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How not to buy a puppy

There is currently an advert on a website for a litter of pups. Nothing wrong with that you may say, but this advert is horrifying. The pups are one day old but according to the seller the bitch has no milk and is not interested in her litter, so the pups are "ready now". In other words, those tiny puppies, who have not even the protection of antibodies from their mother's milk, will be hurried off to new homes as quickly as possible, at £300 (around $550) per pup.

How many of those dogs will survive to eight weeks do you think? If they are exposed to the germs and illnesses of the outside world so young, and left to the tender mercies of the calibre of buyer who would want a puppy in those circumstances, how many will just not get the feeding, the attention and the veterinary care they will need? I wouldn't give good odds on it personally.

But let's imagine that some of them are lucky enough to live to three months old. Again someone who has no more sense than to buy a puppy from such an ignorant breeder will presumably not be too interested in spending time training and socialising their unfortunate dog. So how will they have learned to be a dog? How will they have learned what is normal behaviour and what is not? They won't know how to communicate, how to read the body language of other dogs, how to play, how to appease, how to warn, or any of the other vital knowledge and skills pups learn from their mother and siblings.

Having been separated from their own species so early will they even know they are a dog rather than a small human? The future doesn't look rosy does it? Add
to that the fact that such an uncaring breeder has probably not chosen the parentage carefully, carried out any health tests, or even considered any temperament testing. So goodness knows what inherited diseases may surface, or what character issues may emerge.

Surely this is cruelty? It may be unintentional or it may be deliberate, but it's cruelty all the same. I'm not going to mention the breed and certainly not going to provide the link and help the greedy breeder line his pockets through his exploitation of his dogs, but anyone from a rescue organisation or animal cruelty charity is reading this, I would happily pass the details on.

Take care,

Julie x

Sharing

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