Dogs and cats have always been a part of my life – an important part. Most of them, from my childhood and adulthood, have just come along and stayed. An agreement was reached, a negotiation and relationship I suppose. Once part of the family, they were not ‘disposable’ if inconvenient. Also, rarely were they actively sought out like a purchase you decide to make.
Both my present dogs are “official rescues,” adopted through a local dog rescue group All Breed Canine Rescue. So they broke my pattern. They were actively sought out because we were in need of a dog.
We didn’t really plan on two, and hadn’t really decided on these two. They were to be fosters, but they made up our minds for us. Their backgrounds are, unfortunately, two all too common stories of dogs who end up in need of homes.
Two dogs
Charlie, a little terrier mix, was in an overcrowded pound in the States. Perhaps he was a victim of the house foreclosure crisis in the US, directly or indirectly. I don’t know why a small, cute, young dog wasn’t adopted, but he’d outstayed his allotted time and was scheduled for euthanasia. He was pulled from the pound and brought to Canada. He ended up with us, and he and we are very happy about that.
Leo, a Standard Poodle, was a victim of commerce and exploitation. He spent five years as a stud dog in a puppy mill in the US. I don’t know how old he was when he first got there, presumably old enough to be of service to them. So maybe 6 months to a year? I don’t think he’d ever been in a house in his life, prior to coming into ours. He didn’t know how to walk on a floor or climb a stair. He “marked” pretty much everything in the house.
White-haired men frightened him and he kept distant from everyone else – except me. He glued himself to me, I guess recognizing me as the one safe base he had in this new world after leaving the puppy mill and enduring a very long ride to Canada.
Puppy mills and negligent owners
Both these dogs have given me an abiding anger toward people who callously or irresponsibly breed dogs. Charlie was young, but old enough to be neutered. He wasn’t until the rescue group did it. Leo was making Labradoodles. There’s nothing wrong with developing a new breed of dog. But there is something very wrong with churning out puppies without regard for genetic health problems, ante- and post-natal care, temperament, and socialization. There’s something very wrong with treating dogs as a cash crop. That, I believe, applies to large- and small-scale puppy mills and to people who think that a litter of pups is a good way to make a few extra bucks by selling them on online sites like Kijiji.
Equally, just not getting around to getting your dog fixed is wrong. There will be pups and someone is going to have to deal with them. If it isn’t you, it will be rescue groups or kind-hearted strangers, or animal control officers and a gas box to kill them.
Leo, the puppy mill dog, is unrecognizable now from what he was. In appearance and temperament, he’s a true Poodle – showing off, meeting and greeting everyone including white-haired men. But a lot of time and a lot of money went into making a healthy and happy dog out of the sick, scared animal that I first saw.
And I’m sure that puppy-mill operator is still churning out puppies, making money and passing off his breeding stock to people like me to rehabilitate after he’s got all the use he can out of them. Laws need to be stricter, not to punish responsible breeders but to shut down people like him.
