What could convince my dad to get a puppy from a shelter or rescue instead of a pet store?

The DISadvantages of pet shops

Pet shops acquire their puppies from breeders who don't test their dogs for health problems. You can't look at a pet shop puppy (or any puppy, for that matter) and say, "Well, he looks healthy!" and think that that's the end of it! The health problems I'm talking about are inherited on genes. If your puppy has inherited those genes, these health problems WILL show up eventually, long after you've brought the puppy home.

There are health tests that can determine, with 100% accuracy, whether a puppy has inherited certain serious health problems. There are other health tests that can't say for sure, but can predict the risk. Responsible breeders do these tests. Breeders who sell to pet stores don't.

Pet shop puppies are frequently inbred. Most pet shops don't even have a copy of their puppies' pedigrees for you to look at. Instead, they mail it to you AFTER you've bought the puppy. And you receive only 3 or 4 generations, not nearly enough to evaluate inbreeding.

Pet shop puppies may have "sham" registration papers and pedigrees. More and more pet shops are avoiding the stricter documentation requirements of the AKC and registering their puppies with an "alternative" registry like the Continental Kennel Club, APR, APRI, NKC, and others. Now, the AKC definitely has its problems with people falsifying registration papers and pedigrees, but the alternative registries are even worse. If a puppy has registration papers from any of these registries, I wouldn't believe that the parents listed on the papers are necessarily the true parents, that the ancestors listed on the pedigree are the true ancestors, or that the puppy is even purebred.

Dog with bad temperamentYou can't see the puppy's parents. This is a BIG negative because the parents' genes can have so much influence on how your puppy turns out. If you can't see the parents, how can you tell whether they might have passed on genes for unhealthy structure, bad teeth, or a bad temperament? Virtually ALL puppies look normal and healthy and are friendly and playful. But as the puppies mature, the genes they inherited WILL begin to assert themselves, and that's when all the problems will start!

You can't see where the puppies were raised. Another BIG negative. The majority of pet shop puppies are raised in small wire-bottomed cages in outbuildings. They've never seen the inside of a house. Many of them don't even know how to drink water from a bowl because they've been drinking from hamster bottles since they were born.

Many pet shop puppies are hyperactive and noisy. Raised in a small cage, they haven't been able to run and play and explore like normal puppies, so they've developed frenetic habits like running in small circles and excessive barking.

Many pet shop puppies are nippy. Some were removed from their mother before 7 weeks of age. You'll remember that puppies need a full seven weeks with their mother so she can teach them "bite inhibition". If they haven't learned this lesson, their nippiness will be hard to correct.

Other pet shop puppies have learned to nip from all the people who take them out of their cages and play wrestling games with them. This encourages the puppy to growl and nip and mouth people's hands -- bad lessons that can be hard to correct.

Housebreaking is difficult in petshop puppiesMost pet shop puppies are hard to housebreak. Where does a pet shop puppy go the bathroom? Right there in his cage. It's hard to take such a puppy home and teach him NOT to go to the bathroom in his crate or bed when that's what he's been trained to do!

Pet shop puppies often come with illnesses. You bring the puppy home and a few days later he develops a cough, or diarrhea, or vomiting, or listlessness, or he starts scratching or losing hair.... this happens over and over with pet shop puppies. Kennel cough, parvovirus, coronavirus, giardia, coccidia, mange, ringworm -- these illnesses are commonly found in commercial breeding kennels and pet stores.

Pet shops often overload their puppies with vaccinations and chemicals. Because the puppies are exposed to so many illnesses, pet stores often overdo the vaccines, dewormers, and chemical baths and dips. Overloading the poor puppy's immune system like this is very damaging for his long-term health.

NO decent rescue group is ever going to put their pups into a pet shop.... as well intentioned as you are and I do understand where you are coming from, rescues do not have that amount of pups in anyway. Most pups in rescue are either bitches that have come in and are already pregnant and that is few. We have only had one in the last 5 yrs. Or half a litter or odd pups that the byb has failed to sell. At that time the pup is usually at least 10 to 12 weeks old. However, NO rescue would allow any of their dogs to go to an unchecked, unknown home. We and every rescue I know, thoroughly vet the new owners and their property and lifestyle before allowing a dog to go and also keep in contact with follow up calls and visit and hope and on contract that the dog must come back to the rescue should it need to at any point in its life. So I would never want to see this happen and as said, there are not enough pups in rescue to supply the demand. The answer is to educate people NEVER to buy from a pet store or puppy mill or byb... only then will the demand stop and therefore the production of puppies to fill the stores. Edit.. I am UK and the '1 in 5 yrs' applies to the rescue I am with which is specifically rotties. We have charities such as The Dogs Trust and RSPCA that will keep and rehome litters of puppies that do come in and people wanting a rescue pup will go through that means. They would rarely be a litter of dogs popular at the moment.... and I again say that a rescue would NOT put them in a pet store... not in the UK anyway... well not unless the pup was sold with the rescue's full involvement and not just sold at the checkout as these pups are. I thought we were in a bad enough way but obviously you are even worse off over there in the US. Add on - Janian - yes they do unfortunately and growing. There is a pet store in Leeds & another in Manchester run by the same people and that is the same people who run the bogus DLRS registration organisation.. Google Dogs4us....

