CHRISTMAS RETURNS
Santa comes quietly long
before dawn
While shops are still busy and lights are still on
While dinners are cooking and kitchens are warm
And children count presents they'll open by morn.
He slips past the trees in
windows aglow
Through the gate to the backyard, as icy winds blow
To find the pup he brought last year chained up in the snow
And, kneeling, he whispers "Are you ready to go?"
There are too many stops like
this one tonight
Before the beginning of his regular flight
He leaves not a note or footprint in sight
Just an unbuckled collar on a cold Christmas night.....
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
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Is the above poem corny? Sure, but we wish there really were some
supernatural force to rescue the puppies and kittens that were thoughtlessly purchased as
Christmas gifts for people who didnt really understand or want the responsibility of
a pet. And most often, those puppies come from "back yard breeders," or worse,
pet shops. Breeders who are definitely not breeding "to better the breed" (see
Judy Vorans article in this issue of BU). The following article will make a great
handout to give to any unknowledgeable friend or acquaintance who is even thinking about
buying a live Christmas gift from one of those sources. It was written in response to a Boxer
Mailing List post that asked in a very worried tone, "But what happens to these
boxer pups [from BYBs and pet shops] when no one buys them? Where do they end up?"
Heres a very good answer.
Why You Should NOT
Buy That Puppy in the Window!
By Kathryn Saxon
Where
do they end up? Usually at the pound, or with an owner who will eventually turn them over
to the pound, at which time boxer rescue can step in and find them the good home they
should have had in the first place.
Take
the pet store model. You see a sad looking boxer puppy in the cage, and you want to
"rescue" it. You go in, pay twice what you would pay for a well bred dog. Your
new pup has a great home, and maybe you're a little poorer, but all in all it's a good
bargain, right? Wrong. Because while you are congratulating yourself for
"saving" this one pup, the pet store owner has gone to the phone, called the
service that provides him with dogs, and said "get me another boxer -- that one sold
really quick! Heck, send me two!"
Multiply
this by several hundred pet shops, all over the country, as boxers are becoming more and
more popular. Back at the puppy mill, the mother of the pup you rescued is being bred on
her next heat. Chances are she lives in a pen not really much larger than the crates you
have at home, or else she shares a larger pen with several females and one male. Fights
are common in such a situation, and it's super stressful when she has newborn pups to
protect and nurse. Lots of them die, but the "breeders" only need a steady
supply, and after all, another bitch is due to give birth next week anyway. She will live
in that situation (as will the stud dog) until she no longer produces. Then she'll be
shot, or simply allowed to starve if she's too weak to fight the other dogs for the food
that gets tossed in to them. You need to love not only the dog that's before your eyes,
but the dogs that suffered to bring that puppy into the world, and harden your heart
against the people that make it so hard for them.
Then
theres the transportation issue. In order to be at the pet store at 8 weeks (or
younger, in states where it's allowed) they're taken away from their litters at 5 and 6
weeks and transported in trucks across country (if they're going from, say, Missouri to
Maine or California). Many people don't recognize the problem with removing pups from the
dam before they've been dog socialized --- a lot of the neuroses that "pet shop"
dogs suffer from come from never having learned to back off when Mom ordered it, and never
having learned to concede defeat gracefully. They don't understand dog body language and
might interpret any interest from another dog as hostile, develop fear biting habits, etc.
They have no frame of reference to place the behavior of other dogs -- or of caring
people, for that matter. They haven't learned bite inhibition which can make keeping a
home difficult, especially when there are children involved.
There
have been several recent fiascoes involving these trucks -- one in CT last year, I
believe, that resulted in legislation being proposed to ban retail sale of dogs (or at
least dogs shipped in from out of state). In one case the truck turned over and people
were horrified at the conditions inside the truck, in another, I believe there was a
heater that exploded and killed the dogs.
At
any rate, the conditions in these trucks are basically cages upon cages, with mesh floors
so that the feces and urine from the dogs in the top cages fall onto the dogs below. I can
only imagine how many dogs are in each cage, but I think it's safe to assume that boxers,
as heavier dogs than many others, tend to be closer to the floor. I'm sure the attitude is
that as long as they get a bath before the customers see them, it doesn't matter. Of
course one sick dog in those conditions will infect all the others, and since they come
from all different kinds of places, they probably cross-infect each other with different
viruses (and let's not forget their immunization status).
