Parenting. If you breed your pet are you responsible for the offspring?

Charleston. My Harford County Humane Society rescue.

I have many dilemmas. They keep me up at night.. not the healthiest way of dealing, but it seems that during the day I am busy enough to keep the little nags at bay. Come sundown and sleepytime they rear up and tug at my conscious. Here's one I dealt with for the umpteenth time just the other day.

Said cute couple just starting their life together adopts their first four legged child. They love this girl to pieces. They dote on her, take her everywhere, and she, of course, sleeps in bed with them. There isn't one part of this pets relationship that isn't fully invested in their marriage. It is everything a vet hopes for a dog to find. Except, they want to breed  her.

My experience has shown me that the reasons for this vary immensely, but I find that breeders fall into one of four categories;

Best In Show

• These are the  people you watch on The National Dog Show on Thanksgiving morning. They are the pinnacle of expertise for their one specific breed. Almost all of them have dedicated their entire lives to the health, advancement and welfare of their breed. They know the family tree of their breeding line better than any of us could recall our aunts and uncles never mind our more distant relatives. They do not sleep with their dogs, their dogs sleep under security cameras.

Blue Ribbon

• The local breeders who manage one or two females, breed only after a complete vet work up, and sell privately to local families for upwards of $800 a pup. They work hard to provide healthy, well socialized family pets as an extension of their family business.

One Timers

• The amateurs who dabble in the idea of taking their self proclaimed prime canine specimen as a way of passing on their prides legacy. They learn quickly that the business of breeding doesn't come cheap or easy. The road to puppies may be paved with good intentions but one $3,000 emergency c-section later they are singing a different hard lesson learned tune.

Accidents/Cash Only/No Ethics

•  The people who breed because they never got around to spaying and neutering the brother and sister shih tzus who live in the house. Or, the person who is running short on funds and sees the Craigs List ads for "puppies for sale" that all seem to cost a few hundred bucks. Seems like an easy score right? Just breed your dog and grow your own at home business. I don't see these people much in practice. They do not seek veterinary advice, nor intervention when their lack of experience puts their prego pup in a serious pickle for a multitude of reasons. If you are contemplating purchasing a puppy from an ad see my blog on  Puppy Mill Cruelty.

The Black Dogs Rescue pups.

How do I talk to a person who wants to breed their pet honestly and openly when my lifetime of experience knows that there are a significant number of people out there in the world who purchase a puppy without the ability to care for them adequately and most definitely lack the ability to love them until they meet an untreatable end at a ripe old age? Here are some of the realities of pet ownership from this veterinarians perspective...

I know that people give up on treating a disease because it is cheaper to buy a replacement. Simple economics, right?

I also know that people surrender their older pets to get a newer edition, like it a status symbol, or the lease on the old car ran out.

That children who want a pet often lack the attention span to care for them when the monotony of daily feedings, poop clean  up and adequate exercise comes calling on a Saturday morning when the rest of their friends are headed to the mall.

The great breeders I know make a lifelong obligation to take back any pup the buyer no longer wants. They have contracts that require it. The best rescues also do this. Jarrettsville Vet has adopted out many an unwanted surrendered, abandoned, and denied convenience euthanasia pets to dozens of people over the last 10 years. Thankfully, many are in loving homes who share Christmas cards of "Thanks for helping us find our beloved Fluffy." But, I have many stories that attest to people's inability to love til death do them part. Even with a contract that states we will take our pets back "no questions asked" we get surprised. When an elderly woman who had adopted two cats many years prior became ill and needed to be hospitalized for two weeks her children (who promised to care for her cats while she was in the hospital) dropped them off as "ferals" at the local shelter. Luckily, those cats had our microchip and we were called to ask if our cats were lost? People can break your heart and destroy your faith in mankind.

The statistics in the US are awful. In the US we own 83.3 million dogs (all 2012 figures) and 95.6  million cats. The shelters house about 7 million pets and euthanize about 3 million dogs and cats a year. That means that 1 in 25 pets gets surrendered or brought to a shelter. Many of these are euthanized (about half of the dogs and three quarters of the cats). But think to of all of the pets that are euthanized at the hands of vets for the countless reasons we label as "convenience euthanasia." If I had to guess I would say that the 1:25 figure would be halved. Of the rest of the euthanasia's we perform many are due to plain old lack of funds to provide care. Halve that number again. One in 6. Add to that the number of pets that are not brought in for euthanasia, for instance, those that are killed outside of a shelter or vets office (think hit by car, disease, parasites, etc). and we are at 1 in 3. The statistics outside of the US in almost every other corner of the globe are even more abysmal.

