For Prospective New Pet Owners

This video that should be watched by every person thinking about getting a new pet. It’s the “ugly side” of our love of pets. If you take a look at the highlights below you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’ll see in the video. Don’t watch it if you cry easily and don’t feel like crying or if you’re easily depressed.

We wish everyone had a pet, and we wish every pet caretaker was responsible, which is why we added this depressing video to our Big City Pet site. We hope you understand we’re only trying to help prevent the situation from getting even worse.

Some of the highlights:

• Many puppies sold in retail pet stores are purchased from puppy mills
• Up to 25 million animals become homeless every year
• Up to 27% of purebred dogs are homeless
• 9 million homeless animals die in the streets every year
• 16 million homeless animals are taken in by shelters where they’ll be euthanized
• It is estimated that 50% of the animals in shelters were taken there by their “caretakers”

Getting a pet is a major commitment that isn’t unlike having a child. Think hard about what kind of home and life you’ll be able to provide for the animal before you run out to buy a pet.

Virginia Puppy Mill Shut Down

Over 1,100 dogs were rescued from a Southwestern Virginia “puppy mill” after a 5 month investigation by the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) led to it’s closure. According to the reports Virginia has been lax with it’s regulations of the dog breeding industry and that has led to a lot large scale dog breeding operations (i.e. puppy mills) allowing deplorable conditions to exist at their businesses.

Many of the rescued pups are finding new homes thanks to the  help from a lot of animal lovers. Gerti, for example, was lucky enough to be adopted by Barbara in Montgomery County MD where she’s certain to be as happy as her new “mom”.

We don’t have the ability to solve this problem completely, but the more pet lovers know, the better in the long run.
The short video below contains more information on this story and the problem.