Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Pondering The Habits of the Puppy Buying Public

The rain held out for our protest and we had a good turnout. This week, a friend of one of the volunteers recognized her protesting and stopped by to say hi. Turns out she had been given a puppy from a local pet store as a gift from a friend for her kids!! The puppy was healthy and she really had never stopped to think about where the puppy came from and where the mother was! I think we gave her something to think about.

So, once again, we find that people do not understand the real problem which is concern for the mother of the puppies that no one will ever see and which are locked in cages for most if not all of their existence. No chance of a happy home. Afraid of the world. Questionable health status. Another reminder that there is A LOT of work that needs to be done educating the public...and that is our mission.

How do we help people connect the dots? We have the reports that show so many of the puppies come from what the average person would certainly call a puppy mill. We have inspection reports of these "breeders" that we know would make people sick if they would only read them. Like so many issues, this is another where many people just don't really WANT to know and instant gratification trumps good sense. However, we know there are a good deal of humane people in this community that would not want to enable or tolerate businesses that profit from the inhumane treatment of dogs.

It's also clear that people are concerned about the pet store puppies. If they are concerned about puppies in small cages in stores are they equally concerned about the puppies and kittens in shelters living on death row? That's not yet clear...

To be honest the dogs in local shelters I've seen have bigger cages...

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