How do you know if a breeder is really a puppy mill?

[Anonymous]

I know people have really negative opinions on getting puppies from the PA Amish community. We’ve gotten three. All have been AKC registered and had medical records to prove their care and shots. All had been dewormed. None had health problems. All lived in barns and were well socialized. Our most recent was also housebroken at a really young age.

And we got cats from a rescue. The rescue was dishonest and didn’t tell us they needed to be rehomed because they didn’t use a litter box. We spent years and tons of money trying to fix this to no avail.

Despite my experience to the contrary, I’m sure there are bad Amish dog breeders and I’m sure there good and honest rescues. But you shouldn’t pay any attention to those who try to tell you one is all bad or you should try the other.

Good luck in finding your puppy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/dog-auction-rescue-groups-donations/

“An effort that animal rescuers began more than a decade ago to buy dogs for $5 or $10 apiece from commercial breeders has become a nationwide shadow market that today sees some rescuers, fueled by Internet fundraising, paying breeders $5,000 or more for a single dog.

The result is a river of rescue donations flowing from avowed dog saviors to the breeders, two groups that have long disparaged each other. The rescuers call many breeders heartless operators of inhumane “puppy mills” and work to ban the sale of their dogs in brick-and-mortar pet stores. The breeders call “retail rescuers” hypocritical dilettantes who hide behind nonprofit status while doing business as unregulated, online pet stores.

But for years, they have come together at dog auctions where no cameras are allowed, with rescuers enriching breeders and some breeders saying more puppies are being bred for sale to the rescuers.

Bidders affiliated with 86 rescue and advocacy groups and shelters throughout the United States and Canada have spent $2.68 million buying 5,761 dogs and puppies from breeders since 2009 at the nation’s two government-regulated dog auctions, both in Missouri, according to invoices, checks and other documents The Washington Post obtained from an industry insider.”

But even if a rescue is not doing this, they are shipping tons of irresponsibly bred pit and hound mix puppies, mostly, from the South all the time to be “adopted” up here. Once you’ve created a pipeline like that, what is the incentive for southern states to prevent the breeding of those puppies? Why would they make any policy changes?

At the same time, they’re telling people not to buy dogs from breeders. But they’re not articulating any sort of plan for how people should acquire pets if the southern states got their acts together. And the reputable breeders aren’t doing anything to help people find them, in fact they seem determined to make it as hard as possible.

Dp. This is so interesting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know people have really negative opinions on getting puppies from the PA Amish community. We’ve gotten three. All have been AKC registered and had medical records to prove their care and shots. All had been dewormed. None had health problems. All lived in barns and were well socialized. Our most recent was also housebroken at a really young age.

And we got cats from a rescue. The rescue was dishonest and didn’t tell us they needed to be rehomed because they didn’t use a litter box. We spent years and tons of money trying to fix this to no avail.

Despite my experience to the contrary, I’m sure there are bad Amish dog breeders and I’m sure there good and honest rescues. But you shouldn’t pay any attention to those who try to tell you one is all bad or you should try the other.

Good luck in finding your puppy.

Rescues absolutely aren't honest. Talked to a few. There are good breeder and bad ones, good rescues and bad ones. But, people saying just go to rescues isn't going to stop breeding and going to a breeder can prevent a dog from going to a rescue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know people have really negative opinions on getting puppies from the PA Amish community. We’ve gotten three. All have been AKC registered and had medical records to prove their care and shots. All had been dewormed. None had health problems. All lived in barns and were well socialized. Our most recent was also housebroken at a really young age.

And we got cats from a rescue. The rescue was dishonest and didn’t tell us they needed to be rehomed because they didn’t use a litter box. We spent years and tons of money trying to fix this to no avail.

Despite my experience to the contrary, I’m sure there are bad Amish dog breeders and I’m sure there good and honest rescues. But you shouldn’t pay any attention to those who try to tell you one is all bad or you should try the other.

Good luck in finding your puppy.

This is very informative, thank you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend’s family are Mennonite dog breeders. They have one female they breed at a time but she has a litter basically every year. The dogs do always seem well cared for, clean, live in their house with them, etc. But I don’t know how good it is to be bred that often. Or maybe that isn’t often for a purebred breeder?

It’s not.

I researched this recently. The newer advice is that it appears to be better for a female to have annual breeding for 2-3 years then retired, rather than bred 2-3 times over a 10 year period. There are studies on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know people have really negative opinions on getting puppies from the PA Amish community. We’ve gotten three. All have been AKC registered and had medical records to prove their care and shots. All had been dewormed. None had health problems. All lived in barns and were well socialized. Our most recent was also housebroken at a really young age.

