It sounds like he said he wanted to buy one from a breeder, not a puppy mill. I have extended family that have been big in the crazy “dog show” world since the 1930s, while that’s not my game I’m at least familiar with it. If you do your research it’s almost trivially easy to sort responsible breeders apart from puppy mills.
Dog breeding isn’t inherently virtuous, it’s basically a human vanity project (which I don’t think is intrinsically bad, but it’s not inherently good, either), we’ve left a lot of lines of dogs worse off health wise than they would have been if not deliberately bred in that direction. That being said, the typical shelter dog at least in the areas I’ve lived most of my life have changed a lot. When I was a kid the typical shelter dog was called a “Virginia Brown Dog”, which was a vague hound like mutt that “you knew when you saw it” because it was the default “look” for strays in the 60s/70s. These dogs generally were stereotyped as being friendly and good pets, ranged in size from 45-75 lb which is a good size range for a “typical family dog.”
Thing is some people live in small apartments and would really benefit more from small toy breeds (and some like the chihuahua are very hearty specimens of canis lupus familiaris in terms of longevity.) Some people would benefit more from a lower energy dog. I have a friend who is enthralled with Australian shepherds. She has two. She should have zero. These are extremely high energy dogs, bred to do hard work and run far and hard all day long. They simply don’t do well as “house dogs” with a moderate yard to play on and brief walks (which is all my friend can offer.)
For whatever reason the “Virginia Brown Dog” appears to have gone extinct at local shelters, I’d say easily 90-95% of all dogs in the shelter are “bully breeds.” I’m not predisposed to disliking bully breeds, my family owned many Boxers (a breed oft-confused for the pit bull terrier), and know they can be good family pets. But they just aren’t for everyone, and when the shelters basically only seem to have this type of dog now it suggests there isn’t really a great solution. People keep overbreeding them for the reasons they do, and then getting rid of them.
It may be trivially easy to someone with your background and knowing what to look for, but as many of these places as there are, and the business that they get, it seems that many either aren’t able to tell, or don’t care.
I have clients that rave about how many testimonials the breeder that they are going to has, how great they are, how the breeder cares so much that they want to research prospective owners before giving up any of their puppies.
Then they get the dog, and it is sick and deformed. Then I get to clean up the mother, and it is completely unsocialized, damaged and worn out.
Interestingly enough even that should be slowly declining in sync with the slow, sputtering demise of the dog racing industry. Florida is the last great stronghold and it is propped up there by the unintended consequences of a poorly thought out law.
Except that if you did your research you’d know that Yorkies as a breed are notoriously hard to train and hard to housebreak (like many toy breeds), so don’t blame the breeder for producing a typical Yorkie. They did their job just fine.
Fortunately when we recently went to the shelter where we got our late dog* almost all the dogs on offer were still cute and friendly ‘pit bulls’. Great from the perspective of adopting, but still worrisome from the perspective of all those dogs getting happy homes. Happily when we went to pick up the one my daughter had chosen (to be her dog, my grand dog) the population had thinned out noticeably, they’d just adopted out a bunch of dogs. But no persistent shortage here yet.
*a Dogo Argentino mix but we were fine if people called her ‘pit bull’, she was a truly amazing dog no matter what you called her.
Yeah, this. If you are in that world, it seems so incredibly obvious, but most people are not. The uninformed things people have told me about dogs over the years would fill an airplane hangar.
Big surprise, Disney helps keep dog racing legal.:eek: I would have put my money on the mafia, but, it’s hard to tell big business from organized crime these days.:eek:
Just as a simple FYI – if you want a Registered Purebred Whatever, the place to look FIRST is the local AKC-affiliated club for that breed. Like if you were in the SF Bay Area and wanted a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, you would contact the Golden Gate Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club. The breeders who are members of that club are show breeders hence they take excellent care of their animals, unlike puppy millers.
The club will have a list of member breeders and often a list of who has available puppies as well.
Let’s say that 50% of people who want a dog shouldn’t have a dog.
Let’s also say that that people who shouldn’t have a dog are 4 times as likely to give up purchasing one if the price becomes exorbitant, while as the people who should have a dog are no less likely to purchase one at those prices.
In that case, then having half as many dogs as there is demand is good.
While those numbers are just random, I suspect that reality goes something along those lines, so I would not care about the 8 million number. When shelters are few and far between and you can only ever purchase a dog from a reputable breeder, and there are lines miles long for that, then we might worry if there are enough dogs in the country.
I don’t think it takes a deep knowledge of dog breeding to google about how to find a responsible one. Most AKC breed specific sites keep a list, and it’s pretty rare for the breeders referred to on the official AKC breed sites to be bad. Plus, these pups are going to be $700-1000+, and are a long term commitment. Go visit the breeder and inspect their operation, how they keep their dogs etc. A responsible breeder will have zero issue with you doing this, and a shady one won’t allow it–which is one of the biggest signs by itself that something isn’t right.
I’m not sure where this dog shortage is. Certainly not in my area. The shelters around here are always 100% full with many volunteers fostering additional dogs. They regularly have adoption drives where they wave fees so they can free up some space.
Although, one issue with the shelters is they are no-kill, which means the less-adoptable dogs hang around a long time. The easily-adoptable dogs get snagged quickly, so they are left with the dogs that are going to be tougher to adopt. They may have health issues, be older, be bigger, have behavior problems, less desirable breeds, etc. Some of the dogs are in the shelter for hundreds of days. Maybe the article really means there are not enough desirable dogs to adopt (e.g. young, cute, friendly, etc.).
This is good advice. I would add - the AKC club will probably also have connections to the breed specific rescue club. They’re not just puppies. Reputable breeders will also help with dogs they’ve bred who need to be rehomed.
If you’re looking to rescue a pet, especially if you’re open to an older dog, the official Corgi club probably knows someone who has a spare dog who needs a home. There will still be fees involved, but every show breeder ends up with more pet quality dogs than show dogs, and they’ll need to find homes for them.
Here, for example, is the Rescue page for the AKC Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club.
Yeah. Our Guide Dog breeder produced 200 descendants in 3 generations, and she didn’t have a lot of litters.
Anyhow, from what I see as I walk around the Upper East Side, all the dogs have come to New York. They must want to break into show business or something.
