Originally Posted by
Medusa
When I was in my early 20's, I walked into a pet store, a well-known chain, and fell in love w/a peke-a-poo. (I had no knowledge of puppy mills back then.) That was on a Saturday and her little face stayed w/me all weekend, so I went back on Monday and got her. We jokingly called her the six million dollar dog because she had so many health issues that we spent a fortune on her vet care. I spent the first several weeks sitting up w/her at night due to her kennel cough. She was only 2 1/2 lbs. when I got her and I thought she was going to cough herself to death. Anyhow, Charmin lived to 18 1/2 and her daughter, Daisy, lived to 17 1/2 but my vet joked w/me that I built the wing on his clinic.
Sounds identical to the story of the first dog I ever got on my own, as an adult. When I was 21 I bought a little black cocker spaniel from a pet store in Indiana. She lived to be sixteen, but there were untold thousands of dollars of vet bills that got her to that age. She was the quintessential puppy mill dog - with all the ensuing medical problems. But at the time I bought her, I had NO idea. I had never heard of puppy mills or back yard breeders, even in passing. I assumed, honestly, that because the puppies in pet stores were so expensive, that they must be of much better quality than your average ad-in-paper, free-from-a-box-in-Walmart-parking-lot puppies. Live and learn.
"We give dogs the time we can spare, the space we can spare and the love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made" - M. Facklam
"We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams."- P.S. Beagle
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king." - J.R.R. Tolkien
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