And we got cats from a rescue. The rescue was dishonest and didn’t tell us they needed to be rehomed because they didn’t use a litter box. We spent years and tons of money trying to fix this to no avail.

Despite my experience to the contrary, I’m sure there are bad Amish dog breeders and I’m sure there good and honest rescues. But you shouldn’t pay any attention to those who try to tell you one is all bad or you should try the other.

Good luck in finding your puppy.

You got a full picture of where/how the puppies (and maybe their mom) lived from the time they were whelped until they were weaned and sold, but where is the mom the rest of the time? How frequently and how many times total will they breed her? How many breeding females do they own? Do they own the sire of this litter? If so, where is he? Do they have a copy of his papers? How closely related are the dam and the sire?

We used to visit an Amish farm that’s open for tours once each summer and were totally naive about all of this. No one actually lives in the house you can tour, but it is a working farm. We were delighted the first year we went because they had a litter of adorable puppies you could cuddle, out in a barn. The second year we went, hey, what a coincidence, they had a new litter of puppies that year too! The third year, they had two different breeds of puppies. Guess what? They have at least one litter of puppies at all times. The mothers of the litters are never on display, but the puppies seem like absolute perfection and they’re well socialized from being cuddled by strangers all day. Visitors don’t see anything alarming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend’s family are Mennonite dog breeders. They have one female they breed at a time but she has a litter basically every year. The dogs do always seem well cared for, clean, live in their house with them, etc. But I don’t know how good it is to be bred that often. Or maybe that isn’t often for a purebred breeder?

Walk talking to a breeder recently and he said they only breed each mom 3x. They are AKC registered I couldn’t bare to ask what happens when they can’t be bread anymore.

FWIW my grandma was a registered breeder and she only bred her female dog one or two times each, she just had 5 or 10 year gaps between litters. The moms were just family pets. But she was a hobby breeder and she always lost money on it.

This is the thing — if the animals are properly cared for, you don’t make money. Legit breeders are in it to advance the breed. That’s why there are virtually no legit doodle breeders. There is no breed standard to conform to and there is a huge market; a recipe for abuse/neglect.

Not sure this makes sense to me. Why would anyone breed dogs then? Or very few would, right? It’s a lot of work and if they’re losing money…

Have you seen Etsy? The site is at least 50% people who barely break even but love to craft so they use it to pay for those expenses and unloaded extra product.
I do think most of the breeders around here make some money — probably between 10K and 20K a year so probably less than they’d make working at Walmart FT but for less work and more enjoyable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:
Skipped...

It just makes no sense that buying from a Mennonite breeder after trying to do some due diligence, with no help from dog advocacy groups, is unethical but paying Lucky Dog to ship up a puppy someone bred in their SC backyard is virtuous.

Lucky dog doesn't pay anyone to breed dogs on their backyard, they just take puppies surrendered to local SC shelter... They also don't encourage future breeding (all dogs are either neutered before adoption have iron-clad clause for future neutering)

But buying from by provides monetary incentives to said breeders to keep going...
So sad that you can't see that difference

You don’t have to pay anyone. Dealing with their most unpleasant and inconvenient consequence for free is a clear disincentive for SC to eliminate backyard breeding. Why should anyone down there clean up the problem (which can clearly be solved, as in the northeast) when rescues will deal with all the puppies?

Dp. What is meant by ‘backyard breeding’? We got our last purebred dog (who passed recently) from a breeder who raised dogs at her home. He had papers but not any genetic tests that I recall. Best dog ever. Is that a backyard breeder?

Probably. The fact that you had the “best dog ever“ does not mean that there wasn’t any suffering involved.

PP. Huh? What suffering? It was a puppy with AKC papers from a lady who lived on 5 acres and had a handful of dogs. We went into her home, met the mother and other dogs. Should I have assumed mistreatment from this scenario? And to my family, yes, he was the “best dog ever’. Very odd you put my personal opinion in quotes as if to question it.

That sounds good to me.. that is what we did too.

There seem to be some zealots on here who assume that every dog is being mistreated

I posted up thread that I know some very nice Amish breeder dogs. You just increase your risk somewhat of things like hip displasia and blindness etc because they are not testing the parents and maybe beeeding first cousins of even siblings. You just don’t know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend’s family are Mennonite dog breeders. They have one female they breed at a time but she has a litter basically every year. The dogs do always seem well cared for, clean, live in their house with them, etc. But I don’t know how good it is to be bred that often. Or maybe that isn’t often for a purebred breeder?

