Where some rescue dogs come from
April 12, 2018 8:19 AM   Subscribe

Rescue groups are increasingly buying animals at auction A deep look at how rescue groups fundraise and then use those funds to buy animals at auction, fundamentally changing the nature of the business for breeders (slWaPo)
posted by k5.user (81 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
I've read the article and retyped this comment about 5 times and I guess the best I can say is that, and I come from a background that included a father and grandfather that owned a small pack of hunting dogs (though we never bred ourselves because we knew that was beyond our purview/skill), well....

I don't see how this doesn't help the unscrupulous breeders and/or puppy mill operators that are the ultimate problem here. I'm with the ASPCA and AKC on this one unless other facts are presented. People that pay $10,000 dollars to save one dog and somehow think they're doing anything but getting high on their own supply are misguided at best and downright detrimental at worst.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:35 AM on April 12, 2018 [45 favorites]


This is fascinating: a deep dive into an economic market that appears to be perpetuating the very abuses that its members want to end. I don't know how to fix the problem here, since breeding to sell to rescues inevitably ends with too many dogs treated badly.
posted by suelac at 8:36 AM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


inevitably ends with too many dogs treated badly.

I'd go so far as to say it ends with dogs being tormented, tortured, and killed in the thousands. Seriously, as someone who has also done animal rescue in Alabama, it's horrifying what humans can allow themselves to be part of when it comes to animals they are responsible for. So, my above statement aside, these people are, I suppose, acting in the best interest in the micro scale but are an active detriment in the macro scale (as the article states as well).
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:41 AM on April 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


It's 2018. The organizers of the charity drives are probably agent provocateurs.
posted by srboisvert at 8:41 AM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


Agreed -- it's not clear what the rescue folks hope to accomplish by spending more and more money, and the breeders/sellers are figuring that out.

The article also hints that some of the rescue people are gifters (not unheard of in the non-profit world). They use the raised funds to pay their own salary and buy the dogs for their own personal pet.
posted by k5.user at 8:41 AM on April 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


Hey, srboisvert, did you mean 'grifters' above? Otherwise I don't understand what 'gifter' means in this context.
posted by AaronDaMommio at 9:18 AM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've been involved in rescue for many years now. It's a constant balancing act between saving dogs from horrific and dangerous situations and taking care not to reward those making money on the misery they bring into the world by backyard breeding. In a poor state like the one I live in, it's often a challenge complicated by poverty, ignorant elected officials and addiction.

Here in the west, I know of no reputable rescues that would line the pockets of breeders in wholesale auctions. I do know that rescues often will reach out to breeders to persuade them to surrender dogs to rescue, and a few that will secretly buy a small number of dogs in order to get them away from dangerous situations like people selling puppies too young to be adopted out or dogs at risk of being sold as bait dogs for dog fighting rings.

And I strongly agree that the heartless backyard breeders who breed dogs for profit should never be rewarded.
posted by answergrape at 9:20 AM on April 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


Everyone please donate to my GoFundMe, "Trolley Problem Puppy Rescue"
posted by 7segment at 9:20 AM on April 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


(yes, I meant grifter, was past the edit window when I saw the typo)
posted by k5.user at 9:22 AM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


Dogs. They're buying dogs at auction. I mean, this is still a notable story and all, but this isn't animal rescuers generally, as far as I can tell? This is not a thing that cat rescues seem to do. Which I don't just say to criticize the framing--I also think that there's a reason it's only dogs. When your "rescue" is called "Corgi Connection of Kansas" or "Big East Akita Rescue", it suggests that you are not just trying to rescue dogs in need, you are trying to supply people with Corgis and Akitas. Very specific dogs. What happens if the dogs in need in your community are not Corgis or Akitas? I know that these kinds of breed-specific things do exist in the cat community, but it seems to be much rarer, and I'd similarly side-eye a cat rescue that was "rescuing" expensive Bengals exclusively, and I'd wonder how exactly they're coming up with a constant stream of Bengals that need new homes without wasting money somewhere along the way.
posted by Sequence at 9:28 AM on April 12, 2018 [33 favorites]


Hey, srboisvert, did you mean 'grifters' above? Otherwise I don't understand what 'gifter' means in this context.

Yeah better word but I meant more than a casual grifter looking for free or subsidized pets. I mean that they can be working within groups with idealistic goals to actively subvert the power of the group into supporting what they oppose.

Like the way violent protesters are sometimes plants whose goal is to subvert the goal of the protest.
posted by srboisvert at 9:40 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Interesting.

(A point of language I noted, after the sentence "That breeder is going to make thousands of dollars off that [female dog]" I wondered for the rest of the article how determined the publication was to avoid the word bitch.)
posted by readinghippo at 9:40 AM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


I wonder how much of this is driven by the fact that so many, many shelters have lots of unwanted pits/pit mixes - more than the market wants - while their supply of non-pit dogs, especially smaller dogs and purebreeds - is just too small to meet the demand.
Perhaps some rescues are solving this supply/demand imbalance by surreptitiously purchasing the more adoptable kinds of dogs.

The pit oversupply has been a topic on a few forums I hang out on. People have complained about being pressured by rescue organizations to adopt pit/mixes, or large breeds, or poorly-socialized dogs, when what they came in for was a smaller or less aggressive or simply a more sociable dog. But when they've been working with local shelters for weeks or months and those shelters simply haven't enough of those kinds of dogs to adopt, what are they to do? Some would-be adopters end up wrestling with whether they should do the previously unthinkable and buy from a breeder.
posted by Lunaloon at 9:42 AM on April 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


"And I strongly agree that the heartless backyard breeders who breed dogs for profit should never be rewarded."
So where exactly should Golden Retrievers come from?

There was indeed once little real legitimate market for breeders selling these dogs when shelters that started to be established in the 60s and 70s were full of them but people weren't yet used to getting dogs from them. However, if there is indeed more of a demand for these 'purebred' dogs than supply as the article suggests, is the idea that we encourage Yorkies towards extinction? To be clear I'm not necessarily opposed to this, but its the logical conclusion of 'dogs should never be bred.'
posted by Blasdelb at 9:45 AM on April 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


I used to volunteer at an spca shelter in NJ and they had a great dog matching program that was based on a questionnaire about the adopter's lifestyle (active, couch bum, homebody, road tripper, etc) and their personality (wants constant attachment, needs hiking partner, etc) and would present dogs whose activity level and affectionate-ness matched the potential adopters. They had so many lazy chill lovable pit mixes that would be great single working professional or family dogs, but it was at times hard to steer families away from their idea of a teacup maltese or whatever, even if they appeared unwilling to drop dough on grooming or wanted a "breed that doesn't bark."

I myself have 2....ginger haired 50 lb fluffbutts (that's their breed, as listed in the Jen Kennel Club) and one is a part pit rehome (my re-homie!) that the family gave up because they decided they wanted some small white purebred floof in a weird keeping-up-with-the-joneses fashion.
posted by WeekendJen at 9:58 AM on April 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


I have been casually looking for a small dog in shelters for the past year. When a healthy small dog with no child- or dog-aggression issues is posted on a shelter website, it's gone within a day. The dogs that linger on the page are pitbulls or dogs with special needs or behavior issues. (All worthy dogs to be sure, but as a first-time owner I'm not ready for those challenges yet).

I'm convinced that being lucky enough to snag a highly desirable rescue dog isn't really all that much morally superior from buying a puppy from a high-end breeder. It's not like there weren't 10 people in line to take the dog behind you. I've started looking into purchasing from a reputable breeder instead.
posted by loquacious crouton at 9:58 AM on April 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


I'm not sure how much the wapo's emphasis on maximum (rather than average) prices biases the tone throughout. It sounds like most of the dogs are sold in the hundreds (or less) of dollars, not thousands. I'd hate to paint this practice with too broad a brush based on some outliers.
posted by mosst at 10:08 AM on April 12, 2018


Pit bull rescues are really popular around here, at least among my vegan/hipster friends. One of them started her own "rescue" where she just guiltspams facebook constantly like "ADOPT POOR LULU" and which has resulted in a definable segment of my facebook sphere all owning exactly one more pit or pit mix than they really want.

When it comes down to it, though, there's really no better breed for shoving your martyr complex in everyone's face.
posted by 7segment at 10:10 AM on April 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


I found the presentation of this article to be...a little odd. It frames the purchases as Some Deep Dark Nefarious Secret of the Rescues With Ulterior Motives when in principle it seems to be a good deal more "rescues facing a difficult judgment and (probably) making the wrong call."

There are really no standards or licensing to be a rescue. It's inevitable that this kind of thing, and frankly considerably worse, is going to occur in the rescue world. Too bad the institutions themselves fall down so badly and make rescues necessary.

(A lot of people can't have pits because their landlords or HOA don't allow them, or their insurance won't cover them. I love the breed, but I doubt whether I'll ever be able to have one.)
posted by praemunire at 10:13 AM on April 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Also, as someone with a rescue dog (a trendy-looking small breed mix, but one with behavior issues, who was an owner surrender at a municipal shelter), I have to say that the fact that many folks choose not to distinguish between responsible breeding and irresponsible breeding (both puppy mills and backyard breeders) doesn't help. If rescues can't get enough goldens, ok, people are still going to want to have them, so ensuring that people know how to identify responsible breeders is important. I'm convinced that criticizing breeding as a general practice hurts more than it helps.

