There are far too many puppies for sale :-(

[BoatingLakeDiva]

I picked up a freebie paper and idly looked through the ads for pets. We're getting ours from a registered breeder, totally trustworthy, well sourced etc. There must be about 30 adverts for different breeds of dogs for sale. . All breeds, lots of cavachons, teddy bear dogs , designer breeds. If there are approximately 8 puppes per advert that is a fuck of a lot of puppies being born! I was shocked. Where do all these puppies go? Surely not all of them will be bought ? Are there really that many families wanting dogs? I cannot actually believe it! We live in a suburban area, not rural and there are not that many dogs around here so where do they all go?! I'm not actually looking for anyone to answer me as such, but I am astonished!

Actually that is astonishing and scary, a lot will be very dodgy people trying to cash in on whatever designer dog fad is ongoing - labradoodlepoopoos or whatever. Unfortunately as long as there are people who get a dog on a whim or as a fashion statement or even just because they look cute as puppies there will be money to be made at the expense of the dogs welfare. Many of the dogs won't be what they are supposed to be and when they can't sell them, well bye bye puppies and often in not a nice way. Some will be genuine mistakes, as in bitch got out in first season and now its puppies, accidents do happen. I know a couple of people who haven't had their male dogs neutered, because it doesn't matter as if they get a bitch pregnant its not their problem! It makes me really sad and angry when I see these adverts :(

what do you mean 'not in a nice way'? Surely they won;t be killed? I am not niave, I do know that puppy farms exist and back yard breeders well sell puppies purely for profit but what actualy happens to the pups that don;t get sold? I hope that they get sent to rescues or something. Not getting your dog/bitch neutered or spayed is totally irresponsible.

You do get puppies in rescues, but not many and usually its from a rescue dog who's pregnant, so where do they all go? Not nice, not nice at all very Hate to think about it actually

so do they get put down?

BoatingLakeDiva,

They don't all go to rescue no some go to pounds and are killed after 7 days. Some are killed by the owners. Last year when walking our dog pack across fields at the back of work we found a bin liner with 6 dead puppies in . We took the bag to a local Vet who had them cremated - she cried as she took them.

However, some breeders aren't must better - single pups left from a litter, pups that have obvious problems, 5 year old dogs and bitches that are no longer 'good for breeding' are dumped in rescues and pounds. These dogs quite often have never lived in a house, never been house trained, never walked on a lead. Just because you are using a 'registered' breeder doesn't mean they are any better than the BYB's.

I know there are some good ones - sadly I've met more bad ones.

holy crap! This is horrible . I did know that there was a problem, but not the extent of it. How can anyone murder innocent puppies just for being born?! It has takne us around a year of researching, getting the timing right, finding a breeder in our area who is planing a litter for the right time for us etc. How can others so glibly mate their dogs and just throw the unwanted pups on the bloody scrap heap . It is beyond me. It really is

We got our pup for free when someone contacted me to say if they didn't find somewhere for her to go within the next couple of hours she would be drowned

That's common, apparently, if they can't find enough homes.

I would like to point out that I wasn't looking for a puppy from spurious sources. The person who emailed me knew I loved dogs and was intereste in rescue and thought I might know someone who could help.

I also know of a local 'breeder' (not registered, but likes to pretend) that had a bad litter - 4 pups, all blind, 2 with deformities that contacted a local rescue to say they "had to pick these puppies up or I will wring their necks" because she felt they had to be killed, but wouldn't pay for them to be PTS.

The Rescue took all 4, and managed to find homes for 3 of them (the fourth had to be PTS as his problems were insurmountable).

And this nasty bitch piece of work is still breeding - and from the same 2 dogs that produced the 'bad' litter.

I volunteer when and where I can; this is a quite recent thing and you know, sometimes I wish that I hadn't got involved. I wish I was still innocent, still niaive to how horrible people can be. I regret it - but I wont stop it.

(although DH is hoping I will - at the moment I know that I could maybe have a second dog, but definately no more, I'm even pushing it when I foster....he believes that as soon as we are in our forever house we will be overrun with animals...and he's probably right)

I've been looking at the pets4homes website over the past few months, initially because I was considering getting a pup and was suprised to see how many cross breeds there are and how much these so called breeders sell them for.

When you look on that site regularly you start to notice the same 'breeders' every few weeks with different litters of puppies, one I have noticed has had litters of Chihuahuas x Pomeranians, Chihuahuas x Yorkies and Chihuahuas x Papillons all in the past 2 months! It has totally put me off getting a puppy, I will wait a few years until the kids are old enough to consider a rescue.

Kelly, please don't think that all Rescues will reject you just because you have children. Lots wont, they will assess you, but they wont turn you down just because you have children.

Please give them a try

i've seen pets4homes too KK. they always advertise cavachons, and bichons etc. It's really out of control!

Can I just say, as it seems to be a common misconception, that the only 'registered' a breeder can be is with the local council and that is almost always not a good thing as it means they either own a lot of breeding bitches (sometimes a good reason for this in the case of reputable breeders) or are churning out far too many litters.

Breeders cannot be KC registered. Dogs can. However, considering around 90% of KC registrations are from 'volume breeders' (puppy farmers) and then some are from BYB's, that doesn't leave many KC registrations by responsible breeders.

Breeders can be on the KC Accredited Breeder Scheme, but even that doesn't require any experience on the breeders part (they need never have even bred a litter) and health tests are optional. This scheme also attracts puppy farmers and for that reason many reputable breeders refuse to join it.

i am absolutely positive the breeder we are getting our puppy from is above board. 100% certain. We have already met and seen documentation and talked and talked about all aspects of ownership of our new pet. I am happy with our choice.

My younger dog was almost drowned as a tiny puppy because he didn't look quite right for the breed standard (so they couldn't sell or breed from him), thankfully a kind family took him instead and he eventually came to us.

Yes sadly lots of gorgeous healthy pups are killed like this, or in pounds, because there just aren't enough homes for them. The lucky ones end up in rescue but there simply aren't enough rescue places for every unwanted dog/pup, not even close :(

that is just awful Ephiny. I absolutely cannot believe the quantity of puppies for sale. you would think that every family in bloody England would have to hav e a puppy to accommodate all those for sale. Why breed them to kill them? It's horrifying . it's like an illegal cull

I had been looking daily at older dogs for a companion for my 3 year old labrador. We picked up a wonderful 1 year old this week. I was amazed how many staffies were up for rehoming. Should there be a ban on breeding any more? They're super loyal dogs with the right knowledgable owners but must be being bought without thought in the first place.

I belong to a training club and there's a dog up for rehoming every week!