Walk talking to a breeder recently and he said they only breed each mom 3x. They are AKC registered I couldn’t bare to ask what happens when they can’t be bread anymore.

FWIW my grandma was a registered breeder and she only bred her female dog one or two times each, she just had 5 or 10 year gaps between litters. The moms were just family pets. But she was a hobby breeder and she always lost money on it.

This is the thing — if the animals are properly cared for, you don’t make money. Legit breeders are in it to advance the breed. That’s why there are virtually no legit doodle breeders. There is no breed standard to conform to and there is a huge market; a recipe for abuse/neglect.

Op above. I posted above but to add again, my dh looked for more local breeders and they are charging 5 times the price. Crazy. It’s so hard to find a good breeder

They charge a lot of money because it costs a lot of money to breed healthy animals. High quality food, veterinary care, genetic testing, the list goes on – it's very expensive.

What breed are you looking for? Have you considered a breed specific rescue group?

Most people don't feed high quality food, dogs are only pregnant two months so maybe 1-2 vet appointments... they aren't genetic testing every dog. Be real.

Come on, all that stuff isn’t that much. I can get a genetic test online for 50 dollars.

Does your online test screen for diseases specifically associated with a given breed? The veterinary center at the University of Pennsylvania does this. That's where our retired show dog had her screening done.

For goldens it’s not just genetic screens. They do an MRI of each hip and there is an opthamologist eye exam to look for specific eye conditions. So I would not be surprised if each of those is a thousand dollars, although I think it only needs to be done once for each parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend’s family are Mennonite dog breeders. They have one female they breed at a time but she has a litter basically every year. The dogs do always seem well cared for, clean, live in their house with them, etc. But I don’t know how good it is to be bred that often. Or maybe that isn’t often for a purebred breeder?

Walk talking to a breeder recently and he said they only breed each mom 3x. They are AKC registered I couldn’t bare to ask what happens when they can’t be bread anymore.

FWIW my grandma was a registered breeder and she only bred her female dog one or two times each, she just had 5 or 10 year gaps between litters. The moms were just family pets. But she was a hobby breeder and she always lost money on it.

This is the thing — if the animals are properly cared for, you don’t make money. Legit breeders are in it to advance the breed. That’s why there are virtually no legit doodle breeders. There is no breed standard to conform to and there is a huge market; a recipe for abuse/neglect.

Op above. I posted above but to add again, my dh looked for more local breeders and they are charging 5 times the price. Crazy. It’s so hard to find a good breeder

They charge a lot of money because it costs a lot of money to breed healthy animals. High quality food, veterinary care, genetic testing, the list goes on – it's very expensive.

What breed are you looking for? Have you considered a breed specific rescue group?

Most people don't feed high quality food, dogs are only pregnant two months so maybe 1-2 vet appointments... they aren't genetic testing every dog. Be real.

Come on, all that stuff isn’t that much. I can get a genetic test online for 50 dollars.

Does your online test screen for diseases specifically associated with a given breed? The veterinary center at the University of Pennsylvania does this. That's where our retired show dog had her screening done.

For goldens it’s not just genetic screens. They do an MRI of each hip and there is an opthamologist eye exam to look for specific eye conditions. So I would not be surprised if each of those is a thousand dollars, although I think it only needs to be done once for each parent.

PP here and yes, same for our dog's screening.

The $50 online genetic test that PP referred to is a DNA test, not genetic screening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend’s family are Mennonite dog breeders. They have one female they breed at a time but she has a litter basically every year. The dogs do always seem well cared for, clean, live in their house with them, etc. But I don’t know how good it is to be bred that often. Or maybe that isn’t often for a purebred breeder?

Walk talking to a breeder recently and he said they only breed each mom 3x. They are AKC registered I couldn’t bare to ask what happens when they can’t be bread anymore.

FWIW my grandma was a registered breeder and she only bred her female dog one or two times each, she just had 5 or 10 year gaps between litters. The moms were just family pets. But she was a hobby breeder and she always lost money on it.

This is the thing — if the animals are properly cared for, you don’t make money. Legit breeders are in it to advance the breed. That’s why there are virtually no legit doodle breeders. There is no breed standard to conform to and there is a huge market; a recipe for abuse/neglect.

Op above. I posted above but to add again, my dh looked for more local breeders and they are charging 5 times the price. Crazy. It’s so hard to find a good breeder

They charge a lot of money because it costs a lot of money to breed healthy animals. High quality food, veterinary care, genetic testing, the list goes on – it's very expensive.