Also there should be more widely circulated information about identifying responsible rescues. I thought I knew how to identify one - I have a family member who is a major, well-respected figure in that world - and yet I ended up adopting from a group that I cannot in good conscience recommend to others.
posted by mosst at 10:16 AM on April 12, 2018 [18 favorites]


"So where exactly should Golden Retrievers come from?"

Commercial puppy farms and careless backyard breeders aren't the only options...ethical breeders, who breed carefully for long life and good health, who have a contract that states if the owner can't keep it, they will take back any dog they have ever bred, and who work to improve the breed, deserve support. People don't make any real money from breeding dogs if they are doing it right, I think.

"One golden retriever rescue group turned to the auctions after seeing 40 percent fewer dogs coming in as of 2016"

I'm really astounded at the short-sightedness of this. I'm involved in a specific, unusual dog breed rescue organisation. There are many more people wanting to adopt this breed than there are dogs available. And that's great! Everyone in the organisation is just very happy when fewer dogs come through. It's not a shop. I don't understand why, if you have time because there are fewer dogs to re-home, you wouldn't turn your focus to campaigning against bad breeders, rather than giving them money. Unless you are on the make (possible, sadly) or misguided (more likely).

I feel a bit unsure about the framing of the story. It's terribly sad when the tireless volunteer work of the huge majority gets painted as being involved in shady stuff. There have been a few stories similar to this about importing rescue dogs too. I do think it's not all that usual. The numbers look big but I would imagine that it's a small percentage that cost very much.

I can imagine that this starts with the (awful! unimaginable!) auction. Rescue organisations hear about it and start going in for the older bitches who are being sold on for very little money to give a few more litters. That's maybe understandable.

If they are buying puppies and young dogs they are just part of the cycle, as has been said, but it must be terribly hard to be in one of these places and watch a lovely bitch puppy get sold into a life of sadness, so I guess it's understandable though I profoundly disagree with doing it.

I think the main issue is that you really need to do your research no matter where your dog comes from - whether it's a breeder or a rescue. Anyway this has given me food for thought in ensuring that people understand the process of our own organisation.
posted by tardigrade at 10:38 AM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


its the logical conclusion of 'dogs should never be bred.'

By the by, I'm 100% in support of this outside of working breeds that serve a definite and specific purpose and are bred and sold in a responsible and sustainable manner.

I know that's vacuous but yea, count me in any movement that opposes the perpetuation (nay creation) of breeds that exist completely to amuse and/or coddle some human's superficial desire. The range of creatures that suffer unnecessarily ranges far and wide and goes on and on and on from Pugs, Frenchies, Mastiffs, the list goes on and on of dogs that have an existence that is plagued with severe breathing problems, inability to birth their own young without Cesarean section, joint issues, and other myriad of ailments.

So what that someone grew up with *insert breed here* and wants [to pay for] one for their kids to grow up with too. Fuck that narrow minded thinking and go get a rescue from a shelter or respectable organization. Sorry not sorry.

So, yes, I think solid criteria should exist for the purposeful breeding of dogs within certain breed classes. Those criteria are probably stricter than most would agree to but then again those people have never seen puppies covered in a rolling carpet of fleas that looked more like a spilt pepper shaker than tiny parasites. Fuck irresponsible breeders is what I'm saying, and anyone that harbors them or, as these people are doing, supports them.

None of the above is directed at Blasedelb, just replying and venting.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:44 AM on April 12, 2018 [15 favorites]


Fuck irresponsible breeders is what I'm saying

And - just to be clear - you're also saying that any breeder of non-working dogs is an irresponsible breeder?
posted by mosst at 10:54 AM on April 12, 2018


Here in the west, I know of no reputable rescues that would line the pockets of breeders in wholesale auctions. I do know that rescues often will reach out to breeders to persuade them to surrender dogs to rescue, and a few that will secretly buy a small number of dogs in order to get them away from dangerous situations like people selling puppies too young to be adopted out or dogs at risk of being sold as bait dogs for dog fighting rings.

Yes, this. Buy a puppy for $5 off a sketchy guy in a grocery store parking lot and bring it into the rescue? Yes.

Go to Missouri for a "dog auction" to stock up? No.

The rescue I fostered for specialized in pregnant strays or or owner surrenders. Years ago, these dogs would've been euthanized or spay aborted at the county animal control, and this rescue took decided to make homes for these dogs as part of working towards a low kill philosophy for our county.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:55 AM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


It's not as unusual among cat people to see that viewpoint, so I don't see why it gets treated as on-the-face unreasonable in dog circles: We bred most available breeds into their current state in a relatively short period of time compared to human history. If there's a population problem currently, then maybe it's okay to say we shouldn't have any more goldens, ideally--in practice, unlikely, so those genes are probably not really going anywhere, but in the moment, if you love dogs in general, the thing you should be choosing is a dog, not a golden retriever, and that it will not be a great tragedy if the dog breeds of five hundred years from now are not the same ones we have today.

I get that dogs have additional complications because many people just plain can't have a large dog or a pit bull, for example, but that still doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good idea to encourage people to get attached to specific breeds.
posted by Sequence at 10:56 AM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


you're also saying that any breeder of non-working dogs is an irresponsible breeder?

They may be selling their dogs in a sustainable fashion, but no I don't think it's responsible to contribute dogs to the population while others die of neglect or are euthanized for lack of ownership on a daily basis.

Is it as big a moral failing if they're maintaining a client base that allows them to care for their breeding stock and puppies in a nice manner? Of course one is worse than the other but it's still fraught to buy a puppy from a breeder when you are, in essence, deciding that one's appearance deems it worthy of life over a puppy in the shelter down the street. The breeder isn't immune from being a party to that.

Again, that may not be a popular opinion but I stand by it.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:00 AM on April 12, 2018 [20 favorites]


... and that doesn't even get into the health problems that I mentioned above that certain breeders, even good ones, are only skirting by the thinnest of margins because it's an inherent problem with the breed they choose to work with.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:03 AM on April 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


I have been casually looking for a small dog in shelters for the past year. When a healthy small dog with no child- or dog-aggression issues is posted on a shelter website, it's gone within a day. The dogs that linger on the page are pitbulls or dogs with special needs or behavior issues. (All worthy dogs to be sure, but as a first-time owner I'm not ready for those challenges yet).

I'm convinced that being lucky enough to snag a highly desirable rescue dog isn't really all that much morally superior from buying a puppy from a high-end breeder. It's not like there weren't 10 people in line to take the dog behind you. I've started looking into purchasing from a reputable breeder instead.


I've heard people say this before, and I really don't understand how this is possible. I've now rescued two adorable, healthy small mixed-breed puppies from local rescues with zero effort. Both of them were even adopted back when I was a young college student living in an apartment - not exactly the strongest candidate on paper.

Are you looking at rescue groups, and not just county shelters? I agree that county/city shelters mostly have pits (which I love, but are harder to place) and other big dogs or old dogs or dogs with behavioral issues, but that's because the more "desirable" dogs get taken quickly by rescues who know they can place them. They're still available for adoption, just through rescues and foster homes.
posted by ohsnapdragon at 11:04 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


I really don't understand how this is possible.

I don't either. I've lived all over the US South and it's never been hard to find a dog if/when someone wanted one, even a puppy, even a specific size breed, even a specific look/fur/breed-approximation usually. Maybe it's different in urban or northern or more spread out areas like Wyoming or something. Maybe not having a vehicle to go an hour in a cardinal direction from where someone lives is problematic, I admit. But my local shelter shows a plethora of dogs, including a cute 2 month old pup that anyone would likely be lucky to have.

This whole idea that rescue orgs have to go hunting for dogs at auctions is so confounding to my brain that I don't even know where to start.

I know that when I helped my aunt that worked with a rescue org they would sometimes haul dogs 3 hours away at times (or have adopters do the same) when a specific breed was at play but still... I don't get it. Those were usually older/larger/harder to home dogs too.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:12 AM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


Rescue dog population varies greatly on a regional basis, for anyone questioning the ease of finding shelter dogs.
posted by loquacious crouton at 11:21 AM on April 12, 2018 [12 favorites]


Maybe a lighter tone and story time.

Here's a rescue dog tax comment for good measure.

Here's Jack as the stray that we adopted when he was a member of a pack of roaming dogs that showed up at the paper mill I was co-oping at during undergrad. He had over 50 ticks on him and I was sure he was going to have heartworms but the vet checkup came back negative and he was a year old give or take. He didn't poop for days after I rescued him and then it was almost completely composed of twigs, sticks, leaves, and pine straw and had no odor.

Here's Coke from when we adopted her as a pup
5 or so years after. She came from a local shelter and we basically went from "we should get Jack a sister" to "Whelp, they're cute and get along, guess she's coming home with us" in approximately 4 days or so? They got along well from the beginning.

