newmom
Member
Hello everyone, please let me introduce myself. I am in my late 20's, I have two adult cats, and I have a Bachelor's degree. All of my life I have owned cats and I am a huge animal lover. For several years I have wanted to adopt a dog as I have never owned one of my own before. My mother's dog that we had both cared for had just passed away at 16. I was totally depressed over the loss of our dog and wanted a new companion of my own.
I went to several local shelters looking for a puppy because my boyfriend said that would be best as I wanted to get a dog I could socialize to my cats (not already in the habit of chasing cats.) Mainly I wanted a Cavalier - I have wanted one for many years. None of the local shelters had any.
I started doing research online and I found a "celebrity" puppy boutique that had tons of positive/great references and even "Sharon Osborne" and her family had bought a couple of dogs and I believe at least 1 Cavalier from this company. They advertised that their dogs come from "private breeders" and are "very well cared for." I was so stupid and naive to believe this hype!
I purchased my puppy in April for $2,000. She was 3 months old at the time. As soon as she came home she got sick! First she was diagnosed with coccidia and giardia. As if that was not bad enough two weeks later she came down with pneumonia! The owner of the company I got her from reimbursed me for the parasite treatment and is in the process of reimbursing me for the pneumonia.
As you can imagine the past month that I have had her has been full of tears, regret, and eye opening awareness about the choice I made to purchase her from this company. I had absolutely NO idea that this girl was from a puppy mill. I started to suspect it though because of all her ailments. I went online and found out this company has sold sick dogs in the past! I was FLOORED that I did not research them more. How could I have been so stupid. ME the ANIMAL LOVER of all time, who ABHORS puppy mills. I NEVER would have thought this company would WITHHOLD information aka LIE and tell me no way did she come from a puppy mill!!!
Well I received her registration papers yesterday. Her parents are AKC registered but the company who sold her to me originally got her from some dealer in OKLAHOMA! A DEALER! And the breeder must have sold my pup to the dealer first and then the dealer sold her to the company I bought her from. This is EXACTLY (from what I have read) the trend of how puppies are shipped from place to place!
Needless to say I am so depressed, regretful and crying all the time over this. I cannot believe she is from a puppy mill. How could the AKC even have registered her parents? I just ordered a three generation pedigree on the parents. They both have "elite" sounding names like as if they come from a breeder who shows dogs. Also I am currently waiting to hear back from petshoppuppies.org to find more information about WHERE she came from exactly.
Please I need some kind of advice or support about how to get over this. Needless to say this has been one of the most difficult times in my life to realize I have inadvertently supported a puppy mill operation. I cannot tell you the amount of regret I live with daily. It is so hard for me even to enjoy my new puppy because she is first of all recovering from her problems, secondly because when I look at her all I can think of is puppy mills, and third I am so scared about the future health/heart problems I am VERY LIKELY to have to deal with because I have no idea what health condition her PARENTS are in!!!
Why didn't I know about all of this BEFORE I bought her? Why couldn't the puppy mill issue have been something I knew about intimately? Why did I have to go through this horrible experience to learn about what puppy mills are? Why was I such an idiot to believe some company that had SO MANY GOOD REFERENCES? Finally, how could so many people buy from pet stores not knowing what they are IN FOR with these dogs? Not knowing that their parents are treated like MACHINES and not loved and cared for like they deserve???
Even if my puppy's breeder had dogs from healthy bloodlines, how could she have sold my puppy to a DEALER and not known or CARED where she was going???
I am crying as I write this. I am so sorry to all of you breeders who do care about your dogs and where they go. I am sorry I was so stupid I did not know I could have just bought my puppy from one of you.
I went to several local shelters looking for a puppy because my boyfriend said that would be best as I wanted to get a dog I could socialize to my cats (not already in the habit of chasing cats.) Mainly I wanted a Cavalier - I have wanted one for many years. None of the local shelters had any.
I started doing research online and I found a "celebrity" puppy boutique that had tons of positive/great references and even "Sharon Osborne" and her family had bought a couple of dogs and I believe at least 1 Cavalier from this company. They advertised that their dogs come from "private breeders" and are "very well cared for." I was so stupid and naive to believe this hype!
I purchased my puppy in April for $2,000. She was 3 months old at the time. As soon as she came home she got sick! First she was diagnosed with coccidia and giardia. As if that was not bad enough two weeks later she came down with pneumonia! The owner of the company I got her from reimbursed me for the parasite treatment and is in the process of reimbursing me for the pneumonia.
As you can imagine the past month that I have had her has been full of tears, regret, and eye opening awareness about the choice I made to purchase her from this company. I had absolutely NO idea that this girl was from a puppy mill. I started to suspect it though because of all her ailments. I went online and found out this company has sold sick dogs in the past! I was FLOORED that I did not research them more. How could I have been so stupid. ME the ANIMAL LOVER of all time, who ABHORS puppy mills. I NEVER would have thought this company would WITHHOLD information aka LIE and tell me no way did she come from a puppy mill!!!
Well I received her registration papers yesterday. Her parents are AKC registered but the company who sold her to me originally got her from some dealer in OKLAHOMA! A DEALER! And the breeder must have sold my pup to the dealer first and then the dealer sold her to the company I bought her from. This is EXACTLY (from what I have read) the trend of how puppies are shipped from place to place!
Needless to say I am so depressed, regretful and crying all the time over this. I cannot believe she is from a puppy mill. How could the AKC even have registered her parents? I just ordered a three generation pedigree on the parents. They both have "elite" sounding names like as if they come from a breeder who shows dogs. Also I am currently waiting to hear back from petshoppuppies.org to find more information about WHERE she came from exactly.
Please I need some kind of advice or support about how to get over this. Needless to say this has been one of the most difficult times in my life to realize I have inadvertently supported a puppy mill operation. I cannot tell you the amount of regret I live with daily. It is so hard for me even to enjoy my new puppy because she is first of all recovering from her problems, secondly because when I look at her all I can think of is puppy mills, and third I am so scared about the future health/heart problems I am VERY LIKELY to have to deal with because I have no idea what health condition her PARENTS are in!!!
Why didn't I know about all of this BEFORE I bought her? Why couldn't the puppy mill issue have been something I knew about intimately? Why did I have to go through this horrible experience to learn about what puppy mills are? Why was I such an idiot to believe some company that had SO MANY GOOD REFERENCES? Finally, how could so many people buy from pet stores not knowing what they are IN FOR with these dogs? Not knowing that their parents are treated like MACHINES and not loved and cared for like they deserve???
Even if my puppy's breeder had dogs from healthy bloodlines, how could she have sold my puppy to a DEALER and not known or CARED where she was going???
I am crying as I write this. I am so sorry to all of you breeders who do care about your dogs and where they go. I am sorry I was so stupid I did not know I could have just bought my puppy from one of you.
