Quote: connie sutherland

"Problem is this takes time and for most it is a lot easier not to think about" .... I'm afraid you're right. But every person we can inform/influence will do the same. It's worth Katie's efforts, I believe.

I have trouble informing without raising defensive hackles; I usually do better if I rehearse.

Katie can do a much better job, I betcha.

Thanks Connie. I hope I can. I started off on the wrong foot because I accidentally called pet store puppies "piece of crap dogs" in front of a bunch of people that have pet store dogs. Sigh. I hope I can recover some of them. I at least want to take my teacher aside and explain more. We were in the middle of class and I didn't have that much time to talk.

It's just something that I don't think is a matter of opinion. I think it's entirely fact based. I think it's important to understand that pet stores and puppy mills are generally interchangeable, bad breeders are bad breeders, and good breeders are few and far between and require a lot more effort. Whether or not you feel animals are disposable enough to be sold the way they are, and that puppy mills are just fine, is a matter of opinion. But where the dogs come from and what they go through is not. That's fact based. And I felt like the entire class was being taught that the idea of pet stores having dogs from mills was a matter of opinion.


Does that make sense?

Thanks again for all the awesome replies everyone. I really know these people mean well.

There are also to many people out there that feel the "need" to save these pathetic puppies.

My brother used to be one of those people, Bob. I finally got it through his head that that just opens up another spot for another puppy and leads to a higher demand.

I sent the link to the thread over to my instructor. His dog is a pet store dog, though he's a healthy dog from what I know. He got lucky. A lot of people do, but there are also a lot who don't.

Anyway, we'll see. I made such a passionate speech against them in class he's probably thinking, "God not this again!"

 Quote: jamie craig

 Quote: elizabeth anderson

pups had hernias and didn't have the sense not to step in their diarrhea!

do you mean that "dirty dog" syndrome? That's not really a sign of lack of intelligence but it's odd, I do notice pet store or BYB puppies have that problem....the "rottie" my neighbor has routinely poops then lays in it. By comparison, my dog stepped in dog poop once (not his own) and FREAKED (I though he'd broken a leg). Even the time he was sick and got diarreah all over his crate I found him standing on the 4X4 inch area where there was no feces.

I think that's a poor management thing, or puppies to young to know better.....

I do think it is odd... Every pup I have rescued in Guatemala or Mexico as pups 2-3 months old have pooped and walked in it. That is, the ones that I was never successful in training much. Zuki was a month old when I got her. I put her in the crate for the first time, she slept all night till round 6 when she was telling me she needed to go. Same with the other three dogs I have owned. In this case it was no question about it that it was poor management. The kennels were not clean and pups not given anything to do like I see on Eds videos.

Not sure what dogs find so attractive about cat OR chicken poop.... I have more problems with the latter. Normally never have cats but the two kittens we acquired are with us temporary. Although I have not given her much time to investigate the litter box...

 Quote: Jamie Craig

heh, my dog is afraid of cat poop.....

When he was about 6 months old he sniffed in my housemate's cat's box and in diving for him to pull him out I accidently knocked an entire desk, the contents of a dresser, and a potted plant on his head....I swear whenever he smells cat poop he looks around like he expects flying funiture to take him out XD

I can't say I've done much to discourage this reaction lol....he'll skirt around cat poop and avoids the litter box like it's going to jump up and eat him.....he'll step over and around dog poop but he doesn't walk in a big circle around it like he does the cat stuff....

Now why didn't I think of that?!

Ed has a nice note about pet stores. To quote him:

"The last place on earth to look for a puppy is in a pet store. Any breeder that is forced to sell his puppies to a pet store has no credibility. This only indicates he has no reputation as a breeder and nowhere else to sell his dogs. The majority of the dogs that end up in pet stores come from puppy mills. Puppy mills are a legitimate (despicable) business in many states. There are certain days of the week that we are not allowed to ship dogs out of the Delta office of the Minneapolis Airport because they are shipping so many puppies from "puppy mills" in Minnesota and Northern Iowa."

Sad.

 Quote: katie finlay

Ed has a nice note about pet stores. To quote him:

"The last place on earth to look for a puppy is in a pet store. Any breeder that is forced to sell his puppies to a pet store has no credibility. This only indicates he has no reputation as a breeder and nowhere else to sell his dogs. The majority of the dogs that end up in pet stores come from puppy mills. Puppy mills are a legitimate (despicable) business in many states. There are certain days of the week that we are not allowed to ship dogs out of the Delta office of the Minneapolis Airport because they are shipping so many puppies from "puppy mills" in Minnesota and Northern Iowa."

Sad.

painfully sad

I wonder if the clean or dirty puppy syndrome doesn't go back even further to the nest box and nurturing, but I also think some puppies are just cleaner.

I have seen litters that were taken outside starting at 4 or 5 weeks old and 'housebroken' by the time they went to their homes at 8 or 10 weeks. I had BC litters like this and my sister had Portuguese Water Dogs that likewise would be taken out after the first month. Some of those puppies retain that housetraining and some don't seem to. I have seen litters where one pup jumps up with that Eureka moment and runs to the door at a precociously young age of 5 weeks while littermates take much longer to get it.

Certainly puppies kept filthy won't be as aware as those kept clean. So perhaps some pups that would be cleaner are untrained when they are kept in filth. Sometimes I have seen puppies that are crate trained and asked to wait too long for their physical needs that likewise soiled their crates and then went on to be much harder to housetrain.

That really makes me feel that diligence on the part of the nurturing human is some of the biggest input. And of course the negative type training may have a traumatic input.....positive or negative wise....(not counting knocking everything off of desks!)