Here they both are now with the human puppies that they take care of [read: ignore and avoid mostly] on a daily basis. And nightly...
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:26 AM on April 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


Maybe it's different in urban or northern

Yup.

Right now in the Erie County SPCA or City of Buffalo shelters, if you want a dog that isn't in that "looks vaguely like a pit bull or amstaff" range, you have a choice of eight dogs. If you want a puppy, congratulations! You are adopting "Glee," a 10 month old pug/beagle bitch. Buffalo and Erie County have about a million people.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:26 AM on April 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


It seems like an odd thing to say, but some areas of the country do have a "shortage" of rescue dogs. Like others above, i live in a part of the country that has strays aplenty. You don't even have to go to a rescue to rescue one - just hit the country roads for a few days and you will probably find one. Add in that people want to rescue a certain breed and you have people getting creative to fill that need. True that the majority of dogs here are either chihuahua or pit mixes, but not all of them. The biggest rescues in teh state regularly ship dogs to Wisconsin and Minnesota, because they have a market for them.

not a big fan of anyone paying 10000 for a dog under any circumstance but some of these scenarios are just plain infuriating. peoples brains can justify anything, i swear.

our two dogs cost a combined 150.00 AND they were both already neutered and had two rounds of shots. Wouldn't trade them for anything.
posted by domino at 11:28 AM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


Right now in the Erie County SPCA or City of Buffalo shelters, if you want a dog that isn't in that "looks vaguely like a pit bull or amstaff" range, you have a choice of eight dogs. If you want a puppy, congratulations! You are adopting "Glee," a 10 month old pug/beagle bitch. Buffalo and Erie County have about a million people.

Okay, but if I go on Petfinder.com and search for small, baby/young dogs within 100 miles of Buffalo, there are 3 pages of results - no pitbulls among them. And that's not counting medium-sized non-pit dogs, nor adult small/medium dogs.
posted by ohsnapdragon at 11:32 AM on April 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm a cat person and have no dog (har har) in this fight, but just from my observations: I live in a well-off coastal area and people here neuter, leash, and microchip their dogs, so "oops" litters are pretty much unheard of. My wonderful local no-kill rescue - Tony La Russa's ARF - pulls animals from high-kill shelters in inland California and they are neutered and microchipped before being adopted out. But it's still hard to find a small dog that is not a terrier/terrier mix/with loads of baggage, and when they are available, they go fast. There's a lot of large lab/pit/shepherd mixes and those can be wonderful but are not the dog for everyone. An older retired lady who lives in a condo and doesn't have the stamina for a larger breed is justified in getting a small fluffy lapdog from an ethical breeder, IMO. Same with someone who absolutely needs a dog to be good with cats or rabbits.

I know a couple of people who adopted dogs that turned out to have Big Honkin' Issues - have to be boarded if any visitors come over, can't be around cats ever, can't be around kids ever, all sorts of expensive health issues - that only affluent empty-nesters who love dogs and are committed, can deal with. The day when Henry Huggins could just bring Ribsy home willy-nilly are gone, at least around here. Ironically, responsible dog owners, who neuter, confine, train and love their dogs, have brought this on. I know it's different in the South and in areas where neutering and leashing are rarer and dog ownership is more casual.

With cats, it's different. There aren't the size and temperament variations in cats that there are in dogs (a cat the size of a Great Dane is a mountain lion, not a house pet!), so finding a shelter or rescue cat with a sweet temperament is so much easier. There are people who get specific breeds because of allergies or they like the way a particular breed looks. And, at least in my experience, Bengal rescues are kept in existence by people who get a Bengal because they are gorgeous cats with wildcat ancestry but don't have a clue as to how high-energy these cats can be! And, again, around here, even people who don't confine their cats indoors or to a sheltered "catio" enclosure at least neuter and microchip them, so even "kitten season" is starting to slow down.

Maybe not now, but in another fifty years or so, responsible ownership will probably mean a dearth of mixed-breed dogs, and maybe cats, to adopt at shelters, so people who want pets will have to go to breeders. I've already seen things really, really improve in the past 30 years, when "no kill" was quixotic, not mainstream.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:41 AM on April 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


I absolutely agree that many non-working dog breeds, especially those bred for extreme, misery-inducing physical type above all other factors, really don’t need to be continued. However, it’s also true that there are purebred companion breeds and breeders who do select aggressively for people-friendly behavior and health, prioritizing it as much as or even above appearance. I judge people big-time who only want a dog that look a certain way. I’m a lot more sympathetic to people who really don’t have the resources or the situation to deal with a large dog or a dog with behavioral issues or aggression or even just a lot of intensity. As shelter dog populations decline, that’s a niche that could be filled by responsible, small-time breeders of healthy companion dogs with chill personalities.

What I’d like to see is companion dog breeders who shoot for more of a “type” than a “breed,” without the closed studbook-forced inbreeding or beauty-pageant standards that cause so many of the genetic problems purebred dogs face today. (This is how a number of non-AKC working dog breeds function today, like English shepherds). Breeders would select for dogs with nice personalities that are healthy, don’t carry genetic diseases, are easy to live with and are mostly the same size, leaving everything else as a secondary consideration. That’s how the creation of dog breed types or land-races mostly worked (excluding genetic testing, obviously) before the 19th century explosion in doggie beauty pageants. And of course, like all good breeders, these Perfectly Cromulent Companion Dog breeders would have a rock-solid contract that guaranteed they’d take the dog back if the new owner couldn’t keep it.

Though, we’re still going to have to do a lot more work convincing people that no, they do not need a field-trial bred Labrador or a border collie from a working farm because it sounds cooler to have a dog like than then to own “a pleasant, medium-sized, and undemanding companion dog that is not overly smart, is good with children, and sleeps a lot.” Which is what the vast majority of people actually want, whether they find that dog at the shelter or from a breeder.

PS: If you’re at all interested in the ongoing battle for better health in purebred dogs, the Pedigree Dogs Exposed blog is always worth a look.
posted by faineg at 11:47 AM on April 12, 2018 [19 favorites]


For the past few years I've been fostering for a local rescue in Ireland, and all of the dogs apart from 2 have gone to rescues in Sweden because we don't have homes here in, but there are homes crying out for dogs in Sweden.
That is what rescues should be spending money on, not buying dogs from breeders and encouraging the production of yet more puppies. But then again, isn't it hard to abandon a life to the misery of a puppy mill? I know that is the argument used by some rescues who buy dogs here in Ireland, although I've never heard of them spending more than 3/4 hundred. Which is still too much, imo.

The 2 exceptions were 1 that was elderly & in such bad condition we adopted her for her final few months, and a King Charles Spaniel that my parents adopted.
posted by Fence at 11:59 AM on April 12, 2018


I can't read the article as I am drunk. (Because it's bathroom-cleaning-Thursday.) But I will say that spending 10k on a dog when there are, literally, countless dogs in need of homes, is bizarre behavior.

Also, my dog, Shakedown, is not just the greatest rescue dog of all time, but the greatest dog. Born on a First Nations reserve in Northern Quebec, she's survived two litters, full-blown heart-worm ("Worst case I've ever seen." -- Heartworm expert in Louisiana) and a bullet (still inside her), presumably dispensed for "population control".

She's the best part of my life and each morning 10km walk with her is the best part of each day.
posted by dobbs at 12:23 PM on April 12, 2018 [18 favorites]


Okay, but here is a question I have: driving ~2 hours out of town to meet a dog requires a few special circumstances, and how do people mitigate those?

I mean, do breeders do home visits? I know rescue orgs that will bend over backwards to get dogs to good homes but, at least I'd imagined, people have to go to breeders when they want to buy a 2018 model in their favorite color.

That the dog is a good personality/temperament match for your family

Any rescue org has likely been fostering the dog in question for long enough to tell you what they've observed as well as what sort of situation the dog came from. The breeder can, obviously, tell you the same about their dogs so this one is a wash I guess?

That the small, young dog is still at the shelter by the time you're able to make the trip

I mean, you're replying to a person who cited a listing of multiple tens (maybe even hundreds) of dogs that meet the following criteria "Young" or "Puppy" and also "Small". If someone is so pressed for time that they are unable to stand up to the, I posit remote, possibility that the fostered/rescued dog they are going visit may be gone in the time it takes to go from their home anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours away then... maybe that person doesn't have time to own a dog in the first place? I'm not trying to be snide here, I just honestly don't get this sort of thinking.

That you can make the trip at all

I get this. This is absolutely fair. I bet enough legwork to folks looking to find good homes would yield results whereby you might have someone, perhaps for a donation or the cost of gas or what not, bring a dog to you for a meet and greet and, hopefully, subsequent adoption.

My local rescue organizations have almost exclusively ___. my spouse and my elderly chihuahua require ___. I personally require ___ because I want ___. We just had____, and we really don't want ______. It was bad for all of us, including/especially the dog. So we might have to go out of town to find our young/small dog, and I have no idea how to get my head around that.

