How Dangerous is YOUR Local Puppy Farmer?
Posted By Ryan O'Meara Date: 2/07 Posted Under: Animal WelfareScruples.
It’s an odd word.
We all like to think we have scruples. We like to see ourselves as scrupulous folk.
Whatever we do in our personal or professional life, to be labelled unscrupulous would hurt us.
It’s funny. If you call a successful business person ruthless, domineering, aggressive, blinkered, blunt, unapproachable, they’re all words that can be brushed off as coming with the territory. An occupational necessity. But call the same person unscrupulous and see how quick they’d be to correct you and defend themselves from such a scathing attack on their character.
But it seems the word goes hand in glove whenever the term ‘puppy farmer’ is used. Which begs some questions.
Does a puppy farmer actually believe that what they’re doing is wrong?
Do puppy farmers believe that they are providing a valuable service in light of the fact that people continue to line up to use it?
Do puppy farmers react aggressively, violently and use fear and intimidation against people when they are accused of being unscrupulous because they really, truly don’t believe they are lacking in scruples?
Do puppy farmers even know they are puppy farmers?
I’ll put forward a theory.
Visit the home of a high quality, responsible dog breeder. In your most obnoxious voice possible, inform them that their home smells and their clothes are tatty.
Apart from being asked to leave, you may not even be met with a defensive argument. The breeder knows that an occasionally pungent home is par for the course if you have puppies on the go and tatty clothes makes perfect sense when dealing with puppy paws and claws all day.
Sure, you’ll have offended them. You won’t be welcome back. But the breeder will brush it off and it’s unlikely your comments will ruin their day.
Tell the same breeder you think they’re a puppy farmer.
My theory: You will be met with an altogether more hostile reproach and a full and detailed explanation as to how and why you are totally wrong.
A good breeder would be horrified at the thought of being labelled a puppy farmer.
So why would a puppy farmer be horrified at the thought of being labelled a puppy farmer?
Step forward the online puppy trader.
Here we have a person who harnesses the full power of the Net to promote their wares. To attract a regular stream of customers. To enable them to cash in on the omnipresent popularity of dogs and demand for puppies.
The puppy trader traps many in their net, via the Net. They operate a business designed to earn them profit. They MUST, surely, know what they are. But call them a puppy farmer, dealer, trader and they’ll flip their lid.
Why is this?
Puppy farming is known within dog circles to be a dirty, squalid, unscrupulous means to make money. Capitalising on the naivety and yes, impatience of many dog owners, they ply their trade freely and legally. But they are ashamed by what they do. If they weren’t, why don’t they take out ads boldly proclaiming such boasts as ‘London’s finest puppy dealer’, ‘Brighton’s brightest puppy farm’?
Puppy farmers fully understand that they can only operate in the margins of the law. Yet they never seem to go bust, pack up, try their hand at other unscrupulous, yet legal careers.
So this leaves me wondering, how dangerous are puppy farmers?
They operate within the law, just. They are pretty much ashamed at what they do despite never admitting it. They use modern marketing techniques to promote their ‘product’. They earn their living legally, if not morally, but so do many other professionals. Could it be the case that the puppy farmer is not the problem at all? Perhaps the real danger is actually the puppy farmer’s privilege of being given the platform of legitimacy provided by the media outlets who allow them to get their message far and wide. Perhaps the danger lies in those naive people who keep the puppy farmer in business?
So how to beat the puppy farmer?
Firstly, let’s try and define one.
What is a puppy farmer?
This is not a question I will even attempt to answer here. I’d like to hear your views. Where is the cut off point between an ‘active’ breeder and a puppy farmer? Your thoughts are encouraged. The comment form is below.
Secondly, let’s try and make an impression on the big media outlets who allow puppy farmers to thrive. The Pet Owners Parliament has proposed a motion to do just this. See here: http://www.petparliament.com/viewarticle.php?sid=140&aid=68
Thirdly, support and monitor sites such as http://dogs-r-us.org - these are people who are concerned enough about puppy farming in the UK they offer help and insight into what’s going on. If you’re thinking of buying a puppy or have suspicions about a breeder, join http://dogs-r-us.org and you WILL gain from the experience. Independent advice is worth more than an ‘accreditation’ of any breeder. Trust me.
