I know, this is a super long post LOL ...
A couple of years ago I was snooping on craigslist when I came across an ad that made me rather upset. I had just adopted Clyde not to many months prior.
There was a lady, and the title was "selling of my breeding stock". For some reason when I saw the title I assumed she must be talking about sheep or something, but when I clicked the title I discovered I was most definitely wrong!!!
The lady was selling off about 5-8 female Yorkshire terrier's all ranging in size from 3 pounds to 12 pounds ... all under the age of 7 years old. All of the females had been used for breeding, and she couldn't tell you if any of them were recently pregnant or not. She was trying to sell them to other breeders to "get their business started" all under the price of $100 per dog.
She claimed she loved each and every dog. Yet none of them were groomed. None had shots. All had horrible smelling rotting teeth. All of them had been bred so much that the life had almost literally been drained from them. None of them had names. Some had bad yeast infections. All of their voice boxes removed.
I tried to report the issue, but there was "nothing anyone could do". By the time that I found the ad all of them but three had been sold off. There were two sisters and "mama". They called her mama because of how many times she had been a mother in her 7 year old life.
My parents said that I could take on one of the dogs. I was only 15 or 16 at the time. When I contacted the women she told me that "mama" probably could still "push a few" out. I couldn't believe this women. I knew there was no way I could allow anyone else to adopt the Mama dog because I didn't want to risk her going to another negligent breeding home.
Obviously there are really good breeders out there, I've talked to a few good breeders on this website
but the people wanting to adopt these dogs were not good breeders. They just wanted money.
To make a long story short, when I adopted her there were a lot of vet visits. She had to gain a little weight. She had horrible allergies to top off all of other problems. We also discovered she had THE WORST ear infection in BOTH of her hers that made her CONSTANTLY scratching at her head. But I was determined to see her healthy again.
It took her awhile to learn how to be a dog again, too. She didn't know what fetch was and all she ever wanted to do was sleep in someones lap ... which was in no way a bad thing. We named her Bonnie (after Bonnie & Clyde).
At a certain point I started to realize that my home wasn't suited to Bonnie.
Clyde was a one year old, crazy dog, riddled with behavioral issues and medical problems of his own. All he EVER did was harass Bonnie and all she ever wanted to do was rest. The last reason I decided that my home wasn't suited is because I knew for an honest fact I could handle Clyde financially .. but Bonnie, with all her medical problems, was another story.
Therefore, after a very difficult decision ... I set off on a "journey" to find Bonnie the perfect home!!! It took several interviews, several house visits, and so forth to find the perfect person... but we found them! Another Yorkie enthusiast ... who I'm surprised isn't on this website herself ...
I still get up-dates about Bonnie always. She is doing much better. The person I adopted her to only paid $30 to adopt her from me. In turn, however, the women who adopted her had her spayed and all of her allergy issues treat immediately.
Bonnie is doing so wonderful. I think she is almost ten years old now!! She is so beautiful. I couldn't imagine what would have happened to her if some uneducated person who just wanted to make money had gotten a hold of her before I did.
I never wanted to let her go, but I realize that it was for the best =) She is with an owner who loves her dearly!!
Before & After pictures (of course she looked much worse the first week or two I had her with me, but I never got a picture of that)