"But Ma'm..Your dog is from a puppy mill.."
 

I had a foot in my mouth moment. Just to give you all a background for those who don't live in the area. There's a trade center by me called "Gibralter Trade Center." Well, in this trade center there are booths with vendors who sell and trade things ranging from beanie babies to paintball guns.
Anyway, they also have a pet store in there that sells, you guessed it, puppies. Here's a link of someone sneaking a video of the dogs locked in their cages: YouTube - ‪Pollywood Pet Store‬‏


If you look at the bottom o the cages, it's literally chicken wire and the dog's paws slip through it alot, infuring their paws (witnesed it myself and had to run outside because the dogs were rolling around in their own poop and it was all matted in their fur and I was so upset that I got sick.)

Well, I work at a Credit Union and I was waiting on one of my usual member when we started talking about dogs. So I started telling her about Gizmo. She said she just got a dog and pulled her cell phone out to show me a Puggle. He was cute and I asked her where she got him. She looked at me and goes "Gibralter Trade Center."
I looked at her and said, "Oh, I'm sorry."
She looked up at me and said, "Okay, why are you sorry?"
And I said, "Because the dogs they sell are puppymill puppies and are living in horrible conditions."

She stopped and looked at me for a few seconds, and says "Um no they're not they bought them all from breeders."

I proceeded to tell her that no reptuable breeder would sell their pups to a place that locks them in 4x4 cages all day. Then finished her transaction, and told her that her baby was adorable, and I'm glad he was taken out of such a horrible circumstance. She just kind of looked at me weird and left.

I didn't mean to be rude or ruin her conception of a pet store, but someone had to tell her. I guess the circumstance would have been different if she would have said "I know they are, but I couldn't leave that face stranded...." Etc, but she didn't. She proceeded to make excuses about the place.

Now if you clicked on the link and saw the living conditions, would you make excuses for them?

Didn't think so.

It's just so sickening! So very sad :(

So many times I wish I had the guts to tell someone that. Most of the time they are my customers so I don't think it's wise to put myself in that spot. But many times people are just in denial about their baby being from such a place. We just need to keep educating people and eventually it will become common knowledge.

Our local mall has a pet store that sells puppies. They say they are all locally bred but you know what kind of places they buy from. I heard a lady say once that if she bought a dog from there at least she was saving it and someone is going to buy it anyway. I told her the point is to save the poor dogs that are being bred over and over and that they live in terrible conditions. Until the public is educated on the horrors of these places nothing will change.

oh... heartbreaking!!

You bring out an IMPORTANT point, it's not the fact the dogs are in crates, this isn't harmful, it's the fact that they have no solid flooring in these crates. I wonder what happens when they pee; does it go on the dog below them? The open style crates were made so puppy-millers could clean up wastes easily, but this is ridiculous! Glad they didn't confiscate the video!

How sad! I can't believe they made him stop videotaping. If they were not doing anything wrong, they wouldn't be worried about people taping!

Yeah, you're not allowed to take your phone in the store and if they see you using it, even if it's not for video taping, they'll kick you out. I've called them before and asked them a bunch of questions regarding the puppies and where they came from and they were never consistant with anything and many times didn't know what to say and would respond "Our customers have been happy for..."

Once again I'll say that I can understand weakness, that's how I got Gizmo, I had a weak moment.

But yes, when these dogs go to the bathroom, it leaks down to the next dog. It may no at first because there's an absorbant layer of what looks like saw dust, but I remember when I went in there a logn time ago, one of the puppies had a really upset tummy and just had the squirts really bad and it was literally just seeping down and they just all walked and slept in it.

That is just horrible! I'm sorry to say, but I can't believe people are that stupid to this day. Don't these customers even wonder why there is a lack of a "normal" pet store these days?

Yes, the chicken wire is very bad, I've seen on Animal Cop shows where it has sliced through those baby's paws or they've got stuck & lacking medical care have actually ended up with amputations.:thumbdown

Then the whole potty thing, who in any mind can justify that as being ok? That's why mill pups are so hard to train because they thinks it's normal to do all of that where they do everything else in their sad little lives. I've heard it's set up like that typically so the yahoo in charge can just spray the cages down to "clean" them-with the dogs still inside. Horrible!:mad:

Taryn, I'm not in Macomb, but still in MI & if you ever want me to sign anything or do anything that can help please don't hesitate to ask.

Of course they bought them all from breeders! I would have had to agree with that statement - but then there are reputable breeders and disreputable breeders, and no reputable breeder would sell their puppies to a store.

If these people realized the horror of the puppy mills and stopped buying from pet stores the puppy mills would soon go out of business. But we have been trying for years to educate people on puppy mills and it falls on deaf ears a lot.

I would have opened up my mouth too.

:thumbup::thumbup: Exactly!

Those "breeders" have no idea where their pups end up or what kind of homes they go to. I can't imagine caring so little about a life brought into the world through your actions....disgusting!