Fourthly, let’s refresh our thinking on puppy farm dangers. Perhaps the real danger does not lie with the unscrupulous traders in puppies for profit but in the lack of awareness amongst a small section of the dog buying public and a ‘must-have-it-now’ attitude. I happen to know one way we could make a positive difference on this score though, www.dogownershiptest.co.uk
Author DetailsRyan O'Meara is editor-in-chief of K9 Magazine, the lifestyle magazine for dog lovers. He lives in the East Midlands with his own two dogs, Mia and Chloe. - See this author's webpage
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Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 5:16 am and is filed under Animal Welfare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Puppy farmers do know what they are doing is wrong, which is why most are hidden from sight. If they kept the dogs in healthy surroundings and fed and cared for them properly they would let people in to view anytime. Not keep the doors locked or bring one pup out to be viewed when a prospective buyer turns up.
Some sellers are very aggressive and threaten new owners with violence should they complain, they will never refund money on a voluntary basis and always say bring the pup back and they will dispose of it . No one will take up this offer and they know it .
Most of the puppy buying public are ignorant when it comes to puppy farming and dealers. A common statement to be heard when trying to raise awareness is ” It can’t be that bad or the RSPCA would do something”. How I wish they could see the misery, pain and fear these dogs suffer.
I think I can say most of the people we deal with had no idea of the suffering behind this evil trade , they have found out the hard way, owning sick and sometimes dying puppies. They will never go down that route again and will try to raise awareness where they can.
Buyers are bombarded with internet sites and newspapers ads showing pics of cute puppies or they walk into a pet superstore and see the fluffy bundles and we all know pups are irresistible. The dealers, breeders and pet shop owners know it too. The buyer gives no thought to the dam or sire of pups and its only when things go wrong they are made aware.
If all advertising could be monitored to screen out these unscrupulous breeders and dealers it would help enormously. The media must take some responsibility , they have a duty to readers but greed comes into play again as they must make lots of money from these ads . They are happy to take the money no matter where it comes from.
Anyone who is selling a high volume of pups is either a dealer or puppy farmer no excuses thats what they are .
I am sure the dog ownership test would help too as some people are not aware of the full responsibility of owning a dog. The time and care they need, the training etc. The test would save a lot of dogs ending up in rescue .
We point people towards this list of tips for identifying whether or not you’ve come to a responsible breeder or a puppy farmer: http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/information/atozofdogs/b/buyinganewpuppy/
I agree with Veronica that a lot of the general public is still unaware that puppy farms even exist. I have re-homed a puppy farm bitch and when I try to explain the miserable existence that she has endured I am told you must be exaggerating the RSPCA and the Dogs Trust will not allow this to happen. I would challenge anyone to spend time with my dog and still say this is untrue. Often there is knowledge of the puppies but there is not so much awareness of the general public to the plight of the puppy farm dam or sire. Spending years kept in small cages not ever feeling the grass beneath their paws or to see the sunlight. Living in temperatures of extreme heat in summer and cold in winter.
Unfortunately these puppy farms do exist because as Ryan quite rightly says these people stay just within the law. As it appears that the local councils or the RSPCA are unwilling to do anything to stop these farmers the only way forward is educate the public of the cruelty that exists in these farms. I would urge anyone to check out the Puppy Love website and to print off the posters and apply to receive the newsletter.
.I agree there should be a dog ownership test and along with this it should be impossible to obtain a dog for three months after applying.
Yes of course puppy farmers know what they are doing, anyone breeding commercially and selling to a third party, whether licensed or not is puppy farming. Yes many do advertise and use the media to good effect to sell their puppies but there are far more that do not and why not? I will tell you. Simply, they have no need to if they are based in Wales or Eire and selling to third parties. They rely upon the dealer network to sell their puppies to. The puppy farmers will not know or even care where the final destination is for their litters of puppies. The breeder, the puppy farmer will haggle a price with the dealer who will take the litter, place them in with others, collected from various other breeders and travel hundreds of miles with an assortment of various breeds enroute to the pet shops. Some will be vaccinated some not, some will be sold with paperwork others not. An assortment of vulnerable puppies that are likely to succumb to a disease anytime after leaving the the breeder and being sold from a pet shop and arriving in their new home.
The breeding site where animal husbandry is often lacking in basis welfare standards. The dealers vehicle often poorly equiped and the long transportation from Eire or Wales to London and elsewhere makes for a very stressful journey for the very vulnerable puppies.
When the puppy is sold from the pet shop suffering from a disease, the purchaser complaint is against the seller, the pet shop. The breeder a puppy farmer regardless of whether licensed or unlicensed or where he/she is located mostly in Wales or Eire is more often or not oblivious of the concerns of the distressed purchaser and the fact they have been sold a sick puppy, sold at an over inflated price now having to pay hundreds of pounds in unexpected vets bills.
