It's Dog Or Nothing - fur, slobber, and dirty floors
This is something I’ve come across several times from one of the dog rescues I follow. It’s a tricky question to ask. Here’s the situation I’ve seen several times recently.
Owner has mange infested, sick, skinny (insert horrible thing for a dog to experience here) dog and the owner is unwilling to relinquish the dogs to a rescue.
The owner does not have the means to take care of the dogs or simply does not want to. In order to save the dogs, the rescue offers to purchase them. They then get them back to wellness and find them a furever home.A similar situation seems to occur with puppies. A backyard breeder has puppies in terrible shape and the rescue finds out about them. The breeder won’t relinquish them so the rescue purchases the puppies with the hope to adopt them out.
Is it really the right thing to do?
In my opinion, no.
Now, before you think I’m heartless, hear me out. I love all animals, especially dogs. I even helped save a bat once and they creep me out. I am a firm believer that the only way to end backyard breeding and irresponsibility is to stop enabling it. People see that tiny, adorable puppy in the pet shop window. They know where it came from; that it is probably riddled with health issues, but how could you leave without that puppy? I think we have to.
When we purchase one of these dogs, we are giving the backyard breeders the opportunity to breed more dogs. If no one buys the dogs, they will have no reason to breed. They’re not just going to keep producing puppies if they won’t receive any benefits. I believe it works the same way for these maltreated dogs. The rescue now has given the person money to purchase more dogs to treat as they please. Not the best scenario.
I know rescues have the dogs best interest in mind and I know how heart breaking it can be to see an animal suffer. Right now we are just putting a band-aid over the issue. We are saving dogs rather than stopping the irresponsible people. I would love for there to be a way to regulate breeding. If I hear one more, “My dog has a great personality so I wanted to breed her”, I might explode.
I will add that I am NOT against all breeding. If all breeders were responsible, none of their dogs would end up in shelters and irresponsible owners wouldn’t get to purchase any dog they wanted.
What do you think? Should rescues purchase dogs? Do you think there is a way to regulate breeding to prevent more unnecessary deaths? I’m only one person, but I know that as a community we can start to make a change. Even slow change is progress.
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