Somebody at my work wants a dog. He asked me to help him get one. I showed him petfinder, educated him on puppymills and petstores and he decided to go the rescue route.







Until...







They started asking him questions.







He filled out one application form for a dog and either got rejected or the dog had been adopted. Either way, he felt like it was a waste of time. And frankly, the way he was talking about the dog, I wasn't sure I'd have vouched for him. (He wanted to keep it in the garage, etc... [img]images/smilies/2141.gif[/img])







Anyway, the discussion died down for a while, until last week when one of the fellow hockey parents showed up with a wheaten terrier from a breeder.







"What questions should I ask?" he asked me... So I gave him a list. A long, long list.







He came back Monday after having met the breeder and he was all excited because he decided he's getting a dog from her. "She's the best in Quebec," he says.







"Did you ask about health testing?"



"No. But they're fine. Their dogs live till twelve, she said."







"Is neutering in the contract?"



"No, she recommends they be neutered before eight months, but it's not required."







And then he starts talking about how wheatens have a tendency to have kidney failure, but she said nobody in any of her lines has ever had it. So I asked him to ask her what she's feeding her dogs. And he won't. It's so fricken annoying.







Anyway, if she's feeding a low protein food, when low protein is known to cause renal failure in dogs, then obviously she's not very well educated on what is best for her dogs, right? Obviously, she's not feeding what is in the best interest of her dogs" overall health if kidney failure looms over those dogs all the time.







And aren't there any tests for that? To check kidney health?







Anyway, the point of this post was to ask in frustration:







If puppymills make up 20% of the dogs in shelters (so they say) and BYBs make up 67%, which is worse?







I mean, obviously the conditions are HORRID in puppymills, but BYBs are a bigger part of the problem, statistically. Which is the lesser of the evils?







And more importantly, why the hell do I have to ask this question? Why can't people learn? Why don't they listen? GAAH! [img]images/smilies/motz_6.gif[/img]







Any thoughts? [img]images/smilies/whistling.gif[/img]