Pet Store and Puppy Mill Ramblings....The Tragic Story of Beau

Some background: way back in the early '80s my grandparents were realing from the death of their Collie, Princess, who they had picked up as a stray wandering in their neighborhood. Not knowing any better (remember: early '80s) they went to a pet store in a mall and purchased a gorgeous purebread (and registered) sheltie that my mom named Beau, after a favorite soap opera character.

Beau was a nightmare.

He could not be housetrained. He snapped at me if I got too close. Everytime someone came to the door he jumped and barked.

My grandparents and parents could never train him to behave. And my dad has trained a Norwegian Elkhound (this one another stray they found), a breed notorious for being stubborn and strong-willed.

Later, my mom would tell me not to buy pet store dogs because they were "inbred."

Ever since I've always avoided pet store dogs and I somehow figured that most people knew to avoid these deplorable dogs as well. So it was quite a surprise to me in this age of consumer awareness and puppy-less retail chains, that puppy mills and pet store puppies continue to be a growing problem.

What amazes me is that with greater consumer awareness and outrages over defective products (like the pet food recalls) is that puppy purchasers continue to buy "inferior products" (again, let me reiterate my point from an earlier post that I do not consider animals as products, I am only repeating how the law in general views pets).

It seems like we can accept inferior dogs but not inferior dog food!

In fact, this weekend I overheard a discussion between two women. One had purchased a pet store poodle and was happy with her pet, despite her vet telling her it would need surgery for luxating patellas. The other lady had apparently tried to talk her out of purchasing a pet store puppy and expressed displeasure.

The poodle purchaser replied: "If pet store puppies have so many problems and come from such bad places, then how come the industry is still around. Why aren't there campaigns and complaints on the Internet?"

Granted, she may have been in denial but what she said intrigued me. Type "pet store puppies" or "puppy mills" in Google and you can pull up all sorts of links about the deplorable conditions of puppy mills and plenty of consumer complaints about problems with pet store puppies.

But then a person will only look for these if they are aware of the problem. I wonder if our years of campaigning to "adopt not buy" have somehow never reached a large segment of the population. Look at me, I thought everyone knew pet store puppies were poor pets and apparently, I was wrong.

Ultimately, we need to freshen our pro-adoption campaigns. Maybe our campaings are only reaching the people who would have adopted anyway. I think we need to spread the word about our individual rescues to more people. The next time you meet someone knew, in whatever setting, talk about what you do and encourage their next pet to be a rescue. Word-of-mouth can be a great way to encourage others to avoid pet stores.

As for Beau, my grandparents never considered dumping him at a shelter. But by the early '90s my grandfather had passed and my grandmother was in poor health. So my parents helped her find a nice lady who took Beau in. About two years later, we heard he had died.

I hope he found the peace that he could never have in life.