Jana Kohl may be on a mission, but her mission is NOT to put pet stores out of business. (see Defend the Dogs rally post for more information on Jana) She says no one wants to see any business suffer. So, she has a proposal for all those stores that make their money selling dogs and cats: Go Humane. Only offer animals from shelters or rescues. She says the stores can even charge for the dogs or at least ask for a small fee from the rescue agency. Plus, think of all the pet supplies people will be buying for their new dog or cat.
I absolutely loved this idea. The Humane Society of Indianapolis does not have any of its dogs or cats at off-site locations. HSI also often has a decent selection of purebred dogs if that’s what people want. It would be a perfect combination if HSI and Uncle Bills could team up. It would help HSI move more dogs and cats and it would be a huge leap forward for Uncle Bills.
I know there used to be people at Uncle Bills who cared about the mutts of the world. I got my dog Sparks from the Greenwood Uncle Bills 9 years ago. The employees at the time said they had been in a meeting just after opening in the back room when they heard the store door open. When they went out, they saw a car speeding away and a large box of puppies on their doorstep. The pups were too young to be placed for adoption. The staff pooled their money and put the puppies in the back room of the store, got them shots, wormer and medicine and kept them for three weeks until they were old enough to adopt out. I was in Uncle Bills the first day the puppies were out in a pen in the middle of the store. I think it cost $25 to get one, which covered the costs of the puppies’ first shots. I am grateful that they did this. It proves it can work. They got rid of all the puppies in just a few days.
If you don’t care about dogs or cats, you must at least care about money. According to Jana Kohl it costs about $2 Billion to round up, shelter and euthanize the 4 million homeless dogs and cats in the U.S. each year. Who can’t get behind saving $2 billion a year, much of which would be tax money as so many of the shelters doing the euthanizing are city owned.
While I doubt that many of the employees of Uncle Bills read my blog, I can hope that someone will pass along this post. Really, you can do it. Get rid of the puppy mill puppies and get rescue dogs instead. Work with the purebred rescues if that’s what your customers want. Give it a try at one store just to test the waters. I think you would be surprised!
4 comments:
Purebreed rescues do not have available puppies. Most of them have waiting lists for puppies and often adults.
Its great that you want the pet stores to become more involved in pet adoption. However, I have never seen a purebreed puppy at a shelter and I have worked with several breed rescues. They need homes for older animals with behavior problems. They have a waiting list of puppies. A friend of mine did have a rescue that gave birth to a purebreed litter while in her care (preg before entering rescue). The puppies were sold by the rescue with in 24 hrs of birth for $500 each (naturally they did not go to their new homes until age appropriate).
"However, I have never seen a purebreed puppy at a shelter and I have worked with several breed rescues."
Wow. If you have never seen a pure bred puppy in a shelter I encourage you to 1-come spend a week at my shelter and 2-look at what pet stores are selling. Doodle this and poo that. I had a litter of 13 beautiful golden doodles in my shelter 2 weeks ago. Same thing you find in a pet store.
And why can't pet stores sell mixed pups? For some people, they go to pet stores to save themselves from being "expose" to shelters. I would almost bet if you put a litter of mutt pups in a pet store they would go faster than a litter of pure pups at an animal shelter. Papers don't mean much unless you plan to show or breed. In both cases many would go to a breeder that has titles instead of taking a chance of a store bought pup that you have no history on the parents. Papers are just another way for stores to rack up the price tag.
Not all dogs in shelters/rescue are older with behavior problems. Again I invite you to come spend a week or even a day at my shelter and see the many wonderful pets with perfect behavior and the cute little pure bred pups as well.
"Purebreed rescues do not have available puppies. Most of them have waiting lists for puppies and often adults."
I never suggested only having puppies in the pet store. As Jamie said though there are a lot of excellent puppies that are Boxadores, Yorkiepoos, puggles, labradoodles, etc. in shelters. All of these are bringing big money from breeders.
And some of the behavoir issues seen in shelter dogs are because they are in the shelter. Sometimes just taking them out helps. But, dogs bought from pet stores can also have behavior issues. Some of the dogs in shelters have behavior issues because the person who bought the puppy to begin with didn't realize they don't come trained. There was just a purebred 8 month old puppy on Craigslist for $200. The person said he/she had tried EVERYTHING, but could not housebreak the dog so they needed to rehome it.
It will be a great idea beneficial to both, the owners & the pets.
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