Emphasis and editing mine, obviously. So, first off, I also find it really odd to contemplate having to go out of town to save a dog's life. Not because it's unthinkable but because the rescue situation here is obviously different than what you're seeing. I don't doubt that. I do think that going out of town to save an animals life is a noble and worthy cause that avoids the moral minefield of buying a dog from somewhere and, in that regard, is not hard for me to wrap my head around.

All your requirements are certainly valid, I just, and this bears repeating, like to think that there's a dog out there that can meet your needs and would love to meet you and yours all that it will take is time and/or effort, otherwise you'll never meet and that dog is going to be the worse off from (at best) missing out on, what is obviously, a loving home or (at worst) is going to meet it's death at the hands of a vet tasked with doing the necessary evil.
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:34 PM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Bit of a derail goig back to RolandOfEld's first comment: I come from a background that included a father and grandfather that owned a small pack of hunting dogs (though we never bred ourselves because we knew that was beyond our purview/skill)

Mine too, but we found the breeding generally would happen on its own when allowed.
Unless you were actually talking about breeding yourselves, in which case, I really don't know what to say.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 12:35 PM on April 12, 2018


but we found the breeding generally would happen on its own when allowed.

It certainly would. That's why we/they utilized hot-boxes. Those are literally (comfortable, because we made them ourselves) kennels on 3 foot stilts and totally isolated from other dogs that bitches in heat would be put into until they were no longer in heat. We even had several of our dogs fixed which, at least in AKC registered hunting dog circles we ran on the fringes of, is practically unheard of.

Unless you were actually talking about breeding yourselves

*insert Alabama joke here I suppose* ... not sure I get you, but I am the fruit of each of their loins if you get right down to it. *shrug*
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:39 PM on April 12, 2018


They have great PR, I guess. So I'm wary of the claims of some rescue workers and fosters, and would prefer not to take someone at their word before committing to a lot of time and emotion for a dog.

It sounds like you had a shitty experience and no one deserves that. I do not, however, see how a breeder would be inherently safer or somehow better than what you've already been through. A dog is a dice roll to a certain extent and I retain a pretty solid trust in rescue orgs as opposed to dog sellers, be they commercial or small scale because (and this is kinda the whole point) while you may get a good dog from a breeder... how can I say this, here goes:

One time dad and I asked a hunter friend of ours, who did breed his dogs, how his dogs were so good and he never had bad/low skill dogs, even among o es he sold to others. He replied "oh I have bad dogs." And he pointed to a hill behind his house. "That there hill is full of them.".

And that's the point. For a breeder to continue to perpetuate a good line or the betterment of the breed or, to a lesser degree, only sell good dogs, they are having to cull dogs from their litters. Where do those dogs go? To an acution? To suffering and pain? To witless dog buyers who won't know the pup has joint or jaw issues til he's months older? Facts of life., That's how dog breeds exist/survive, on the graves of unsatisfactory dogs.
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:08 PM on April 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


I think good breeders would spay or neuter an unsatisfactory puppy and sell it as a pet.
posted by Anne Neville at 1:29 PM on April 12, 2018


One would think (potentialy NSFL link regarding Crufts dog show winning, and supposedly "good" breeder).

Too bad there's nothing keeping folks from taking the less scrupulous and more profitable route so, again, it's all down to trust.
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:36 PM on April 12, 2018


Okay, but here is a question I have: driving ~2 hours out of town to meet a dog requires a few special circumstances, and how do people mitigate those? Namely:

- That the dog is a good personality/temperament match for your family
- That the small, young dog is still at the shelter by the time you're able to make the trip
- That you can make the trip at all


My dog came from a shelter 90 minutes away, out of state. It was a risk, and there was actually a hold on her by the time we got there. She wasn't young at five years old, to be fair, but she is a purebred cocker spaniel, so I think balances out. We think she was abandoned when she got too old to breed and she was severely underweight when she was caught, so she had been living rough for a while. As such, she was listed as "very scared." Anyway, I was on the floor sitting on my ankles when they brought her in to meet us, and I patted my lap and said "hug?" Zelda stopped shaking, ran over and leapt onto my lap, putting her front paws on my chest. We had found each other. After an agonizing two hour wait around that town, we returned to the shelter to be told that the first woman decided she couldn't adopt my dog after all.

Zelda still gives me hugs every day.

Yeah, I had the means to spend a Saturday in Springfield, and to go back the following week to actually get her once she had been spayed. But we do have a dog shortage in New England, so it's not uncommon to travel some ways to rescue a dog. I know people who have adopted dogs without meeting them first because they've been part of a rescue from a kill shelter in Alabama. That's risky, imo.
posted by Ruki at 1:40 PM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


So, in theory, I'm with everyone who has voiced the idea that breed shouldn't matter, only temperament (and size and whatever) should. I agree that, for the most part, our modern idea of breeds is shortsighted and historically inaccurate and destructive. I make a point of not asking friends or strangers about the breed of their dog, and I encourage friends to adopt breed-agnostically.

And yet. I understand that other people will continue to think of dogs in terms of breeds - many of them wonderful guardians who will enrich their dogs' lives tremendously (and vice versa). Banning the worst abuses of breeding would do a lot to reduce the harm inadvertently done by these folks. There's just this appetite for breeds that will be a lot harder to quash than simply quashing practices like restricting dogs' space or taking them away from their mothers too young or allowing them to be bred without health clearances or denying them proper veterinary care or selling dogs into completely unverified homes. In a world where puppy mills exist, I have trouble getting too het up about responsible breeders - au contraire, I'm glad they're an option for breed-motivated folks.

And also, I may patronize a responsible breeder someday. My rescue experience was poor. I inquired about a specific dog because most of their dogs live in foster homes, so I couldn't just go in and meet them all, and I guessed from his description and the typical characteristics of his breed makeup that he might be a good fit. Despite their in-depth description of him, what they didn't tell me is that they hadn't had him very long, he was still pretty shut down, and they did not have as good an idea of what his personality was actually like as they thought they did. It turns out that his needs were a very poor fit for my lifestyle and everything I'd explicitly described wanting. But, I didn't trust them to rehome him more responsibly (I was childless and worked from home full time - if I couldn't handle his challenges, few people could) so I kept him and tried to adapt my life to his needs instead. Going back, there are many things I'd do differently (particularly during that rushed decision/commitment process), but it is what it is.

It has been a very hard couple of years. We're doing okay these days, but I couldn't go through it again - if I ever have another dog, I'm probably going to adopt a puppy so that I know I'm in control of the socialization period. I know there are plenty of well-socialized rescue dogs, including my wonderful childhood dog, but I just can't. And the idea of adopting a puppy, probably having no idea about their paternity and not knowing how big they will get or what their personality is likely to be like, scares me a little. So I may (may!) get a dog from a very responsible breeder (meeting the parent dogs, full health tests, lifetime support, very limited number of litters, the whole deal) instead. I am confident that I am not a monster or a dog abuser for wanting that.

Rescue work is a tough set of ethical decisions. Are stringent requirements for adopters ethical or limiting? Should rescues be prepared to pay money in exchange for dogs that need them? Should they accept owner surrenders? None of those have easy answers, as I see it, and I respect the work immensely but it simply isn't black and white.
posted by mosst at 1:53 PM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've already seen things really, really improve in the past 30 years, when "no kill" was quixotic, not mainstream.

"No kill" can create its own perverse incentives. Our local Humane Society is now no-kill, and a friend who is a professional dog trainer was recently called for help with a dog with a serious biting problem. This dog had such serious aggression issues that, in her opinion, the only option for it was to be put down, and she was appalled that the HS had adopted it to a family with small children. She recommended the family return in, and they did.

About a week later, she got another call from a client dealing with aggression issues. It was the same dog. She made the same recommendation.

Not long after, she saw the dog for a third time, at an adoption event at a local pet store.

Someone up-thread commented that rescue organizations and breeders should both be able to tell people about the temperament of the animals in their care, but they will have reasons to sometimes be less than perfectly honest in the interest of placing an animal, or, in some cases, in the interest of providing a highly-sought-after animal. The dog with aggression problems, for instance, was a purebred German Shepherd--the shelter might have made a different decision if it had been a pit mix.
posted by Orlop at 1:55 PM on April 12, 2018 [8 favorites]


I would always prefer to rescue, and I don't doubt breeders like that exist, just as I don't doubt that there are sketchy rescues. However, it should not be that way. A responsible breeder chooses the best of their breeding to continue, and finds and carefully checks homes for the rest of the puppies. Those puppies are sold with a contract stipulating that in case of rehoming, the dog must be returned to them, and that doesn't allow the owner to breed from them without consulting the original breeder first, with conditions such as (generally) working or conformation titles. For a puppy from a responsible breeder, you can expect a lengthy questioning session and extensive home checking, and often a long journey and a long time on a waiting list. The breeder will be there to support that dog throughout its life with advice.

I used to be very hard-line against dog breeders but I was wrong. There are some who deserve support, who are trying hard to improve health and lifespan. They are not necessarily the biggest show winners. I'd like to see the big dog shows like Crufts or Westminster give much greater focus to breeders that can prove that they place the welfare of all the dogs they have bred first, with prestigious awards for longevity and other incentives such as service dogs or highest proportion passing KC Good Citizen tests for instance, rather than for looks.

