How Can I Help Stop Puppy Mills?
We’ve all seen the heart-wrenching photos. Skinny dogs in dirty cages. Wide eyed and shying away from the camera. Filthy water. Stained coats. How can we help?
Only buy from reputable breeders or ethical rescues
Reputable breeders ARE NOT the ones filling shelters with dogs - virtually all reputable breeders will have a clause in their contracts that any dog they have produced that needs a new home for any reason must go back to them.
Reputable breeders are also spending significant timing screening homes and painstakingly matching the right puppy to the right home to decrease the chance that this dog will ever need another home. (though things happen, lives change, your breeder should always be there to support you).
Reputable breeders should also be there to support their puppy homes throughout the pup’s entire life, providing advice and helping ensure the puppy thrives.
Support ethical rescue organizations and shelters
They’re out there doing the tough work, cleaning up after the mills and BYBs who don’t care where their pups end up as long as they sell. They’re taking in the older breeding dogs that are dumped or the puppies who don’t sell and they need our support. Whether that is as a foster home, with a financial donation, or help with transport - reach out and help where you can.
Adopt a Dalmatian from an ethical rescue or shelter. These dogs will have been vetted and often spent time in a foster home so the organization can give you a good idea of personality and temperament.
Don’t buy fad colours or coats. Breeders focusing on one out-of-standard trait are not reputable.
NEVER buy from a puppy mill or pet store
No reputable breeder will allow their pup to be sold in a pet store, or through a website where you choose from pics and purchase a puppy like a pair of shoes. These pups are sourced from mills and BYBs. Not all will be the horror-scape of starving dogs, some will be large and clean and well staffed. Either way, they are a mill, turning out pups as a commodity with no care for where they go or what happens next. Same goes for the BYBs who say they just LOVE their Dals so decided to breed, or had an “accident” and have a litter. If the breeder isn’t doing all the recommended health testing, making mindful pairings with proven dogs, enriching pups lives with mindful socialization to improve stability and resilience, providing lifetime support…..do not give them your money.
But what about that cute puppy in the window? You have to walk away. Even though it will break your heart. If you buy that puppy, you fuel the machine, more puppies are bred, more dogs live in misery.
What will happen if you don’t buy that puppy? If we ALL DO NOT BUY THAT PUPPY then the breeder will stop breeding. They are breeding to make money. Puppies that don’t sell cost them money and will be relinquished to a rescue.
Every dog deserves a wonderful life filled with love. When you are tempted to buy the sad puppy in a pet store (or on a website) - remember that their sire and dam and all their future littermates ALSO deserve a wonderful life. Don’t fuel the greed that created that pup.
Go to the rescue, support them and adopt that pup and give them the great life they deserve.
