I took a vacation recently, in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. While there, I got to tour a dog food and treat manufacturing plant, Bio Biscuit, in Sainte-Hyacinthe, Quebec. That was awesome – great company, great products, made by caring, competent people. Bio Biscuit makes its own line of baked food and treats, Oven Baked Tradition, and co-manufactures products for other companies, too. You can see a lot of what I saw in its company video: Go to the following link and click on the video entitled, “The Plant”: http://www.ovenbakedtradition.com/en/documentation-2. This was a nice part of my vacation!
As I always do wherever I go, I visited a few pet supply stores, just to see what’s on the shelves, and in hopes of finding foods I’ve never heard of, toys I may not have seen, leashes I’ve never handled. One shocking thing I saw, though, was puppies for sale. Yeah, puppy mill puppies, some who were purported to be “purebred” as well as mixed-breed pups of various kinds.
I guess I’m living in a protected environment here in Northern California; I haven’t seen a puppy mill puppy in a “pet store” for a decade or more. Enlightened stores here may host adoptions of shelter pups; I’m guessing that community pressure and store boycotts prevents store managers from considering getting into the puppy mill business.
Puppy mills can’t exist if no one buys their wares. See WDJ’s August issue, online and in mailboxes now, for tips on identifying puppy mill puppies, who may be marketed as “rescued” or bred and born in some nice family’s kitchen. But the biggest clue ever that you are looking at a puppy mill puppy is its presence in a pet store. NO RESPONSIBLE BREEDER WOULD EVER ALLOW HIS OR HER PUPS TO BE SOLD IN A STORE.
And yet, there they are – a fact that boggles my mind. How does this happen? Who buys puppies in a pet store? Can you tell me?