Plus much greater regulation of any kind of breeding, that goes without saying. Auctions! I'm still shocked by that :(
posted by tardigrade at 1:58 PM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Okay, but if I go on Petfinder.com and search for small, baby/young dogs within 100 miles of Buffalo, there are 3 pages of results - no pitbulls among them. And that's not counting medium-sized non-pit dogs, nor adult small/medium dogs.

This is true where I am as well, that there are more dogs available on Petfinder than in the local shelters. I don't trust the small rescues that offer most of these dogs where I am. We got a dog from a rescue last fall, because our professional dog trainer friend saw it and thought it would be a good fit for our ten-year-old, who has been training dogs since he was four. Our new dog (who is wonderful, a very goofy greyhound mix) was in a foster home, but recently the home of the head of the rescue was raided, more than a 100 dogs retrieved from conditions of neglect and ill-health, and the owner criminally charged. The line between "rescuer" and "hoarder" is so blurry sometimes.

Of course, my concerns about mom-and-pop rescues don't really speak to whether these dogs exist and are available.
posted by Orlop at 2:06 PM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


"No kill" can create its own perverse incentives. Our local Humane Society is now no-kill, and a friend who is a professional dog trainer was recently called for help with a dog with a serious biting problem.

"No kill" does not mean no euthanization for major health or temperament issues. "No kill" means no euthanization on the basis of space or resources. I think Best Friends in Utah doesn't, or only rarely does, euthanize for temperament, but they are a fairly unique facility, and they also don't try to adopt out dogs they consider aggressive, but rather are committed to housing them for life.
posted by praemunire at 2:52 PM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


No kill" does not mean no euthanization for major health or temperament issues. "No kill" means no euthanization on the basis of space or resources. I think Best Friends in Utah doesn't, or only rarely does, euthanize for temperament, but they are a fairly unique facility, and they also don't try to adopt out dogs they consider aggressive, but rather are committed to housing them for life.

Yes, Best Friends is a sanctuary as well as a shelter, so it can permanently house animals that can't live with a family. It's also well-funded, so it can afford to house those animals.

I think that "no kill" is meant well - no killing for space - but some shelters take it to mean "no euthanasia, ever" and combine it with misanthropy and poor people skills ("no bad dogs, only bad owners") as well as some very deceptive marketing (misrepresenting or outright lying about a dog's health and behavior, as happened to a couple of posters above). And this is bad for adopters, bad for dogs, and bad for the image of shelters and their animals.

"Don't kill for space" is good. I hate the thought of sweet animals being put down just for lack of space or resources. But I don't think a serial biter should be adopted out, especially deceptively, and not at all to a family with kids (!). I don't think that ordinary prospective owners should be asked to take a risky gamble. For every "unicorn" adopter who has lots of money and time, no kids at home and is prepared to go the extra mile or two for a dog with baggage, there are three or four families who - for various legitimate reasons - want and need an easy dog and can't drive for hours to play "dog lottery." Nor should they be guilted and browbeaten into adopting a dog they can't handle.

I really think that all these shady rescues can exist because people have gotten much more responsible with dog ownership - they spay, neuter, leash, and microchip, so the supply of "easy" dogs and smaller dogs has been drastically curtailed. I think this is where ethical breeders, who care about the animals and not just appearances, can step in.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 3:42 PM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


This seems to me to be the inevitable outcome of the well meaning efforts to have no kill shelters and to spay and neuter all dogs adopted at shelters. Eventually there will be an over supply of pitbull crosses and a shortage of "desirable dogs," along with a shortage of homes willing to take dogs that don't fit the type they have in mind.

Myself, I was in Texas when I adopted my two purebred dogs (I wasn't looking for purebreds, and honestly I don't think I would ever adopt another purebred as they seem to have many more health issues than mixed breed dogs). I had no trouble finding non pit bull type dogs. The Pyrenees especially, since there are lots of homeless Pyrenees in Texas apparently.

My sister in Northern California, however, bought from a breeder after trying unsuccessfully to find a non pit bull type at nearby shelters. I think it really depends where you are in the country.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 3:57 PM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


It must; my mother has had rather more dogs than she wanted because they limp up to the gate, they follow her home from the cemetery, she pulls them out of the pond with the snapping-turtle problem, elderly neighbors can't take them to the nursing home, and sometimes one of the late-fall ferals* looks so sad and guilty when chased out of the pasture that it becomes a pet. (That was actually quite a good dog. Most of them have been deeply inconvenient.)
posted by clew at 4:33 PM on April 12, 2018


My rescue hound is, bless him, an idiot. He barks for attention, he's an incredible pest with visitors and he finds it almost impossible to settle down and relax in any new places or situations. None of that was apparent when I started fostering him because he was scared out of his wits, 15 pounds underweight and silent as a clam. As aggravating as he can sometimes be, he doesn't have an aggressive bone in his body and I'm a childless adult with more than enough money to throw around on doggie daycare and a trainer. I'm not sure what would have happened if I had small children in my home (not that I think Tracker would hurt a child intentionally, but he's large and rambunctious) or lacked the time and money to put into helping him become (somewhat) more civilized. The rescue org I worked with brings in dogs to DC from rural areas where there is an oversupply of hounds. They do great work, but rescuing is always a bit of a crapshoot and I can't entirely blame people who want a little more control or knowledge of what they're getting into.
posted by fancypants at 4:36 PM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Lord--of course you've never had trouble finding non-pit-like dogs to adopt all over the South, Roland, you're in the south! (Like me, for that matter: my dog Tribble is one of those questionable "maybe pit, maybe not" mixes; I suspect she's actually a Boston Terrier cross, but it's impossible to tell. She's got enough plausible deniability to live in an apartment, anyway.) I got her for $25 in a local municipal animal control, which didn't cover her spay or anything but seemed reasonable enough. If I hadn't done so, I know for an actual fact that she would have been euthanized, because I had to fax my application adoption in sight unseen on Euthanasia Day at that shelter.

If I look at that shelter today--which has vastly, I should add, improved its kill rate through the actions of a number of excellent photography volunteers who make sure the dogs are advertised before their seven-day holds run out--I see a number of dogs who look like they're in the same plausible-deniability pit mix category as Tribble is, and maybe five or six who are Definitely Not Pits including not one but two small dogs. There are maybe ten or eleven Definitely Pits without enough plausible deniability to work living anywhere your landlords have issues. So if you want a small dog (here defined as: under 30 lbs), you're going to have to sort through a lot of dogs to get what you want. This isn't always a matter of personal preference; sometimes it's a matter of renting, as it was when I adopted my dog.

That's in the South. Those ratios look about the same as they do in my current city, although the numbers are bigger--easily half to three quarters of the dogs are pits or pit mixes of dubious levels of "questionability", which is rough because "pit mix" describes basically every roughly blocky-faced dog that is either fat or has no body fat, has short hair, weighs between 30 and 80 pounds and isn't solid yellow or solid black, and there's a whole lot of dogs of all breeds that match those descriptions. It can be awfully hard to tell a Lab mix from a pit mix even with experience. So even if you are in the South, you have to look much harder for a dog that is adoptable if you cannot handle or do not want a pit type dog. I like many pit type dogs: the category is super broad and includes many types I enjoy, especially smaller, more athletic dogs. But they do not fit all needs, and they cannot be all things to all people, and besides all that many people live in housing situations that specifically ban them.

Now. Not everyone lives in the South, which is why it is common practice for rescues in Northern cities in the US and North America to literally send rescue caravans to take Southern overproduced dogs and adopt them up north. This brings its own problems, and especially tends to lead to removing most of the non-pit dogs from the rural South and creating pipelines of these dogs up north alongside a number of transmissible diseases, but it's certainly better than this buying animals at auction idiocy.

These will basically all be private rescues of the sort people here have described, which may or may not be all that ethical when you get down to brass tacks. They may or may not also be completely bugfuck nuts in their level of demand for control over the lives of the animals in their rescue; for example, I have encountered multiple rescues that refuse to sign legal ownership of animals you're adopting over to you, and that wish to be able to repossess your dog at any time if you don't meet their standards of care. Even if they have sensible restrictions, if you're reduced to driving 200 miles for a dog, a rescue that requires home checks may not be able to follow up with you. If you don't have a fenced yard, well, you'd be surprised at how many people are screened out by that bullshit.

Bluntly, having also done a little bit of cat rescue, there's a reason this is all dog people and not cat people: it's a two-forked culture shift. Dog people have firmly won the culture war of "is it acceptable to let my potentially intact pet wander loose in the neighborhood unsupervised" nationwide, which is not the case for cat owners; and for two, feral dogs do not either exist in the sheer volume as feral cats nor do they yield adoptable puppies. We will never run out of cats because we are not, as a nation, committed to eradicating feral cat populations or colonies, and TNR can only do so much. Besides which, cats are relatively non-variable as compared to dogs, and cat people are nowhere near the sophistication of dog people when it comes to seeking and marketing animals to families based on personality. I have twice been in the position of looking for a cat to adopt to fill a specific temperament void in my house, without giving a shit about age, sex or color--and those are the things most shelters adopting cats out focus on. It's frankly rather irritating.

