A Pet Store Puppy For Suri? Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, You Can Do Better Than That

Did you see the photos last week of Suri Cruise tearfully looking at puppies at a pet store? No? You didn't see them? What's wrong with you? That was a choice piece of center-cut pop culture. You got a job or something?  

Truthfully, it has us a bit worried. If Suri Cruise wants a puppy from a puppy store, then that means Suri's daddy is going to want a puppy from a puppy store, and there's not much that can stop Tom Cruise besides a well-executed escape plan and a crack legal team. 

We fear this might get more people thinking about buying puppies from pet stores instead of where they should be getting them: shelters (editor's note: or reputable breeders). Hell, we wouldn't be surprised if backyard breeders are working up a Suri breed right now (half Maltese, half Staffordshire Bull Terrier, one dab dragon's blood), or if Petland opens 15 more stores on the Eastern seaboard based on that photo alone. 

Many pet stores, of course, stock their shelves with dogs from puppy mills, and you don't want a dog from a puppy mill. You could start by reading this piece on puppy mills. For just the choice quotes, read on:

"Puppy mills are often dirty and unsanitary. You often see dogs in cages with their own filth, left out in the heat and cold, malnourished, and with skin problems.""Puppies are not hand-held from birth like most reputable breeders' are. This means they have little or no human interaction until they're sold. This can lead to aggression, anxiety, fear, indifference, and a whole host of behavioral problems. Also, living in a small cage crates a poorly adjusted dog.""Dogs are usually caged their entire breeding life.""Dogs are often bred every six months, with never a break. After their fertility ends, they are often sold or sometimes killed."Nice, huh? No, that's not nice. Tom, if you really want to go purebred, buy the Westminster Kennel Club and give it to Suri through her lawyers. Go big. 

But what we think Suri really needs is an intervention -- an indoctrination, if you will -- into the joys of getting a dog from the shelter, which costs far less money, much less than your life savings doled out piecemeal throughout the years until you're so brainwashed you think you've moved across the Bridge to Total Freedom and achieved Clear when you've really just gone utterly and completely insane thinking you're descended from aliens who died in a volcano. Ahem. 

So, Tom, Katie, legal teams on both sides, Gloria Aldridge, Martha Stewart, James Van Der Beek, or anyone else with a direct line to Tom: Consider this a public service announcement. Give Suri a shelter dog. Two if you can handle the extra food expense. You can do this. 

Just picture Suri and Katie traipsing down their Manhattan sidewalk with a shelter pup surrounded by 32 people carrying $350,000 of recording equipment and broadcasting the adorable dog's every move to TMZ and probably Tom's computer in his secret office in the closet -- um, basement. I bet Xenu himself might reveal himself in the foyer and tell the kid she did good. 

Remember: Thetans don't let thetans buy puppies from pet stores (bumper sticker?), and nor should the rest of you.

View the original article here

HQ Loves You: Pick Up This FREE Gift at the Dogster Gift Store Through Sunday!

Dogster Suzi Q in her Easter basket:

It's an Easter Egg bonanza! Hop on over to the Dogster Gift Store and share this colorful pile of eggs FUR FREE with all of your furiends today through Easter Sunday:

View the original article here

Great Adoption Video by Bergdorf Goodman (Yeah, the Swanky NY Store)

Upscale NY store Bergdorf Goodman sells shoes for up to thousands of dollars a pair, and has a fur-storage room (the store will pick up furs straight from your house as soon as hot weather hits), but its latest promotional video makes the store seem quite accessible, and even imparts that warm holiday glow.

Check out these adorable dogs who have a great time “shopping” in the store, while a little dog who seems to have no one to call his own tags along. Watch it to the end for the heart melter. The store teamed up with the Humane Society of New York to put this video together. The bottom line: Adopt your next best pal. A great idea for the well heeled and those with heels that badly need repairs …

Thanks to our pals at Fashionista for sending this our way!

View the original article here

Why You’re NOT Doing a Good Deed When You “Rescue” that Poor, Pleading Pet Store Puppy

“If you think that puppy mills are so horrible, why aren’t you buying these dogs and rescuing them from the awful situations they’re in? Why aren’t you encouraging your clients to buy them so they don’t end up in shelters or rescues?” This is a summary of a comment left on one of my previous Dogster blog posts about the behavioral effects of puppy mills.

It’s rare for me to respond to comments on the Dogster blogs I’ve written (time is a precious thing when you’re an entrepreneur like me!), but I felt as though this particular comment needed addressing since it taps into what I find to be a very pervasive myth – that you are doing a “good deed” when you purchase a dog from a pet store or “rescuing” this dog from the puppy milling cycle.