How do you feel about knowing those odds? Me, not good enough to bring a soul into the world and bear the responsibility to provide for them for a decade or two should their parent no longer be willing to do so,,, and Lord knows I love me a puppy and/or a kitten. I just see reality too much. It keeps me up at night...

Stealing a moment with Max.
If you aren't taking time to kiss the pups what is the point of working?

Related Blogs;

So You Want To Rescue A Puppy? My advice on how to avoid the disasters of trying to do a good thing.

The Pain Of Breeding.

Breeders My Take On Them.

I am a veterinarian determined and dedicated to helping pets through the extension of educating and empowering people. For this reason I created Pawbly.com. We are a global community of compassionate people who know that there are options available for every pet need. We can help you find resources, understand your pets needs and link you to those who can assist. It takes a village to raise a happy healthy pet and we believe universal affordable pet care will someday be a reality. Please join us today.

If you would like to meet the amazing people at our clinic please stop by our Facebook page at Jarrettsville Vet, or find me on Twitter @FreePetAdvice.

Trying to Understand True Compassion? Where do you draw the line?

I read the latest issue of dvm360, as I always do, but I had had to put it down, let my emotions settle and resume reading at least three times. After taking an inordinate amount of time to read, I had to walk away, let my inner frustrations settle, and then decide what I was going to do with the burden of my conscious screaming at me.

So, my answer? Throw it out for the world to share my burden, help me understand my frustrations, and hope that with all things that the discussion will open and awaken our collective sense of responsibility and desire to live in a more peaceful and compassionate world.

The headline that has me unloading on all of you was titled, "Oklahoma OKs bill allowing horse slaughter for human consumption."

I know, take a deep breath, its not so easy as to just want to vomit and protest, "well, I'm not eating horse!"

Oklahoma decided on March 26, 2013 by a vote of 32-14 to allow for slaughter of horses for export to countries like Italy, France and Belgium for human consumption. Sounds pretty appalling, doesn't it? But as recently as 2007 there were two facilities in the U.S. that slaughtered horses, Illinois and Texas. They closed because federal funding was eliminated for them. After they closed horses were transported to Canada and Mexico for processing and then exported.

The atrocity of this whole dilemma? Well, after the government banned or assisted in the shut down of the slaughter houses almost everyone agreed that the state of the horses fate worsened significantly. Without a place to send horses many were left or abandoned to starve to death. So the state of OK put HB 1999 before the Senate. To "allow the humane, regulated processing of horses."

My internal struggle is as follows;
Question 1. Do I think it is better to kill an animal then to let it suffer? Answer, Yes. (Do I think the same for people?, I'm not sure anymore. If it is myself, then yes.)
Question 2. Do I think that the horse has a different place in society than a dog or cat? No.
Question 3. Would I ever ponder killing cats or dogs for consumption, No, Horses?, No. Cows? Pigs? Rabbits? Guinea Pigs? (Did you know that all of these species are eaten in many parts of the world?)

The statistics are a good way to put the argument into perspective.

In 2006, the last full year the horse processing plants were open, 102,260 horses were euthanized for processing in the U.S.

The state of OK sent 160,000 to Mexico for processing.

The Association of American Equine Practitioners (AAEP) though it stresses it is not pro-slaughter, does not support current proposed federal legislation to ban horse slaughter for human consumption. The association regards itself as "pro-welfare" of the horse and believes that without long term placement for affected horses and the placement for affected horses and solutions to the core issues that contribute to the unwanted horse population, humane euthanasia and processing for human consumption may be an undesirable necessity. "If a horse owner is not able or willing to provide humane care, the AAEP believes that euthanasia at a processing facility is a humane alternative to a life of suffering, inadequate care and possibly abandonment."

To thicken the plot, many states - Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska among others - are trying to introduce legislation to promote the opening of plants in their own states because the horse slaughter industry reports in 2006 the industry grossed an estimated $65 million.