My next dog will almost certainly have a number of very specific requirements, in part because my partner will need them for potential service work, and will probably also need to be a puppy because my dog is a little bit dog selective and does much better with puppies. This means I'm resigned to looking for a responsible breeder, which to me means someone who produces animals that meet the following criteria:

a) demonstrated focus on producing long-lived, healthy animals with good quality of life and good temperament, with these goals prioritized higher than or as highly than anything else in the breeding program
b) producing only animals for which demand exists, ensuring that the puppies they breed will remain valuable enough to be treated well and taken care of,
c) providing good quality of life for all intact breeding animals, including enough social and physical stimulation to be able to predict their response to a wide variety of households,
d) some evidence to convince me their dogs actually meet my standards for a sane and easy to live with animal. You may laugh at me for that, but that's something that not a few sport and working breeders, especially those that focus on titling, do not focus on producing an animal that an average pet owner would want to live with. I would not want to live with your average well-titled field line Lab, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to learn to hunt using one, either. I would not want to first try agility with a Sporter Collie that learns very quickly and has very high drive and a relatively low frustration tolerance. I have lived with a working-bred Jack Russell Terrier, and while I loved her to bits my spouse would murder me if I brought home one now.

Look, unless you're willing to say that we shouldn't have dogs in our lives, eventually we are going to beat the pet overpopulation problem. If pits and pit mixes are not a good choice for you, and because of widespread stigma they aren't a good choice for many people, especially working-class people who are more likely to rent... well, then you're going to have to grapple with a question. If we are to have dogs, and there aren't any people producing dogs that aren't wanted in enough quantities to satisfy all the people who want to have a dog, where should they come from?

We are already confronting this problem in many parts of the US. I hear it's the current state of things in several FCI countries, too. I am totally unsurprised to see that rescues in the US are resorting to buying from mill auctions, including buying puppies; I have also seen rescues in the US import street dogs from other nations and from Puerto Rico as well as the many rescues in the US who import dogs who are genuinely at risk of shelter euthanasia from elsewhere in the nation.

Are these more or less ethical than deliberately seeking out and purchasing a dog who has been produced by a specific person whose breeding policies and programs you like? Bear in mind, also, importing dogs does not come without costs--as I said, rescue caravans have demonstrably increased the incidence of certain canine diseases, especially heartworm, in certain parts of the US--and that it's not unreasonable to weigh these in when you consider where your dog comes from.

How can we be ethical pet owners without confronting these questions head on? How can it be ethical to paper the origin of our pets with condemnations, and insist that we will only adopt animals from the very situations we decry? What is a long-term, sustainable best case scenario for pet ownership?
posted by sciatrix at 5:20 PM on April 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


It sounds like the enumerated problem lies more with the practices of the convoy rescue orgs you cite, which I don't at all doubt or deny, with regards to reasonably sourcing homes than it does with anything else. And it sounds like you have a working dog need, a la your mention of a service dog task/future, so all of the discussion I've been laying at the feet of casual prospective pet owners is moot anyway. Plus, sure heartworm risk while en route to adoption is Not GoodTM but opposed to literal death and suffering, uh, I'm happy to weigh it but the scales of doggie justice don't balance that way for me.

Not to mention that I'm honestly confused why people in localities that have, apparently if only for puppies or some such, solved their stray/abandoned dog problem to the point of it being a non issue, would so quickly begin tacking towards breeders as the, for some reason obvious and defensible best, solution for said casual pet owners, even in the face of, well, links that show a plethora of dogs nearby as they somehow assume a breeder delivered puppy is a panacea for their needs.

Everyone in this situation can absolutely have their cake and eat it too. The only ones left out in the cold, or heat here I should say, are the pets that somehow magically appear as unadoptable, older, black haired creatures in the hands of local shelters or rescue orgs. Or the ones born to breeders who assume that selling one dog out of the litter for $600 bucks will net them a profit and the rest can be drowned in a sack from the nearest bridge, or as mentioned in my link above, in a deep freeze while still alive.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:12 PM on April 12, 2018


And, I hope you find a good breeder, I'm sure some are out there but I think most people don't actually find them. That's probably based on my specific geographic experience as well though, I admit.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:15 PM on April 12, 2018


I have a pure bred dog whose Mother was bought at an Auction in the Midwest 12 years ago. She was five years old and lived in a wire cage and bred every heat for those five years. She had a lovely temperament and produced very healthy pups. I don’t know why the breeder sold her at auction. She and each of her pups (4) sold for $500 each. The rescue that I dealt with were so throrough in their investigation of me as a potential owner that it took over six weeks to get approved to adopt. I do not begrudge them for the amount of money they made. My dog will be taken care by them for life if anything happens to me. That is worth more than money to me.

I share my story because I feel like all rescues and people who want a specific dog are getting branded as bad and awful. I feel no guilt or shame about how I acquired my dog. Trying shame people into getting dogs they don’t want doesn’t work. It causes resentment and backlash against shelters, rescue groups, and the humane treatment of pets, IMO.
posted by cairnoflore at 7:06 PM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Fargin' sheet.

I naively assumed "rescues" involved getting dogs from shelters where they'd be killed, taking them off the hands of the family that got them for the 9 year who no longer wants it, or trying to find a home for Aunt Mabel's dachsund after she passed away.

But basically there's a big subset that are resellers, but ones whose business model is to buy unethically sourced pets? A dog that is fetching $500 or $1000 on the open market is not in need of "rescue." Unless they are getting contracts that 'bad' breeders are going completely out of business they are just funding these behaviors behind a tax-exempt facade, and sucking up donor money and facebook likes while they make things worse. I'm always amazed when I find I'm not jaded and cynical enough.

The OP says the shelter population went down from 20 million to under a million since the seventies, which is awesome. A lot of rescue groups should be proud of their contributions. But:
The smaller populations of shelter dogs make it harder for some rescue groups, especially those dedicated to specialty breeds, to find what adopters want. One golden retriever rescue group turned to the auctions after seeing 40 percent fewer dogs coming in as of 2016. At the auctions, such rescuers describe buying purebreds and popular crossbreeds like goldendoodles and maltipoos as “puppy mill rescue.”
I don't find this a "tough situation" or anything like that. Anyone drawing a salary from a rescue that operates this way is scamming the public to benefit their own vanity or pocketbook or both.
posted by mark k at 8:19 PM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


basically there's a big subset that are resellers

I think you are a little confused about the economics here? These rescues are not turning a profit on the dogs. I suppose any individual group could be committing any particular malfeasance, especially as there really is no oversight, but they are not generally, like, secretly fronts to funnel money to breeders, either.

I don't find this a "tough situation" or anything like that.

Then I don't think you've fully considered what's actually entailed in the situation. We're talking about, e.g., puppies who you know are going to be sold to some unscrupulous asshole who will breed them every single heat for the next four-five years and then, at best, dump them somewhere, at worst, shoot them in the head.

I see the argument that being willing to purchase such dogs actually stimulates the creation of their supply, and I think it's probably right. But when you are looking at one actual dog who you know is actually going to suffer for her brief actual life, if you don't feel a twinge, well. As a jaded and cynical person myself, "jaded and cynical" isn't the description I'd use.
posted by praemunire at 9:23 PM on April 12, 2018


I think you are a little confused about the economics here? These rescues are not turning a profit on the dogs. I suppose any individual group could be committing any particular malfeasance, especially as there really is no oversight, but they are not generally, like, secretly fronts to funnel money to breeders, either.

No, I understand the economics. If they are drawing a salary they are making a profit off the dogs. That the profit comes from donations as well as resale doesn't change that.

And yes, if they aren't being transparent about the money they are sending to breeders (and between 60 and 90 percent in the article weren't) then "secretly funneling money to breeders" is accurate.

Then I don't think you've fully considered what's actually entailed in the situation. We're talking about, e.g., puppies who you know are going to be sold to some unscrupulous asshole who will breed them every single heat for the next four-five years and then, at best, dump them somewhere, at worst, shoot them in the head.

I see the argument that being willing to purchase such dogs actually stimulates the creation of their supply, and I think it's probably right.


I'm not sure which one of us hasn't "fully considered this." The puppies are coming from "unscrupulous assholes" as well as going to them. The article is pretty clear on this. The breeding stock is still in the hands of breeders until they feel like stopping, but they now have this additional market and can make 20 to 40 percent of their profit from rescue operations.

The whole point of the retail ban in California was to stop money from flowing to puppy mill breeders. The role played by a subset of rescues is now laundering high-demand breeds from these guys back into the market, subsidized by funds from people who might otherwise be supporting hard-to-place breeds or older dogs (or supporting other charities, or for that matter supporting any business other than puppy mills.)

But when you are looking at one actual dog who you know is actually going to suffer for her brief actual life, if you don't feel a twinge, well. As a jaded and cynical person myself, "jaded and cynical" isn't the description I'd use.

