demonized pet stores

all across the Internet it is said DO NOT BUY FROM A PET STORE. I use to be on that band wagon so much so I use to have a yellow page ad stating I will help you find a good quality pup. I would try to redirect the buyer to what I considered a reputable breeder. I did this for years I actually got more calls off that ad then on my pet grooming ad. The business I was actually doing. When I showed conformation my first breed was the loveable bloodhound. I loved this breed very much. I was in a Local mall and saw a big chain pet store. They had a bloodhound pup that made me want to cry. It was under sized, thin,green phlegm was oozing from his eyes and nose. He was the wrong color a color produced by breeding the wrong two dogs together. His price tag was double of what I paid for my show dog. I was floored and from this one experience decided all pet stores were bad. I even made a comment to the gentlemen working at the store he could only boost the dogs good qualities which I could not agree with. The poor pup was so sweet though and I felt he was not long for this world. I became so snobby that any dog bred not to show conformation was garbage. As time went on all my show dogs died early ages. the bloodhound ended up with a very horrid skin allergy, he also was sterol, so I had to stop showing him. My boxer died of cancer, another bloodhound at age 6 months old had to be put to sleep for major genetic defects that effected the entire litter. My show boxer bred to the second dog in the nation had 1 sub- standard pup showable but not champion quality who ended up having dog aggression issues so bad she was given to a man that lived on a sail boat. She developed epilepsy and died by 3 years old. It was a sad time but my Obedience trained rescue beagle never had to go to the vet except to be neutered. Still I was with the rest. unless it was show bred it was garbage and back yard breeders should be shot, and all pet store pups come from horrid puppy mills. I noticed that no matter how much I tried to educate my customers and the poor souls that answered my adds, that they would continue to buy from pet stores. I came to the conclusion the public was just stupid. Why were they going back over and over to these stores and buying these sub-standard dogs. Ones that will cost them thousands in vet bills and early deaths. Being a pet groomer at the same location you tend to groom many dogs from puppy hood to old age as I was watching the so called sub-standard dogs age I noticed the darn things were like energizer bunnies. I seen two that a judge would disqualify go to the age of 20. this boggled my narrow mind. So I started spying on pet stores. Many reconfirmed my written in stone ideas. One of them kind of confused me, their dogs were not show quality but were decent. When I saw new puppies come in for grooming. I would try to guesstimate where they were bought. A few I thought were nice turned out to be bought at the pet store. I thought maybe my trained eye was going slack. So I revisited some dog shows. I was not so impressed. many breeds that in my time were great,seemed to be wilting. I saw a group of what I thought were vizsla's. only to walk up on them to see they were Rhodesian ridge backs. Then I saw the German Shepard ring icky they were doing wheelie's, and their skulls were so skinny. The fox terriers seemed to have lost their muscle tones too. My ideas of the perfect dogs did not match many that were in the rings. most due to the breeds unpopularity and the breeders idea of perfection, the popular breeds still seemed pretty uniform, except the German Shepard. I did have a few clients that did have retired show dogs. every last one of them either had bad nervous, and aggression problems, or just started deteriorating very fast. I still did not get it. I decided to breed parrots and got into color mutations which got me pretty deep into genetics. I am the type of person that if I want to learn something from someone else I go to the top of the ladder. I do not like wasting my time at the bottom with all the conflicting information. If I disagree with my vet I will call 3 of the top universities in the country. So when I wanted to learn genetics. I contacted the top mutation bird breeders in America even e-mailed some outside of the states. I even joined an e-mail list which involved the top genetic bird breeders in the world. When dealing with genetics like fancy colors and such inbreeding is a must in developing the color. A Color mutation or any mutation at that arises when a species gene pool gets too small. Nature tells this species that change must be in order for the species to survive so mutations are formed. If this mutation is successful in allowing the species to breed better or find food easier or camouflage from a predator better it will thrive and become a new species. If the mutation does not help the species and the species continues to inbreed it becomes bottle necked and dies out. Genetics is a interesting subject and something anyone can research on the web. The bird breeders seemed more honest then lets say the dog breeders I was use too. Conditions that formed from inbreeding were openly discussed. because of all my years in the canine industry the similarities were way too obvious. So I started researching breeding practices of dogs more closely. Come time find out the fancy word Line-breeding is just a nice way of saying inbreeding. The epiphany took years to develop. once I processed it all and even using my own personal experience with show dogs it was quit obvious that things were not as they seemed. It was like being in the twilight zone everything you thought you knew blown to the wind. Another dirty secret when inbreeding and it is well publicized is that if you Line-breed you must be willing to cull. So the public knows Culling means removing from the gene pool. and the most economic way and sure way no one will see your mistakes is killing the pup. It is well written the death and suffering of commercial bred dogs, Nothing is well written about the hundreds and thousands of dead puppies it takes to produce a real champion. I read a web site that was displaying a horridly inbred ( oops line-bred) dog who won the Crups. it stated that if a breeder does not line-breed (while showing this dog pedigree. which pretty much made it its own grandpa.) it stated that if you out cross then you are a back yard breeder. novices read this stuff and have these old time people as mentors. from my point of view the inbreeding is not from the so called puppy mills its from the show people or hobbyist trying to copy show people. Ask a breeder do you inbreed they will say oh no I am against inbreeding, but I line-breed. line-breeding can consist of half brother half sister, father to daughter and visa versa, cousins, grandparents to grandchildren and so on. it is not distant cousins as I was once led to believe maybe at one time it was but not anymore. inbreeding makes any animals fertility drop. Too much inbreeding makes them sterol . The commercial breeders are not into small litters. I highly doubt and have noticed they really do not inbreed. very few of them do unless the broker ran across a struggling hobby breeder you never see inbreeding in pedigrees of commercial dog breeders. so the myth that pet store dogs are all inbred is false. I slowly started referring people to the one store I liked. I was grooming a lot of dogs from that store and they were growing up nice. Then a new store opened in my area. All bells and whistles, selling dogs for outrageous prices. some as high as $10,000 dollars. Not only that but they were selling sick and under aged puppies. I never saw such sick puppies coming from a store, and the teacup priced pups were growing to be even larger then standard. One of my long time turned friend customers lost her 2 Maltese to old age. Lefty and Wiget the sweetest cutest Maltese in the world. she was very sad so she told me she found the perfect pup online, she was going to pick it up and wanted me to see it. She brings in this little guy when she told me she paid 3 thousand dollars I could not believe it. I asked her is the dog even AKC. she checked and he was not. Her husband was mad so they went to take the pup back and somehow got suckered into keeping it and buying its sister. a joyful moment turned nightmare. both pups got sick. The little female was worse and was not expected to live. The little boy ended up having no teeth meaning he was under-aged. It took her months of no sleep to save the pups life who to this day has a heart condition. the little boy needed knee surgery. She joined a class action against the store which ended up on NBC special report. I started watching this store more closely their web site says all the right things. They call themselves a kennel, It is written exactly like a reputable place when in fact it is the worse of the worse. Because of this I decided I can do better. I decided to become the thing I fought so many years to end. my conclusion is demonizing Pet Stores that sell puppies and kittens or even birds scares away those who would care and run one properly, which only leaves room for the greedy mean nasty people that make the industry dirty. playing the reputable breeder card does not make one reputable. this seems to be the norm across the net. so many lies who knows what is reality any more. When your young you known it all. When you mature your don't Author Ginger Pepple owner of Superstar Puppies LLC Davie, Florida www.superstarpuppies.com