What breed are you looking for? Have you considered a breed specific rescue group?

Most people don't feed high quality food, dogs are only pregnant two months so maybe 1-2 vet appointments... they aren't genetic testing every dog. Be real.

Sorry, actually how expensive is ‘high quality’ dog food? You’re saying a breeder selling let’s say a golden retriever for $3500 each is losing money because they’ve spent more than that on dog food and tests? Really?

Let’s say they sell 6 puppies in a two year period. That’s $21,000. Our dog food for our golden is about $100 a month so that’s $2400. They need several specific tests by specialists so that’s probably at least another couple thousand. Vet care for the pregnancy probably another thousand. Many of the dogs are now IvF through a stud — no idea what that costs! I’m sure alc fees are probably a few hundred. Plus regular vet care for the dog and boarding for dog when you travel. Minimal costs of advertising and maintained a website. So this person is maybe clearing $5K year on this project, if that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend’s family are Mennonite dog breeders. They have one female they breed at a time but she has a litter basically every year. The dogs do always seem well cared for, clean, live in their house with them, etc. But I don’t know how good it is to be bred that often. Or maybe that isn’t often for a purebred breeder?

Walk talking to a breeder recently and he said they only breed each mom 3x. They are AKC registered I couldn’t bare to ask what happens when they can’t be bread anymore.

FWIW my grandma was a registered breeder and she only bred her female dog one or two times each, she just had 5 or 10 year gaps between litters. The moms were just family pets. But she was a hobby breeder and she always lost money on it.

This is the thing — if the animals are properly cared for, you don’t make money. Legit breeders are in it to advance the breed. That’s why there are virtually no legit doodle breeders. There is no breed standard to conform to and there is a huge market; a recipe for abuse/neglect.

Op above. I posted above but to add again, my dh looked for more local breeders and they are charging 5 times the price. Crazy. It’s so hard to find a good breeder

They charge a lot of money because it costs a lot of money to breed healthy animals. High quality food, veterinary care, genetic testing, the list goes on – it's very expensive.

What breed are you looking for? Have you considered a breed specific rescue group?

Most people don't feed high quality food, dogs are only pregnant two months so maybe 1-2 vet appointments... they aren't genetic testing every dog. Be real.

Sorry, actually how expensive is ‘high quality’ dog food? You’re saying a breeder selling let’s say a golden retriever for $3500 each is losing money because they’ve spent more than that on dog food and tests? Really?

Let’s say they sell 6 puppies in a two year period. That’s $21,000. Our dog food for our golden is about $100 a month so that’s $2400. They need several specific tests by specialists so that’s probably at least another couple thousand. Vet care for the pregnancy probably another thousand. Many of the dogs are now IvF through a stud — no idea what that costs! I’m sure alc fees are probably a few hundred. Plus regular vet care for the dog and boarding for dog when you travel. Minimal costs of advertising and maintained a website. So this person is maybe clearing $5K year on this project, if that.

No. Dogs are only pregnant two months. Most breeders deliver the puppies. Our dog food is no where near that much. $35 for a small bag of kibble that lasts months. Maybe $2o-30 a month max for homemade and a lot of that is cheese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/dog-auction-rescue-groups-donations/

“An effort that animal rescuers began more than a decade ago to buy dogs for $5 or $10 apiece from commercial breeders has become a nationwide shadow market that today sees some rescuers, fueled by Internet fundraising, paying breeders $5,000 or more for a single dog.

The result is a river of rescue donations flowing from avowed dog saviors to the breeders, two groups that have long disparaged each other. The rescuers call many breeders heartless operators of inhumane “puppy mills” and work to ban the sale of their dogs in brick-and-mortar pet stores. The breeders call “retail rescuers” hypocritical dilettantes who hide behind nonprofit status while doing business as unregulated, online pet stores.

But for years, they have come together at dog auctions where no cameras are allowed, with rescuers enriching breeders and some breeders saying more puppies are being bred for sale to the rescuers.

Bidders affiliated with 86 rescue and advocacy groups and shelters throughout the United States and Canada have spent $2.68 million buying 5,761 dogs and puppies from breeders since 2009 at the nation’s two government-regulated dog auctions, both in Missouri, according to invoices, checks and other documents The Washington Post obtained from an industry insider.”

But even if a rescue is not doing this, they are shipping tons of irresponsibly bred pit and hound mix puppies, mostly, from the South all the time to be “adopted” up here. Once you’ve created a pipeline like that, what is the incentive for southern states to prevent the breeding of those puppies? Why would they make any policy changes?