Oh, sure, I feel a twinge too but at this point why go through the farce of going through a rescue? Why not just encourage people to buy directly from the puppy mills and retail stores? The net effect is still the same--that one dog has a better life--and the breeders get less money.
posted by mark k at 10:04 PM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


Not to mention that I'm honestly confused why people in localities that have, apparently if only for puppies or some such, solved their stray/abandoned dog problem to the point of it being a non issue, would so quickly begin tacking towards breeders as the, for some reason obvious and defensible best, solution for said casual pet owners, even in the face of, well, links that show a plethora of dogs nearby as they somehow assume a breeder delivered puppy is a panacea for their needs.

I got curious, so I took a cursory glance at the adoptable dogs pages of some of the larger shelters in the larger East Coast cities -- Boston, NYC, Baltimore. Literally every pictured dog available at more than one of these shelters was an obvious pit or pit-mix. Commenters above above have covered why non-pit dogs tend to get snapped up quickly. Thanks to successful efforts at spay/neuter programs in urban areas, there are far fewer puppies around -- few shelters I looked at had any. Pit bulls are more likely than many other breeds to have large litters -- 10+ is not uncommon -- so as 'oops' litters become less common, when they do happen, they frequently mean even more pit bulls.

The one shelter which did seem to have a fair number of non-pits available was in Boston; the dogs that weren't pits or pit-mixes were all either imported from shelters in North Carolina or clearly advertised as rescues with serious behavioural issues. There is no 'plethora' of dogs 'nearby,' I would assume, if shelters are going so far afield for rescue dogs themselves. And the shelters, apparently, have transport; many people who live in an urban area may not own a car. So, for a fair number of people living in major urban areas, it looks like it's pit bulls, breeders, or nothing, and again, as covered above, many people simply can't adopt a pit or a pit-mix.
posted by halation at 9:26 AM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


Boston, NYC, Baltimore. Literally every pictured dog available at more than one of these shelters was an obvious pit or pit-mix

I'm not the first to reference petfinder in a citation of how this seems to be an unfair characterization of the situation but why not:

Boston Petfinder (and yes, some of these were imported from other areas for adoption but, as long as it's not a case where the rescue is buying dogs from breeders to dole out elsewhere I don't see the problem with that) link that shows lots of dogs that meet various descriptors. Including small puppies.

NYC petfinder link (page 1/240). Not all pits.

Baltimore Petfinder for puppies even.

Maybe shelters are short on this or that dog but acting as if there's no population out there that, apparently, needs homes is... confusing to me.

many people simply can't adopt a pit or a pit-mix.

No one is trying to make them. There are dogs out there in the places you enumerated that fit a myriad of needs, perhaps not every single one, but far more than the picture you are trying to paint where it's all pits, pits, and old wore out, special needs dogs. I honestly, for serious, don't understand why there's such a quickness to throw up hands and say "whelp no dogs, gotta go buy one from a breeder" despite, what appears to be, plenty of evidence to the contrary for many, many, many, many variations of ages, sizes, temperaments, and hair/fur types/colors.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:24 AM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


I took a cursory glance at the adoptable dogs pages of some of the larger shelters in the larger East Coast cities -- Boston, NYC, Baltimore. Literally every pictured dog available at more than one of these shelters was an obvious pit or pit-mix

And, let's be brutally honest, you're either being disingenous or moving the goal post here beyond what you actually typed. Or your cursory glance sucked. Because... I mean... none of these shelter links from the cities you name contain just pits, lots of older dogs sure, but that's not what you said.

That's like less than 5 minutes of searching, just grabbing the one or two shelter links in just two of the cities you mentioned. It included a litter of cute non pit puppies that had like 6 pups, Siberian huskies, German Shepards, Walkers, Bassets, Terrier (small) mixes out the wazoo, Lasa Opsa (spelling?), Pomeranian, Chihuahuas, Labs, Beagles, and a ton of mixes that wouldn't end up huge nor large, medium or smalls were there, lots of larges too if that's your thing.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:44 AM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've wanted to adopt a shelter dog my entire life, but as I finally near a time in my life when I'm able to do so, I'm discovering that shelter dogs here are almost nonexistent. Our humane society, for a city of a million people, currently has 6 pages of cats listed for adoption and 3 dogs - not 3 pages, 3 animals - one of them with adoption pending. And so far, everyone I know who has managed to obtain one of these rare gems has ended up with severe, life-altering behaviour issues, like they can't leave it alone for 5 minutes or it goes crazy barking/hurting itself, or it constantly tries to bite everyone within reach. It seems like "normal" dogs are snapped up so fast they may as well not exist.

I had been seriously considering the breed rescues as an alternative so it's very disappointing (but helpful) to learn about the appalling behaviour described here, and that it's often not disclosed. I would like to find out how common this is, and how we can find out about it if it's commonly hidden.

I always thought it was dumb to pay thousands for a designer dog, and would prefer a mixed breed for health reasons anyway, and would prefer not to support anyone contributing to creating so many inbred, unhealthy dogs, but around here your options for dogs are very, very limited aside from standard breeders if you aren't willing or able to deal with high maintenance, difficult dogs.

I wonder if there will ever be breeders that responsibly generate pet dogs by focusing on health and temperament while ignoring or even purposefully mixing breeds. Maybe that exists already (beyond designer crosses), or maybe people are too attached to purebreds to support such a thing, but I would. In the meantime, finding a responsible breeder is starting to look like the best option, even if I'd truly rather have a mutt.
posted by randomnity at 11:00 AM on April 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


There are dogs out there in the places you enumerated that fit a myriad of needs, perhaps not every single one, but far more than the picture you are trying to paint where it's all pits, pits, and old wore out, special needs dogs. I honestly, for serious, don't understand why there's such a quickness to throw up hands and say "whelp no dogs, gotta go buy one from a breeder" despite, what appears to be, plenty of evidence to the contrary for many, many, many, many variations of ages, sizes, temperaments, and hair/fur types/colors.

It's not quite that simple. Here's what I found/sensed: at least with some city rescues, what they have is a LOT of pits and pit mixes, and a much smaller number of other dogs. The other dogs are, for lack of a less gross term, more in demand for a variety of reasons. They are the most desired. So they are all given to what the rescue considers the "best" adopters, which almost exclusively means (1) you are at home all day and (2) you have a large, fenced yard. So yes, those dogs exist. But if they don't think dogs should live in apartments or don't think they should be alone during the day (totally their call; they're responsible for the dog), they will never, never get to you on the list of people who can get approved to adopt the "in demand" dogs. You will fall down the list endlessly and never get to adopt if you're not interested in adopting (1) a pit or pit mix or (2) a senior/special needs dog. So the fact that you can see the dog on Petfinder does not mean you will have the opportunity to adopt that dog.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 11:03 AM on April 13, 2018 [6 favorites]


I worked and am still vaguely connected with a local rescue that is mostly one woman's passion project. She is connected with high-kill shelters in the south, where there is a plethora of larger scenthounds and transports them here to Nebraska for adoption. The fact that she's not fussy about hound mixes (we had a litter of extraordinarily cute bloodhound/lab mixes) and the large hound population in the south that are frequently dumped after hunting season is over means that the idea of running out of dogs is laughable. It's why I was genuinely shocked by the article. The bigger problem is getting her to say no to dogs that are difficult to place because of their high energy, ability to eat a lot of butter off the counter, have a great wish to eat a cat, or are simply too big for most apartments to accept. So a lot of great dogs will get adopted, and then she'll end up keeping the bloodhound that adores her but hates all other women, or the we-thought-he-was-a-hound but is actually some kind of sharpei pit mix who loves everything and everyone as long as you don't touch his collar. As of this moment she has eight dogs of her own and had to move out to an acreage to house everybody.

If we only did cute little dogs (like the local rescue called something like Small White Dog) we would have an easier time finding foster homes and adopters because there are so many more people who want those. And once you get to high cachet dogs like Frenchies and Cavies, things get crazy. (I don't want to blame Instagram but I kind of do but I also coo over the same photos, so.) So I guess I can see some rescue falling into this weird trap due to lots of donations of money (which we don't have, alas), high cachet dogs who will get placed quickly, and an overactive drive to save every dog they see, which I can understand even if it's counterproductive.

I did get to foster and then adopt my lovely little slightly neurotic Kiki from them, and occasionally we bump into former fosters of mine like Elvis or Darla at the park, so it's all been worthwhile.
posted by PussKillian at 11:36 AM on April 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


There's a lot of mental gymnastics going on here to justify buying from breeders because of perceived problems with the available shelter dogs. People don't have a right to a dog. Maybe if they don't have a yard or adequate time to walk it, have 4 kids under age 5, don't have a car (how are you going to take it to the vet or kennel if you go on vacation?), live in a place with rental restrictions, etc they should a. wait for an appropriate adoptable dog for their circumstance or b. not get a dog. Noone needs to feed into the myriad of ethical issues with purebred and designer cross breeding whether from the breeder directly or from a "rescue" buying at auctions just because they want (not need) a dog.
posted by WeekendJen at 11:45 AM on April 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


Someone in the too-many-dogs region should pair up with B&Bs and organize "meet your dog" vacations.
posted by clew at 11:45 AM on April 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


RolandOfEld, I tried to click through on the sites that popped up first when I typed in really generic search terms for dog adoptions in those metro areas. I was curious about the experience an average person might have in looking to adopt a dog, because I was wondering about the very common perception that most dogs available in shelters are pit or pit-mixes. It's not literally *every* dog, but it is a very high percentage of available dogs, and I think you seem to be discounting the effect that has on people looking to adopt. When I say 'it looks like it's pit bulls or breeders or nothing,' that's what I mean -- it's really easy to get that impression. If people go to two or three shelters or shelter websites, they're going to feel like they did look around without having luck. They might be wrong, and the perfect dog for them might indeed be out there somewhere, but they're not unreasonable people if they start getting the impression that this method isn't going to work well.