Animal welfare advocates dispute many of the claims of horses being treated better when the horse slaughtering plants were open, and feel the reason so many horses are sent to slaughter is because of economic hardships, and that the argument that horses are better of being killed is ridiculous. Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States stated that "horse owners should commit to providing lifetime care for the animals."

It is my firm opinion that any life that you chose to take responsibility for is a life long choice. How do we have over 3 million dogs and cats euthanized every year in the US? Is it better to bury them? If we can't find homes for our unwanted pets what do we do with them?


For the complete dvm360 May 2013 article please see;
http://goo.gl/OByVU

For the New York Times article from October 11, 2011, please see;
http://tinyurl.com/cb2wuy7

Behavioral Problems

It is not a surprise to me how many pets are surrendered based on behavioral issues. It is the reason Cesar Milan stays in business, and so widely popular, and why a huge amount of my business is dedicated to this topic. I have two staff members who specialize in "Behavior Modification." There is no shortage of business for them, but there is a HUGE shortage of clients willing to take responsibility and put forth the necessary time and effort in "correcting" the problem. In almost ALL of the cases the problem is not with the pet it is with the pet parent. There needs to be as much re-training of the owner as the pet. If there isn't a full commitment from everyone in the family to understand, identify, and start modifying actions, situations, and reactions the behavior training is unlikely to work.


I literally just got off of the phone with an owner who called to try to surrender his 8 yr old Lab mix dog to us. After a lengthy discussion and a few modifications in the underlying story it was revealed to me that they want to surrender their dog, (that they have had for 8 years, and adopted from the Humane Society) because they "got a new dog a few years ago, and the dogs have never really gotten along." The husband called to investigate his options with his dog, but stated to me that his wife "is done with her." It seems that the dog in question bit her on the lip because they had "been loving on the other dog." He further explained that the arguing between the dogs has been ongoing for the whole time they have had the new dog. (Point number 1, the longer you wait the harder it is to fix. This goes to every problem in life, doesn't it?) The owners have tried separating the dogs, crating one while the other is out, but the underlying anxiety has never been resolved. I also think that the dog he wants to surrender was his dog before the owners got together and the new dog is "their dog." I have a hard time with this. Do we treat children from prior marriages differently than the children from the "new marriage." Jesus, I hope not! Your Old dog is just as important as your new dog. And why are any of us surprised that a behavioral problem arose? (OK, silly question to myself, probably both are silly questions to myself.) Point number 2, if you treat your kids different, 2 or 4 legged you will probably get some resentment. The husband that called is feeling guilty about giving up his dog. If he wasn't he would have just surrendered her at the shelter. I did point out to him that a "surrendered dog, in most cases, especially an older, larger breed dog, often has a death sentence" if "surrendered." He was not aware of the fact that in the U.S. alone we euthanize millions of unwanted pets every year. He truly had no idea. Point number 3. If it is so easy for you to give away a pet that you have had for 8 years, why do you think the rest of society will be more responsible and compassionate than you are? I say that knowing full well, that much of society has a big generous heart and often does step up for a pet/child/person in need. I did want to ask him how many other dogs he walked by the last time he was at the shelter? It is ALWAYS full. There isn't a waiting list for dogs or cats, there is a freezer in the back full of "unwanteds", "unadoptables",  "behavioral issues", "surrendered", "caution/bites", "found/no owner."


I tried many times to help this owner understand that his dog was not exhibiting these unwanted behaviors as a personal attack against one or both of them. She was merely unhappy about something and trying to communicate that with you. Dogs don't speak in the human language, they speak in their own language. It is our job to provide them with a healthy, rounded home and environment, and understand that they have their own unique needs. This includes food, water, shelter, emotionally enriching, ability to exercise, mentally and emotionally stimulating, and free from fear and aggression from their owners. We all deserve this.


Before getting off of the phone I told him that he needed to sit down with his wife and go over the things that we had discussed. If they both weren't willing to commit to the time and effort needed this wasn't going to work. He told me that his wife wasn't "forcing him to get rid of his dog, but if he chose to keep her she had to go to the basement and not be a part of the family." How is this an an option? I urged him to try to call a rescue and place her, or call me back before that became an option, (or the euthanasia). How can that be fair? or be a life?


I also told him that I would worry, and keep his chart out, so I could check up on them later.


My gut tells me that this family can't put the time or effort forth needed, and that this dog, like so many others will become one of those shameful US pet euthanasia statistics.