Google 'puppymills' and show him every site that comes up. 99.9% of puppies in pet stores are from puppymills, so all you are doing is supporting cruel breeding and paying top dollar for the same kinds of dogs you get at shelters anyway. At least at a shelter or rescue, you are saving a life rather than putting money in some puppymiller's pocket.

It'd be better to buy from some backyard breeder than a pet store.

Ask him to go through a rescue group, where they foster the animals in a home. That way, they can give you a VERY good idea of what kind of dog you are getting.

I would pull some information from your local shelters. I volunteer at a shelter and we do a full behavior evaluation on every single dog (or puppy) that enters our shelter.

Sometimes all it takes is looking into the faces of all the discarded puppies or older dogs to convince someone. Take it from me, if you adopt a shelter pet you will be rewarded for a lifetime!

If you aren't able to convince him, I would at the very least explain that you need to research a reputable breeder in your area. Understand that most puppies from pet stores are the result of puppy mill breeders. The parents of these puppies are kept in deplorable conditions and have little or no contact with humans and many times have health problems because they are inbred.

Visit http://stoppuppymills.org/ for more info!

Good Luck to you and thanks for thinking of your local shelter!

You will know more of what your getting from a shelter rather then a pet store..

Tell him that dogs from pet stores are back yard breeders. Some stores, like petsmart, have adoption days. I know our local petsmart brings in dogs from a shelter and tries to adopt them out, but other than that I wouldn't ever buy from a store. You will be saving a life from a shelter :)

then get a dog instead of a puppy at the shelter. If you buy from a pet store you will likely get an inbred dog from a puppy mill. My mutt from the pound is way nicer than our pure bred samoyed from a 'breeder". Found out that the Samoyed parents were brother and sister AND its grandparents were brother and sister as well! You wont get that with a mixed breed

Tell him to go to www.puppymillssuck.com and tell him to read all of it! It is the first hand account of someone who make the mistake of buying a puppy from Petland (pet store).

My dog is from the Humane Society and he's wonderful. You know what you're getting from a Humane Society or Shelter if you go there and meet the dogs, and make an educated decision when deciding to adopt an animal.

Why would you want to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to a pet store, for a puppy when you can get a puppy, even purebred! from the Humane Society for 150 dollars. One who is spayed/neutered, vet checked, micro chipped, etc. etc.

Pet stores puppies are usually pumped with antibiotics from birth because of kennel cough and all the other infections they get from being bred in a puppy mill.

I hope your dad wises up!

You dont know what you are getting from a petshop either.

Those puppies come from puppy mills- you never see the parent, and odds are the paperwork you get is falsified anyways. Many puppy mills do not have good record-keeping.

I have heard MANY stories of people buying a puppy at a petshop, and when the dog was an adult, they realized that it turned out not to be the breed they thought they were buying!

I used to work at a petshop that sold puppies, and we had a lot of complaints of puppies getting sick and dying days after purchase. Unless it occoured within the 72 hours after purchase, customers were SOL.

If your dad insists on "knowing what he's getting".. then perhaps your next best step is to help research and find a reputable breeder instead?

dogs from the shelter are dogs that REALLY need a home. theyve gone through tough times and thats why theyre there. a lot of them get put down. and you never know what you are getting from pet stores either. every dog is different. a pet store dog would probably get bought by somebody else if you didnt buy it. their futures are pretty secure. for a dog in a shelter, you could be the difference between life and death. and ive met a lot of really sweet shelter dogs

Go to youtube and show him a couple of videos of puppy mills. No, when you go to a shelter, you don't know what you're getting, but when you buy from a pet store you absolutely know you're getting a sick puppy, lacking in socialization with the bonus of severe genetic defects to come