It's true that there are some non-pit mixes. But some of the adoptable dogs you link, while probably lovely, are older, as you acknowledge. And some of them have known chronic health issues. And some of the organisations you link do not have a very transparent process -- if I'm interested in one of these pets, I have to fill out an 'interest survey,' which doesn't even explain the adoption process or requirements, and wait to hear back. How long will I wait? No indication given. Or there's a process where I have a 'conversation' with someone and they decide if I can be offered a chance to adopt a dog -- there are reasons people might feel nervous about that kind of process. And how do they decide? Is the process a transparent one, or is it about the shelter employee's general feelings and vibe?

I'm also really uncomfortable with the idea that people who don't own a car and a home with a yard somehow don't deserve to have a dog. Many of the smaller rescues that do offer 'more desireable' dogs have such stringent requirements. You don't need a car to own a dog, that's ridiculous. If you need to, you ask a friend or family member for a ride, or you take a taxi, or you take public transit, or, heck, if you live in an urban neighbourhood, you walk your dog to the vet.

Some smaller rescues, in my experience, also have weird and probably-unenforceable language in their adoption contracts, and I kind of don't blame people for not wanting to deal with that. They may have animals' best interests at heart, but agreeing to give access to my home in perpetuity to some random rescue employee so they can take my pet back if they decide I should no longer have the pet... No. No, thank you.

None of this is to argue against adopting dogs! But the reasons people go to breeders aren't as simple as 'oh they're horrible consumerist monsters who don't care about animals,' or whatever. And many of them may be coming from areas that really truly have very few adoptable dogs.
posted by halation at 12:11 PM on April 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


Someone in the too-many-dogs region should pair up with B&Bs and organize "meet your dog" vacations.

Potcake Place does something like that with puppies born to stray dogs in Turks & Caicos (visitors can even take incredible puppies to incredible beaches just to socialize them!)
posted by mosst at 12:17 PM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


People without a car can certainly get a dog. They just shouldn't use the "no car" excuse to go through a questionable breeder instead of arranging some transportation to drive 90 mins to the shelter that ends up having the right dog for you. Cause if you can't do that, then you aren't ready for the flexibilty pet life demands.
posted by WeekendJen at 1:10 PM on April 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


They just shouldn't use the "no car" excuse to go through a questionable breeder instead of arranging some transportation to drive 90 mins to the shelter that ends up having the right dog for you

Not all breeders are 'questionable' -- and previously you seemed to be arguing against anyone adopting from any breeder, full stop.

You don't know if it's 'the right dog for you' until you get there. If the dog is still available, and it is the right dog, that's great. But what if you rent a car (assuming you have a license -- lots of people in cities don't) and drive 90 minutes and the dog you wanted already found a home? Or maybe you have to have an interview with someone at the shelter who's not there that day, meaning another rental and another trip. Or maybe it's their policy for everyone to fill out a form and come back again for a second evaluation. Or maybe they have to call your landlord and references first. Or what if they require a home visit -- are they going to drive 90 minutes out to you? What if the shelter doesn't adopt to people who live out of state? Are you allowed to start considering breeders, or do you have to try another shelter, and another? And why is 90 minutes the cutoff? Is there any distance that would absolve someone of laziness, or whatever the issue here is?
posted by halation at 1:51 PM on April 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I don't think anyone in this thread has suggested that going through a questionable breeder is an acceptable option. If there are no unwanted dogs in your area* that are compatible with your family's needs, I don't see anything wrong with considering an ethical, responsible breeder.

*lol you really think the problem is being unwilling to drive 90 min? It wouldn't even be a question then (most if not all real breeders are at least 60 min away too). Dogs seem to be similarly rare in shelters everywhere I've looked within 6+ hours drive from here.
posted by randomnity at 2:04 PM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


The more of this I read, the more I am happy to be a cat person. If you are open to cats, a cat will find you.

But it is fabulous to learn how close some parts of the country are, to making every dog a wanted dog.
posted by elizilla at 2:56 PM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


people go to two or three shelters or shelter websites, they're going to feel like they did look around without having luck.

If this is where we place the bar of reasonable effort, then sure. But I posit that's a really low place to put the bar in the context of both pet ownership and moral responsibility reagarding the discussion at hand, which is to say dog populations and what that means for dogs that breeders aren't able to sell for hundreds of dollars.

Plus, your other arguments regarding how (reasonable) foster orgs ask for information about prospective adoptive owners up to and including home visits or guaranteed purchase rights in case of the person not wanting or not proper caring for a dog they are adopting out. All those things are things responsible breeders/sellers should be doing as well. Some do. So that argument basically boils down to "people who show signs of now being able to handle a Great Dane if it needs to go to a vet should still be able to own one" or 'people who have have no yard nor have plans to go to a dog park for excercise should get their Greyhound because it looks cool". Again, you are conflating bad choices with rescue orgs that, while they are sometimes crazy pants about rules and interviews, care with practices that only terrible breeders would allow in buyers.

Other people have covered the driving/mobility thing. I don't care what kind of money you pay for the best dog on the planet. If you are not able and willing to handle the equalvent of a few back to back vet trips (which could come up at any time with zero notice to any pet owner in a metro area or not) for the initial adoption process but prefer a one and done trip to a breeder/seller (which, again, I posit is poor form on both the breeder's and adopters' part) then I think that's weak sauce argument as well, as others have said.
posted by RolandOfEld at 4:31 PM on April 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


All I have to say on this topic is that if you're looking for a reputable, low-drama rescue in NYC (they pull from high-kill shelters in the South, which is imperfect but probably the best case scenario in a place like NYC), I highly recommend the one that I adopted my pupper from. Happy to share details over MeMail!
posted by Ragini at 10:30 PM on April 13, 2018


I don't think anybody is suggesting the difficulties of rescue for some people mean you should buy a puppy.

But the world of pets is often imperfect. If everyone who owned a dog had to give it its *ideal* life, even more dogs would be euthanized than already are. It is a delicate balance trying to figure out how to make a dog happy. Or happy enough.

One example: "You should be willing to take them to a dog park." Well, the rescue and my vet both said there's a lot of downside to dog parks. Dangers of other dogs, of escape, etc. Now what?

The answer is that we all do our best. We love them as much as we possibly can, we snuggle them and take them on walks and we do our best. But yes, when a rescue doesn't only want a home visit before you adopt, but wants the right to come by anytime and take the dog back for any reason or no reason, can you not understand how frightening that is to people who truly love their pets?

What I did, in the end, was work with a rescue that brings sighthounds to the United States that have little chance of being adopted where they are (because of sheer numbers). It was expensive, and I'm sure part of him wishes he ran with a pack -- as many dogs would prefer. But I love him, and I take care of him, and I do my best. And while I don't have a yard, I think he has a much happier life than he would as a street dog. We're all doing our best.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 4:28 AM on April 14, 2018 [6 favorites]


I teach in a wealthy MA town with a vehemently strong right-wing culture. Every spring, the local FB resident page has so many families asking where to procure a purebred Breed of the Year (this year it's Portuguese Water Dogs because the lore is they're hypoallergenic). Inevitably, one hippielike resident replies, "Go to a shelter! Breeders are terrible!" and gets shut down for it, and then one resident always seems to know of purebreed "rescue" operations. I always wondered how these purebreed rescues had so many puppies waiting for new homes. Now I know and this sucks.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:55 AM on April 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


Every spring, the local FB resident page has so many families asking where to procure a purebred Breed of the Year

...and the next year, the out-of-fashion dogs are...? (There were abandoned dogs going feral every fall in the ruburbanizing place i was a teen. Generally handsome but poorly trained. Everyone called them the "summer people dogs"; maybe that was optimistic.)
posted by clew at 2:36 PM on April 14, 2018


Back when I was a kid it seemed a lot simpler.
"So-and-so's dog got loose and came up pregnant. Do you want a puppy?"
"Sure I'll take one."
And they lived happily ever after.
The problem here is, as in most things, capitalism. If we can convince society to stop treating our furry companions as property, perhaps even going so far as to make buying and selling all pets illegal, that would eliminate many of the problems. Maybe it doesn't sound likely, but society has been known to make changes that were once thought impossible. Domesticated Canines have been mankind's loyal assistants for so many generations, they deserve no less than to be treated as friends, not possessions.
posted by ambulocetus at 1:07 PM on April 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


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