Buy Now, Pay Later

This post is about a very real, common situation in the puppy-buying world: You Get What You Pay For. Let me clarify by example.

A young woman purchased a dog from someone who claimed to be a breeder. She paid 300 dollars for the dog. At eight months he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to be put to sleep. She purchased another $300 dog who had to be euthanized for extreme temperament issues at a year old. Shall I go on? Okay, another person I know purchased a ‘cheap’ pup who developed hip dysplasia at six months. Um, another one had to put down their dog at three years old due to hip dysplasia and cancer.

Wow. What a deal they got on that puppy. Let’s work out the math, shall we?

Initial cost of pup = $300 - 500

Vet Bills for handling of congenital and other issues due to ‘breeder’s’ complete lack of understanding of the breed standard, genetics, pedigrees or anything else having to do with creating any semblance of a breeding program = $1500 - $4000

So, the next time you see an actual, ethical breeder advertising a pup for more than a few hundred bucks and you think to yourself, ‘Hell, I paid a hundred and fifty for my pup back in 1975, this guy is asking way too much money for a pup’ and you don’t stop yourself and realize that you are being ridiculous, and you go ahead and purchase a pup (covered in it’s own feces, with worms, no health cert from a person who should not be procreating within his own species, much less adding to the dog population), just remember one thing: I TOLD YOU SO.

Best,

Bob

This entry was posted on June 23, 2008 at 10:49 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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