NATL: Please think carefully before buying that holiday pet

NATL: Please think carefully before buying that holiday pet
By Patty Khuly, Special for USA TODAY
Holiday pets, anyone?

Yes, it's that time of year — and yet again it's time for vets across America to wring their hands over the holiday pet thing. It's a love-hate issue for us, for sure. While we condemn the trivialization of petdom that comes with a rash "Puppy Palace" purchase, how else would we manage to ring in the new year with a shower of new patients?

Let me be fair: A large-enough percentage of holiday pets are planned. After all, this is one of the few times parents can get kudos for a whole-family present they picked out with care at the exact time of year everyone is best equipped to handle the new responsibilities (vacation time!). These thoughtful people tend not to be the genesis of any vet's New Year's complaint.

Rather, what I decry is the last-minute strip-mall puppy purchase that comes about after a sleepless night on the 23rd: "Will the PlayStation, American Girl doll, Elmo incarnation or hamstery thingie be enough to gratify my insatiable offspring? Perhaps I should blow my budget on this puggle or porkie-poo puppy with the cute runny nose and adorable snore."  These are the humans that make my blood boil.

Next thing you know, the whole family's crying across the exam room table, begging you to make right a situation that's not going to get any better without a sizable cash outlay they swear they haven't got now that it's all sitting in the puppy shop's coffers.

"Just look at those kids, doc. How can you disappoint them? How can you be so cruel?"  Hmmm … you did that all by yourself, methinks. And Happy Holidays to you, too. Remind me to throw you under a bus when I bring my kids to your workplace next time.

In case you think I exaggerate, I'll swear on a stack of my internal medicine textbooks that this is the way it is — every year without fail.

The reality, however, is that the holidays can be a slow season for veterinarians. This is especially true for vets in colder climes, where inclement weather keeps pets safe, warm and injury-free indoors and in neighborhoods where well-to-do clients travel this time of year. Christmastime pets make up for it to a pretty large extent. That's why we welcome them with open arms, offering "Holiday pet" specials and such to get you coming through our doors when we need you most.

I'd so much prefer to spend my New Year's skiing in the Alps or basking in St. Bart's than treating the kennel coughs, distempers and parvoviruses that attend the annual overcrowded puppy mill season. Too bad my income won't allow even a meager approximation of such luxuries.

Instead, here I stand, stethoscope in hand, examining the coughing and congenitally ill alike. Here's where I hand out dire diagnoses like sugarplums to the "we're-attached-now" new owners of pups still bearing their "I'm-a-gift" bows. And, you know, it wouldn't be so bad … not if it weren't for the guilt that comes with raking in some much-needed cash off the backs of sad-eyed pups and their ignorant owners.

But then, as a wise philosopher once said, "You can't always get what you want." Granted, he was probably pretty stoned at the time, but it works surprisingly well as I navigate what's left of this "jolly" season.


Source: http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/pets/2009-12-24-dolittler25_N.htm

US: The Price of Puppies For Sale

Pet stores

Puppies sell in pet stores for $800 on average, with high-demand breeds costing more. Those fees include puppy food samples and discounts on other purchases.

 Pet store puppies come from commercial breeding operations. Bred in volume, following government regulations for minimum food, shelter, cage size and care, these puppies sell for $50 to $200 to brokers who sell to pet stores. "Pet stores then turn around and sell these puppies for an extraordinary profit," says Cori A. Menkin, ASPCA senior director of legislative initiatives. "We have seen puppies for sale in pet stores for as much as $2,500."

Menkin adds that commercially bred puppies often suffer medical and behavioral problems such as aggression or severe anxiety. Typically, these problems stem from:

• Poor-quality breeding stock not screened for genetic soundness to reproduce.
• Chronic sanitation issues when so many animals are kept in close quarters.
• Limited exposure to normal interaction with the mother dog, littermates or caretakers.

Investigators have documented respiratory infections, parasites, serious diarrhea and other conditions, along with genetic problems with hips and knees, which can require expensive surgery or euthanasia.

Amateur breeders

Puppies bred at home by average people typically sell for $200 to $600, with perhaps a collar, a toy and some puppy food included.

 These home breeders incur some of the same veterinary costs. Less likely, however, are medical clearances and stud fees, medical breeding or delivery help from veterinarians. While these pups are raised within a family and not in cages, they probably don't receive the systematic developmental work as pups from more experienced breeders.

Amateur breeders may make a profit of $1,000 to $2,500 per litter based on lower overall expenses.

Free to good home

Puppies available free from friends, family or strangers most likely come from accidental litters. The chances of good overall care and health of the parent dogs and pups are lower, based simply on a lack of dog care knowledge. There is often no way to know the health, temperament or even sometimes the breed, if the male is unknown.

 You're more likely to find free pups in communities overrun with unwanted dogs, where pups taken to a shelter risk euthanasia. However, one study of shelter animals found that "most dogs relinquished to shelters initially were obtained from family or friends at no charge." Reasons for giving the dog up included behavior problems or a family move.

Clearly, it's easier to vote with your wallet when the product isn't a puppy, but what goes into breeding and raising pups during those critical first eight to ten weeks influences the pup's relative "quality."

Source