A warning from an ex pet store employee!

A warning from an ex pet store employee!

My name is Nicole I saw your show on Animal Planet and read your web site. I could not sleep thinking about the things that I knew and would like to share some of that information with you.

I feel that the public should know this information.

This information is factual. I worked at a pet store for a little over a year.

I believe everyone should know what these poor little guys go through and how exactly the pet stores get them. The purchase of the puppies:
The pet store gets a fax with a list of puppies from what is called a “broker” this is a company that gets the puppies from the breeders. The puppies are taken to what they sometime call holding kennels. This is the place where the puppies are held till someone wants them. (Again back into kennels).

The brokers that we worked with told the pet stores that all the puppies are looked at by a vet and come from Registered Breeders and will some times come with pedigree papers. But as you will learn that isn’t always what we got. The list is all the breeds that they currently have and the prices that they want for them. Prices rang from $250.00 to $ 750.00 depending on breed and age.

The pet store then picks the puppies that they want. Then sell them for up to 5x them price they paid for them. The puppies are then shipped on an 18 wheeler (usually) to the pet store. Meaning those babies just went from the Puppy Mill to, holding kennels to even smaller kennels on a truck for days, to the pet store where they are again in small kennels. When we relieved the puppies off the truck a lot of the time they were smelly and dirty.

The truck driver would bring out the puppies one at a time so that we could look at the puppy and see if we would “accept” it. Meaning it was it wasn’t sickly. Some of the puppies would have drainage from the eyes and noise, they would have hernia’s that weren’t repaired, kennel cough, and sometime open sores.

That was just thing things that we could see or hear. We would then take the puppies in the pet store and give them a bath and make them presentable and wait till the next day for the vet to come out and see them. A lot of the puppies had some kind of problem. (flea, knee problems (sm. breeds), Hernia that we couldn’t see, colds, eye infections, cherry eye, sores from being kept in small kennels too long and not let out to walk around, (lg breeds), Parvo, distemper, growth plate damage, under development. I could go on and on.

We had dogs die from problems that were cause because of the condition that they live in before they came to the pet store.

Several of the sm. breed puppies wouldn’t eat and would go Hypoglycemic (which is when the blood sugar gets too low from not eating (just like a diabetic), some would seize and or die. Puppies also will get ring worm from the stress and inhuman condition that they came from.

Then they would stay in the “isolation” room along with any other puppies that could not be showed because they are too sick to sell. But yet these puppies were seen by a vet before they come to the pet store. Many pet stores say that they “guarantee” that they do not sell from puppy mill, but unless they are going to the breeder and see both parents of the puppy and the home that they are coming from there is NO guarantee! Even if they say that buy from Local breeders. I do not know of any pet store owner that checks every location for quality care and breeding.

They also, say that they only sell Register puppies, but what the public doesn’t know is that there are different Registries that have different standers then AKC or some other Registries for the breeders. There are Registries that are now registering mix breeds as pure breeds. I have looked at many of the pedigrees that came with some of the puppies and found a lot of them have been inbreed some where down the line. I have noticed that a lot of the time (not all the time) you can tell a Pet Store dog vs. a breeder dog. The store dog can be under developed, too big for the breed; the hair isn’t as full or healthy and well the health alone is worse.

Pet Store will also; tell you that they guarantee the health for up to2 yrs. The catch on that is that the “Guarantee” is for hereditary problems. Most of these hereditary problems aren’t the main problem that you will have. You will find out that your new puppy (family member) is sick or has to have surgery on some that the “guarantee” will not cover it. For instant Lg. breed dogs usually can’t be diagnoses with Hip dysphasia till 2ys of age or more unless it is sever case. They will also, tell you that in sm. Breeds (yes common) the knees slipping out of place is common and as long as this is Only a level 1 the puppy will be fine. This is not true. A sm. Breed that’s knees slip out needs to be very careful with heights, and being drop or ruff housed with, and as the puppy gets older and heavier the puppy may need surgery.

The pet store will try to sell you the puppies buy tell you that the price that you are paying for this puppy will be the same amount that you will pay even if you go to a breeder. Because they will some times offer this: One free vet visit (with their vet only), the first set of shots & worming, and a free bag of dog food and some may offer you a discount on spay and neuter (again if you go to their vet)But please please trust me you will pay a lot more in the long run and so may your puppy.

http://www.puppymillrescue.com/