped and people's liscence plate numbers (it's out of town, you have to drive to get there) because it's such a popular dumping ground for dogs our council must've figured it would be more cost effective to constantly police the area than it is to just continue dealing with all the dumped dogs.

It's not working. Dogs are still being dumped there, they just dump them in the dead of night instead where the dogs face being cold and wet and afraid all night rather than being picked up by a dog lover within a few hours.

One of our family dogs came from there. He joined in playing with the two dogs my Dad already had and then followed him to his car and just jumped in as soon as the door was open. My Dad put one of his dog's collars and leads on and walked around for an hour looking for his owner but couldn't see anyone about so brought him home, where he stayed. My family is good at accidentally acquiring animals. My Dad brings allsorts home from that beach including but limited to tropical fish and budgies I had someone knock on my door with a pigeon for him not long ago. I was not expecting to recieve any livestock for him.

I support the compulsary microchipping but wonder how much good it will do. It can't be policed without spending vast amounts of money on special wardens to go around randomly scanning dogs. All that will happen is that people who would have gotten their dog chipped anyway, still will do. People who go to BYBs and the like still will not chip their dog.

I don't know what the answer is to controlling the dog population in our country but I firmly believe that whatever the answer is, it lies somewhere with controlling the breeding and sale of live animals more tightly and promoting rescues better. A large portion of the general public still see rescue dogs as an unknown quantity and possible threat. This attitude needs to change.

Anecu, interesting points. I wonder though if it can be made to work. As a society we regulate so many aspects of our lives, car tax, insurance, planning permits for property alterations, council tax and are so good at collecting fines and penalties for these things!

Do you think it is a lack of will to enforce basic dog welfare? I would think that people might think twice about abandoning dogs if the cost of registering/ microchipping was low, but the fines very high, and there was at least some random enforcement?

For example, why can't the parking wardens who are like locusts in my area, also do some spot checks on dog walkers to check that these dogs are registered/ microchipped?

I personally found owning a puppy exhausting work and if I felt I couldn't cope, I would hardly be likely to abandon and then get another puppy. But that is just me. For the others who do this, surely a potential hefty fine for abandonment would make them at least think twice?

X posted with Dooing.

i've applied to have one of the dobie cross pups. i checked with them and they only say older children only because they're constantly having problems with inexperienced dog owners mistaking dogs being big and bouncy with aggression.

cross everything for me please though i still think i must be mad to want to deal with poo and wee sagas again so soon.

Fingers crossed here, swallowed. As long as you promise pictures when and if the pup arrives.

Ooh how exciting. Yes, I remember my mum telling tales of how bouncy our Dobe was. I was just a wee tot when she first came home. My Dad brought her home from work one day, shortly after my 2nd birthday. He reckons he stole her because they were going to kill her due to not being able to find a buyer. This was in the days when the Dobe was the Staffy of today.

My mum claims she hated her for the first two years of her life owing to her bounciness and destructiveness (because of bouncing, not chewing) but she grew into a wonderful dog. The local children would knock on our door and ask if the dog was 'allowed to play out'.

She was one of the children and would always be at the back of the queue when my mum called us all down for medicine. God I loved that dog.

Good luck swallowed.

Fingers crossed for you swallowed! How exciting.

misdee - i suppose the devil lies in the details of "he wasn't happy here and we couldn't cope".
No pun intended.

Well I must actually be worse than satan himself on the scale of all things evil then.... Not only do I own pedigree dogs, I'm classed as a breeder and I show my dogs... I doubt owning a rescue dog even begins to cancel all that out....

Tbh, I've been thinking... And I've decided... everyone else is wrong and Flatbread is right. We're all pedigree loving, dog hating hysterics who are so clueless we have to resort to 'personal attacks'. After all, her husband takes lucrative oversees contracts and she has a PHD and everything and she let her bitch mate with the neighbours dog for the good of all dogs and her puppies are strong and healthy and will never get ill and she's a very responsible owner.

Oh, hang on. That's not what I decided at all...

Midori, there's a special place in hell reserved for the likes of you

So there is only me wondering if Midori has Lucifer's direct line then? I heard tell of the likes of Rihanna, Lady Gaga et al selling him their souls in return for an extensive wardrobe, very good figures and recording contracts worth millions. Seems like a good deal to me.

All that evilness doesn't really bother me.

I call Jasper the Hell Hound, but it seems that midori might be breeding actual hounds from Hell

Do we need an Axix of Evil bench in the Doghouse?

Lol, Midori. I think i have said a number of times that I am irresponsible for increasing the dog population, when we have too many already.

I don't know about the pups being healthy, but they do have an alarming appetite, gulping down mum's milk and supplemental feed with gusto. I have a sinking feeling that their adopted families will get a shock with their food bills. And if they take after my neighbour's dog, they will be cake thieves as well. He always invites himself over for tea and manages to gobble the goodies when no one is looking.

What characteristics of the cloak made it Actually Evil? And I hope you aren't planning to breed from it.

LOL at the doghouse being full of evil pure breed loving demons - don't we usually get accused of the exact opposite?

We need an Axis of Evil, definitely.

I had a rescue pedigree, then a pedigree puppy - does one cancel out the other or should I have bred from them to restore the balance of good and evil?

The Doghouse Axis of Eeeevil.

Eeeeeeevilllll

Ok so as Midori breeds eeeevil she should be our leader.