Sunday 16th August 2015 – What’s wrong with puppy farming?

Bear in mind I’m writing this from a dog point of view. As a human I’m sure you might think that getting a cheap puppy is a good thing, but there really is more to it than that. When we come to live with you, you want a life where your dog is healthy and happy and lives to a good old age. ‘Cheap’ might seem like a good idea at day one, but if your puppy goes on to develop expensive to fix health problems or dies young then ‘cheap’ will have proved a bad investment even from a human point of view.

When I was born, I grew up in a house surrounded by the love of my mum and my human family from day one. I was cuddled and socialised and exposed to different experiences so that I could grow up to become a balanced happy family member. Ok, so I’m slightly nutty, but in a good way. Anyone who came to meet our litter saw all of us with our mum and saw us in our happy, clean, well-cared for environment. They couldn’t meet our dad because he lives a long way away, but they all received copies of his health tests and his pedigree and photos to show him happy in his own environment. Our mum will only have four litters in her lifetime and then she will have a long, happy and totally spoilt retirement as part of the family.

Where puppies come from puppy farms they are very often brought up outside in kennels without human contact. They are not socialised and they are not necessarily kept clean. The parents have not always been health tested and the mother may be made to have litter after litter without any hope of a happy family life. It is not a good option for a puppy to be born into and it is all the fault of humans wanting something cheap and quickly without thought to how that has been achieved.  On behalf of all dogs I’d ask you to spread the word to help more people understand why this practice is so bad for us. Help them understand that a cheap up front cost may mean a dog seems affordable but is more likely to mean we are too expensive for them to care for in the long term.

Every Puppy Deserves the Best Start in Life – Say NO to Puppy Farming

Love from Aristotle

Alfie’s Diary – the Book as well as our other books are available HERE

You can find short stories to read at www.alfiedog.com