Buying a puppy from a pet store is NOT “rescuing” the puppy from the mill cycle; it is making a cash contribution to the perpetuation of a cycle of greed which sees puppies as commodities. Puppies are big business to all millers, and like all businesses, puppy milling operates on the “supply and demand” principle. No business stays open without client support. Each pet store puppy purchased positively reinforces the pet store and miller for inappropriate breeding practices.

Of course, I hate seeing a single dog suffer for any reason. I really hate seeing millions of dogs suffer for a single reason – lining the wallets of individuals who prey on the pain of sentient beings.

It’s hard to see a six month old puppy, too big for his crate, with his large, sad, brown eyes begging you to “please take me home. Get me out of here.” But essentially, taking that dog home only opens up that crate for the next six-month-old dog who has missed the opportunity to spend his critical stages of development with a family who will treat him well. Eventually, another well-intentioned dog lover will feel pity for him and take him home. The cycle continues, ad infinitum.

I hate the puppy mill industry on two levels. I hate it for the dogs – I hate that mill breeding dogs are made to live in squalor their entire lives, never seeing a moment of compassion, never knowing what it’s like to feel grass on their feet, the fun of learning a new trick, the pleasure of a deep sigh on a warm bed after a great hiking adventure.

I hate that these dogs are given inadequate medical care, inappropriate nutrition, and have substandard living conditions. I hate that puppies are taken from their litters too early, transported during critical fear periods, and are placed in environments which are dangerous to their physical and behavioral development. I hate that my new client’s Chihuahua mix, recently purchased from a local pet shop at five months old, is terrified of children and most adults, and has already learned that biting hard is a very effective strategy for creating space, already drawing blood daily, nearly every time someone tries to touch him.

I hate the industry for what it does to pet owners too. The mill industry is a scam, and its employees are con artists – selling dog owners and their dogs a lifetime of frustration for exorbitant prices. My new client wanted a cute and wonderful puppy. She loves dogs. Her heart melted when she saw this puppy cowering and trembling in his crate, and she took him home. Now she’s afraid of her puppy, and her puppy is terrified of life. She didn’t get a pet, she got a behavior modification project; likely the result of a combination of poor genetics and extremely poor experiences during critical socialization periods. She wanted to take her new doggy to new places, new experiences, to give him all the opportunities he’d been denied in his early puppyhood. She won’t be able to do that for some time, and is likely looking at an extensive training investment (financially and in terms of her time), plus a lifetime of careful management.

People who buy puppies from pet stores are not bad people. I would venture to say that virtually every person who purchases a puppy from a pet store a) doesn’t know about the mill industry or b) does know, falls in love, and honestly wants to help this one dog experience a fantastic life with a loving family. But how we as pet owners invest our money is bigger than us, bigger than this one dog on this one day in this one pet shop.

Will the investment you make the next time you bring a dog into your home break or perpetuate the cycle?

View the original article here

Whoopi Goldberg Wants the Right to Buy Pet Store Pups

Whoopi Goldberg, from her Facebook page

On Friday’s episode of The View, Whoopi Goldberg  defended her right to buy a puppy from a pet store.

“You don’t know what you’re getting when you get a pookie-dingle-doodle from the pound,” the website Hollywood Dog reported her as saying on the show.

She gave a nod to people who say dogs should be adopted, but said she didn’t want anyone preventing her from being able to buy a dog at a pet store if she wanted to. She said that when you buy a purebred dog, you know what you’re getting. And when  you adopt a pound dog, you have no idea what kind of problems you may be inheriting, according to the Examiner. (I did not see it so I can’t report it myself.)

It seems Whoopi doesn’t realize that puppies from pet stores are often unhealthy, and that the puppy mills from which so many of these pups come are notoriously wretched and inhumane places, with cages stacked on top of each other, crammed with animals who have little to no health care, and who are often exposed to the elements. And as for the great blood lines, she doesn’t seem to understand that genetic defects are all too common in these dogs.

On her Facebook page yesterday, Whoopi wrote that she doesn’t like puppy mills, but that she does think puppies in stores can be just fine. “We discussed one state that wanted to close all pet stores. I have friends who own pet stores; they love their animals and insure their health and well being. Mills should be shut down. All agree but don’t paint everyone with the same brush. That was my point,” she wrote on her page.

What do you think, Dogsters? You can leave a comment on her Facebook page, but do let us know here as well.

Update a few hours after story posted: Here’s a video Whoopi and other pet-store fans might want to watch. Bronwyne Mirkovich made the 49-second video in answer to Whoopi’s statement, and brought it to our attention in the comments below.

View the original article here