The numbers will make any pet lover blanch with disgust, anger, and sadness. The Humane Society of the United States calculates that as many as 500,000 puppies every year are sold in pet shops, and that many of these pet shops buy their pets from the worst breedersso-called puppy mills. What do these puppy mills (and kitty mills) have to do with you if youre on the market for a new furry companion? You know what youre doing when it comes to buying a purebred, right?
Truth be told, puppy mills are largely responsible for even harsher statistic: as many as 25 percent of all purebred pups suffer from genetic difficulties because of bad breeding. And as knowledgeable as you think you are about buying a dog, you could come across one of these poor pups and not even know it.
That could mean that you spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on a pet, only to have it succumb to a birth defect and maybe even die at an early age. Even if this worst-case scenario doesnt occur, buying from the wrong breeder can also land you an animal that picked up diseases because of the intolerable conditions at the breeder. That could lead to additional thousands spent on vet...