Before Buying a Dog – Ask Questions
Before buying a dog there are some important questions that you will need to ask in order to pick out a good and healthy pup or adult. You need to know where to go to buy a good dog and where you should never go. This article will help you with these decisions. After all, if you decide to get this dog, it will be yours for his lifetime. You need to know the answers to help make the right decision.
When you are looking for a puppy or and adult dog and found the breed you want, here are some questions you need to ask the breeder.
Questions
1. How big will this dog be as an adult?
2. How much does he eat and what kind of food is he used to?
3. Is this breed good with children?
4. How much exercise does this breed need?
5. Is there a lot of grooming needed?
6. Does this breed shed a lot?
7. What health problems are common in this breed?
8. Is this breed outgoing or reserve?
9. Is this breed high-strung or relaxed?
10. Do they get along with other breeds well?
After you made the decision on what breed of dog you want, you need to know where to go to purchase one.
When looking to purchase the pup or adult, be careful when buying from a backyard breeder. What is a backyard breeder? I’m glad you asked that question. Usually backyard breeders are only interested in the money, so they don’t care who they sell to. Most backyard breeders don’t worm the pups or give any shots because they don’t want to put out any more money than they have to, and they offer no health guarantees. Now, I’m not saying that all backyard breeders are bad, but you have to be careful.
Ask More Questions
There’s still more questions that need to be asked to both a backyard breeder and/or to the ones that are said to be ‘”reputable breeders.”
1. Ask to see the pedigree (if they are pure-bred dogs)
2. Ask to see the parents – to get an idea how the pup will turn out and to see what kind of condition the parents are kept in
3. Ask what kind of health problems the parents may have had in the past
4. Ask when the pups were born
5. Ask for documentation of worming and shots
6. Ask what kind of health guarantees they offer
7. Ask if there were any long-coated dogs or dwarf dogs produced in any of the “lines” in the parent’s background.
8. Ask if there were any hip dysplasia in these “lines” in the past.
If you are looking for a pet/companion dog, you can also go to your local animal shelter and adopt a dog. The shelters are full of dogs just waiting to find a loving person or family who would give them a forever home, before their time is up.
Ask questions. Choose wisely. The welfare of the dog is of the up-most importance.
Now that I’ve told you where you might be able to find a good place to buy a puppy or adult dog, I will tell you where you should never buy a pup.
Never and I repeat, never buy from a pet store! This is because almost all of these cute little puppies that you would spend your money on, would go to a real ugly and brutal industry called, Puppy Mills. I know, you think you have to save this poor little pup because he looks so sad in the pet store window, but in all reality, every time a person buys from a pet store, it fuels the fire.
The more one buys from pet stores, the more the puppy mill has to produce to keep up with the demand and the poor bitches having these pups will be continually bred until they died. You think the puppy looks sad, you should see what the poor sweet mother looks like. Don’t even get me started on this subject.
I’ll just leave you with this thought, for these dogs that can’t get the love they so deserve
If people everywhere would stop buying dogs from the pet stores, the pet stores would have to stop ordering pups from the puppy mills. Without the demand for pups, the puppy mills would have to shut down. What a day that would be!