| Once upon a time, it was easy to find somewhere to | | | | blatantly break animal welfare laws. But many |
| buy puppies. You just went down to the local pet | | | | manage to operate just inside the law and can claim |
| store and asked, 'How much is that doggy in the | | | | to be perfectly legal. |
| window?' | | | | Pet stores also often sell puppies under age--that is, |
| But how times have changed! Now you can buy dogs | | | | at less than 8 weeks old. This is not good for the |
| from pet stores, online, through newspaper | | | | puppy's healthy mental development and can lead to |
| advertisements, from friends, from breeders, and | | | | behaviour problems in later years. |
| from shelters, council pounds and rescue agencies. | | | | So where do you buy a puppy if not at the handy |
| With all this choice, how can you be sure you're | | | | local pet store? |
| buying a puppy from the right place? | | | | Fortunately, there are many more options for buying |
| Well, the one place you shouldn't buy a puppy from | | | | a dog! The best places are animal shelters or rescue |
| is the first one I mentioned: the pet store. | | | | agencies that arrange puppy adoption, or to go to a |
| Do you know where pet shop puppies come from? | | | | registered breeder. |
| Many of them come from puppy mills. | | | | By adopting a puppy from a shelter or council pound, |
| What are puppy mills? Puppy mills or puppy farms are | | | | you will be rescuing some poor dog who has ended |
| places that keep large numbers of dogs (often | | | | up without a home, often through no fault of its |
| purebred), from which they breed hundreds and | | | | own. When you adopt a dog, you save a dog's life. |
| even thousands of puppies each year. To do this, | | | | If you prefer to buy a particular breed of dog and |
| they keep the dogs in small cages and breed from | | | | can't find what you want in a shelter or pound, your |
| them until they are exhausted and can breed no | | | | best choice is a registered breeder. Check with your |
| more. | | | | local kennel club for a list of registered breeders who |
| Puppy mills really are simply puppy factories: churning | | | | have the breed of dog you're looking for. You can |
| out hundreds or thousands of pups with no regard | | | | visit the breeder, check out the parent dogs and see |
| for the mother dogs' health or the puppies' mental | | | | how your puppy will be raised. Breeders can also |
| health (after all, when you deal in hundreds of dogs | | | | answer all your questions about the breed and how |
| it's easy to find another if one dies). Any health or | | | | to look after it. |
| temperament problems will be passed on to the | | | | How much is that doggy in the window? Well, if it's |
| person who buys the puppy from the pet shop. That | | | | from a puppy mill, the puppy and its parents will have |
| buyer will never know where their puppy came from | | | | paid a very high price to arrive in the pet store. So |
| or how it was raised for its first few weeks. | | | | don't buy puppies from pet stores: check out your |
| Puppy mills, once they are discovered, are often | | | | local shelter or registered breeders instead. |
| closed down by animal welfare organisations if they | | | | |