Originally Posted by cally930
(Post 3471853)
This was posted a while back - but thought it was informative and the right place to add it.
The Problem With Teacup Puppies
• A CBS 2 Special Report
Apr 22, 2003 11:12 pm US/Eastern
NEW YORK (CBS) They’re advertised as puppies so small they fit in a teacup and even as adults they still look like puppies.
”I fell in love with her, she quaked she was just so small’” says Melissa Weiss. But these little bundles of joy could wind up costing you a bundle. CBS 2’s Kirstin Cole has the story.
”It cost us about $38,000 over the last 2 years,” says Kim Shamsky.
Teacup is a marketing term that breeders came up with to sell the smallest dog, the runt of the litter. Sometimes they’re inbred and can look alarmingly strange, but they’re also trendy, especially for city living because they can be trained to use a litter box and don’t need exercise.
When Sophie was born she weighed just over an ounce, now six weeks later she weighs in at a half a pound, but she can never hope to be more than 3 pounds making her forever fragile.
”This is a 2½ pound Yorkshire Terrier that jumped out of the arms of the owner and when he landed he fractured his bone,” says Dr. Paul Schwartz.
Dr. Schwartz says it's delicate surgery to operate on these dogs and they can really suffer.
Melissa Weiss wanted a dog that she didn’t have to walk, but her teacup couldn't walk because the knee caps were in the wrong place, “She needed 2 surgeries and has pins, one in each of her back legs.”
Sophie has already cost her owner $7 thousand in medical bills and for the rest of her life will be on medication for digestive problems.
Even knowing that teacups are costly and riddled with problems people still want them.
”Yeah I like, the smaller the better,” says Lyn Goldstein.
The 3 pound Yorkies that CBS 2 saw have liver, eye and knee problems. They have to eat often and be carried a lot because their tiny legs can’t climb stairs or get down safely from a bed.
”So you just make a little staircase out of pillows and they just go right up on the bed and they go back down,” adds Goldstein.
Teacups can fetch up to $3,500 each. Breeder Carolyn O'Rourke believes there are a lot of chronically unhealthy teacups because unscrupulous breeders and puppy mills are inbreeding, “When they take the little teeny tiny ones and they breed 2 and a half pounders with 3 pounders they’re playing with genetics.”
CBS 2 spoke with one midwest breeder who says her dogs are artificially inseminated, delivered by c-section and then the puppies go into incubators. Jack Levine at American Kennels calls that freaky and says he would never deal with that kind of breeder.
”Some of these breeders are here one day and gone the next, then what do you do, I mean we stand behind the animals,” says Levine.
Kim Shamsky's teacup had all kinds of health problems and died just a few months ago, but she says she would do it again, “It’s your heart, money is irrelevant when it comes to that as evidenced by all the medical bills.”
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