At the same time, they’re telling people not to buy dogs from breeders. But they’re not articulating any sort of plan for how people should acquire pets if the southern states got their acts together. And the reputable breeders aren’t doing anything to help people find them, in fact they seem determined to make it as hard as possible.

Anything more recent on the topic? Or maybe you can name any of the local rescues that part of that group of 86?

I got my wonderful dog from Lucky Dog, in recent years. They had like 20 pit mix puppies outside a petsmart and they were touting their facility in SC. And listen, I like dogs! I like rescues! But it makes no sense to me to say Amish puppies are unethical but a pipeline of pit bull puppies from SC is virtuous just because one is a business and one is a non-profit, unless the non-profit sees the 20 pitbulls outside a Petsmart as a temporary, necessary, problematic stop gap on the way to a more sustainable system to generate healthy pets. But I see no evidence that they see it that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/dog-auction-rescue-groups-donations/

“An effort that animal rescuers began more than a decade ago to buy dogs for $5 or $10 apiece from commercial breeders has become a nationwide shadow market that today sees some rescuers, fueled by Internet fundraising, paying breeders $5,000 or more for a single dog.

The result is a river of rescue donations flowing from avowed dog saviors to the breeders, two groups that have long disparaged each other. The rescuers call many breeders heartless operators of inhumane “puppy mills” and work to ban the sale of their dogs in brick-and-mortar pet stores. The breeders call “retail rescuers” hypocritical dilettantes who hide behind nonprofit status while doing business as unregulated, online pet stores.

But for years, they have come together at dog auctions where no cameras are allowed, with rescuers enriching breeders and some breeders saying more puppies are being bred for sale to the rescuers.

Bidders affiliated with 86 rescue and advocacy groups and shelters throughout the United States and Canada have spent $2.68 million buying 5,761 dogs and puppies from breeders since 2009 at the nation’s two government-regulated dog auctions, both in Missouri, according to invoices, checks and other documents The Washington Post obtained from an industry insider.”

But even if a rescue is not doing this, they are shipping tons of irresponsibly bred pit and hound mix puppies, mostly, from the South all the time to be “adopted” up here. Once you’ve created a pipeline like that, what is the incentive for southern states to prevent the breeding of those puppies? Why would they make any policy changes?

At the same time, they’re telling people not to buy dogs from breeders. But they’re not articulating any sort of plan for how people should acquire pets if the southern states got their acts together. And the reputable breeders aren’t doing anything to help people find them, in fact they seem determined to make it as hard as possible.

Anything more recent on the topic? Or maybe you can name any of the local rescues that part of that group of 86?

I got my wonderful dog from Lucky Dog, in recent years. They had like 20 pit mix puppies outside a petsmart and they were touting their facility in SC. And listen, I like dogs! I like rescues! But it makes no sense to me to say Amish puppies are unethical but a pipeline of pit bull puppies from SC is virtuous just because one is a business and one is a non-profit, unless the non-profit sees the 20 pitbulls outside a Petsmart as a temporary, necessary, problematic stop gap on the way to a more sustainable system to generate healthy pets. But I see no evidence that they see it that way.

It seems like there are just a bunch of pit bulls who haven’t been spayed or neutered. They multiply unfettered and there’s such an oversupply, there aren’t enough buyers for that many puppies. They proliferate because their owners aren’t incentivized to prevent it from happening.

However, the Amish are breeding their dogs on purpose for a profit. Both the pit bulls owners and the Amish are responsible for unethical breeding, but the Amish would stop if they weren’t turning a profit. If people didn’t buy from Amish puppy mills, there wouldn’t be any.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know people have really negative opinions on getting puppies from the PA Amish community. We’ve gotten three. All have been AKC registered and had medical records to prove their care and shots. All had been dewormed. None had health problems. All lived in barns and were well socialized. Our most recent was also housebroken at a really young age.

And we got cats from a rescue. The rescue was dishonest and didn’t tell us they needed to be rehomed because they didn’t use a litter box. We spent years and tons of money trying to fix this to no avail.

Despite my experience to the contrary, I’m sure there are bad Amish dog breeders and I’m sure there good and honest rescues. But you shouldn’t pay any attention to those who try to tell you one is all bad or you should try the other.

Good luck in finding your puppy.

+1
We have also had good experiences with Amish breeders. In total my family bought 5 and all have were healthy and lived long lives, 0 complications. Our current dogs are from a breed specific "rescue" where we paid close to $900 each, more than we did to the Amish.