The
"weather" restrictions that airlines place on the transport of dogs don't apply,
and I doubt that these trucks are adequately heated, air conditioned, or ventilated during
their long journeys. Again, considering the fact that these pups were bought for under $50
apiece, getting the shipment to the marketplace fast is worth any you lose along the way.
The fact that the dealers get them from the mills for chump change and sell them to the
shops for a hundred or two, where they are marked up to close to a thousand dollars in
many cases should drive home to people the fact that they are NOT valuable sources of
income to the mills or the dealers in anything but bulk, and therefore the individual
wellbeing of the pups or producing dogs don't matter when it comes to the bottom line.
(The following links to the USDA dealer lists have come in very handy when people ask if
their pet store pup really came from a "caring breeder" -- you can look it up
state by state: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ac/dealerlist.pdf ).
And
while the pet shops declare that the pups have been "vet checked," the opinion
of any vet who would condone such inhumane activity means about as much to me as...well, I
can't think of anything that means less.
The
puppies get out. The puppies may end up with great owners (or not). But any money that
goes to purchase them ends up enriching the people who are treating the parent dogs so
abominably, and encourages them to breed MORE dogs, and more of OUR breed. On the other
hand, if the puppy doesn't sell, it eventually becomes more of a burden than a profit
maker, and the store manager makes a mental note -- "Boxers don't sell. Don't order
any more of them." The dealers aren't getting many orders for boxers any more, and
the puppy mills think twice about breeding more of them than they can sell.
Now
maybe the backyard breeder's not such a bad sort. The dogs are family pets, live inside
the house, and seem good tempered. But there has been no health testing, the owners have
probably bought one or more of them from a pet store or other BYB, and for all they know,
both dogs carry lots of genes for cancer and heart disease and heaven knows what else. In
fact, they're ticking time bombs. The parent dogs are only 1 and 2 years old, so nobody
knows yet that they won't live to see 4 years old (or that their parents didn't live to
see 4, or *their* parents either.) Nobody thought to ask. Nor did they realize that the
shy sire and the aggressive (but not *too* aggressive, they insist) dam could produce
seriously disturbed puppies who will go from home to home because no one can control them.
They didn't know that that might be a problem.
So
now they've had the first litter. If these puppies sell quickly (and make the owners a
tidy profit, since they've spent virtually no money on them) -- they'll go right out and
do it again. Why not? Maybe the second time the litter will be 11 puppies, and the bitch
will die, and the surviving puppies will be dumped at the shelter where strangers will
have to hand raise them, or maybe it will be another small litter, only they won't sell
quite so quickly this time and by the time they're 3 months old they've ceased to be so
darling and now are a major hassle, and THEN they get dumped. Or they find homes, but now
there are 10-12 families in the world with puppies who may cost them thousands in vet
bills and even more in heartache. And some of THEM will go ahead and breed, adding to the
problem.
If
it's hard to sell a first litter, there might never be a second litter. If the
"product" in a store (and that's what they're considered) doesn't sell, the
store stops selling it.
When
I lived in Spain, there was a period where there suddenly were a lot of children begging
in the streets (I had grown up in suburbia and to that point had never seen a homeless
person, let alone someone begging for money). The government pleaded with people NOT to
give these kids money. Why? Because they were being used by their parents or guardians as
a really easy way to make money. Many were drugged, most were skinny and sickly looking,
and every humanitarian instinct would tell you to give them money. But giving them money
enriched the parents, and sentenced the kids to years of this, as well as sentencing their
younger siblings to the same. I would give them candy bars, and offer to buy them a
sandwich, but I couldn't put money in the hands of parents who would do this. Eventually
enough people got the message that it just wasn't working as a gimmick anymore and it
tapered off. No amount of government crackdown or intervention was as effective as people
simply refusing to financially reward that kind of degradation. The same goes for
rewarding "breeders" who are producing boxers for any reason other than to
better the breed!
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