The pet shop covers themself by advertising the puppies as vet checked when the vet has never seen the puppies and dam at the breeding site so therefore does not know of the conditions the puppies were bred in. Checks on face value and leaves the rest to chance, even knowing full well that mostly all puppies sold in pet shops are bred on puppy farms.
The pet shop offers 6 week free insurance in the anticipation that if the puppy falls sick, the purchaser will be happy to have the cost covered and not bother them for a refund. Pet shops are also very crafty in masking the truth about the puppies they sell, although all pet shops should sell the puppy with details of the breeder on the tag of the puppy if from a licensed premises most do not.
Would the puppy farmer care if they were told that the puppy they bred wa sick, I doubt it, as most are licensed for anything from 20 to 100 breeding bitches they can produce many more puppies to meet the demand.
Even Council licensing officers particulary in Wales grant licenses to allow dog breeding to take place in converted cow sheds and barns, lacking in daylight with no outside runs, accepting the trust of the farmer that the breeding bitches will be let out in a yard. Will they, in most cases not but does anyone care, no. Council officials know full well that the puppy farmers sell their puppies to dealers, they even grant a pet shop licenses to dealers (but they have no actual pet shop) they need the licence so they can deal in the buying and selling of puppies, so they grant it.
The puppy trade is a clandestine operation that is exploited by unscrupulous breeders for monetary gain. The selling of puppies should be banned, then the demand for puppies may cease and instead of having 3,017 breeding bitches in just two council areas of Wales capable of producing of 5 puppies a litter every 12 months,roughly 15,085 puppies, twice a year (although illegal for licensed breeder) but many breed from their bitch every 6 months then it is over 30,000 puppies. Is there any wonder the puppy farmer operates his business in a clandestine fashion? They are making a fortune from producing often sickly puppies that you the consumer are buying.
Stop and think you are not saving the puppy by buying it you are subjecting the breeding bitch to a lifetime of misery,a cold barren barn of issolation and deprivation. Please support puppyalert in trying to stop this barbaric trade in puppies. Puppies shoul only be sold direct from a reputable breeder not from a retail outlets hundreds of miles from where the puppy was bred on a puppy farm.
What a very emotive subject indeed. I run the Worlds largest Bichon Breeds site which surpasses breed clubs for knowledge, expertise, health care, anti puppy farming information and much more.This is an area we often debate because simply the phrase is very little understood but most definitly over used. A Puppy farmer can be the dedicated show breeder who produces pups twice yearly without testing , it can be the hobby breeder(income breeder more like it) producing litters to support their show lifestyle, it can also be the small holder given grants to produce pups. What it is not is the breeder who tests ALL their dogs not just breeding dogs, its not the breeder who then gives to charity to support less fortunate dogs andtop pet profiteering which is what I like to call it, its not the breeder who is happy to declare the results of EVERY pup they have ever produced. I get tired of reading the drivel from some dog forums ,Our Dogs is by far one of the worst I have ever seen. The membership comprises of sanctimonious breeders who rant about only they are into genetic producing dogs when in reality they attend seminars and understand little of either canine anatomy or canine breeding as it should be done.If you dont show you dont known is their whole outlook, how they lack foresight. Let me make this very clear, genetic faults commence with original show breeders that is factual.They then test ONLY breed stock, irresponsible is what they are.Breed clubs in the UK do little to enforce membership poor management of gene pools, in fact they encourage it. They lack ethics and their codes of practice are simple and are not enforced, they do not promote testing of members dog and pay it lip service.If you care to look at the damage popular sire syndrome can do you will have a very different impression of what is or is not a puppy farmer, and herein lies the real problem.EVERY BREEDER deals in pups no matter who they are , the problem is some think they dont. I know that in many countries British Show dogs are shunned because of the poor progeny beng produced by show breeders over the last 30 years and these are the people that gossip, name call and do not understand breeding at all.Now when you read this I know that we all know a puppy farmer!
I wouldjust like to add to that …..
Puppy Farmers exist because of the over inflated costs of pups born to show breeders, no excuse they come up with justifies such extortionate prices that they do not pay taxes on. Puppy farmers also exist because people wont wait, they dont research, they dont read they just want it now…OWNERS cause the suffering of pets by paying for the progeny produced by people who care little about animal welfare.
Our site was created because of obtaining a pup that was poorly bred by show breeders, he was advertisd through the breed club as a show pup , his price reflected that. He was castrated at 10 months due to bilateral cateracts, bilateral patella luxation , a breed club member said , well we wouldnt have done that ……
Oh Yes Puppy Farmers exist in breed clubs too