Scrolling through social media and some of the many dogs for sale sites, it’s crazy to see the prices that some breeders are charging for pups and adult dogs these days. The interesting thing is that it always seems to be the same names/breeders popping up time after time.

First of all, I just want to say that I have nothing against someone who breeds their dog once or twice in their lifetime to keep something back from them as a replacement or even has a small breeding programme or even the more serious breeder who breeds for a purpose and to preserve a good honest line of dogs…

What I don’t like is seeing people breeding litter after litter and churning out pup after pup for the highest price possible, without any care in the world as to who their pups are going to or the quality of them. This I believe contributes to the many dog owners who end up with dogs that they can not handle, they all start as small, fluffy and cute puppies but as they develop and fully mature they become problem dogs and to much to handle for the majority of the pet owners. The other issue is the amount of unhealthy dogs that are being produced and sold to unbeknown owners, these dogs end up suffering in pain or living a very short life due to bad breeding practises by breeders.

There also seems to be more and more people living a life solely or mainly of their dogs instead of having a normal job like the majority of the world… These people in my mind are nothing more than a puppy peddler, no matter what these so called “breeders” say or how they try to paint it! They are just puppy mills!

What’s concerning is that it always seems to be the same breeds that suffer in the hands of the peddlers, like the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog, English Bulldog, Old English Bulldog, French Bulldog and American bullies are just a few of the biggest victims. I mention several none working breeds because I don’t think any breed should be abused and exploited as a monthly income and the above breeds seem to suffer the most.

A strange fascination has also developed over the last 10 years with coat colour and anything with a fancy coat always seems to fetch double the money which the puppy peddlers have jumped on. This is why no serious dogman will rarely entertain blue working dogs this day and age, as blue staffs have now almost become a separate breed in their own right. The colour has been ruined as so called breeders are constantly breeding for blue staffs… I have to admit I have always had a bit of a soft spot for some of the old school Irish bred blue and blue pied dogs. Unfortunately they are a rarity these days and we are now solely left with fat blue show staffs.

It’s because of these money orientated breeders that breeds like the staffs, have been ruined. In reality there is very few decent staffs about this day and age, plenty of them act and talk the part at the end of a lead but wouldn’t be able to compete with other working breeds in most sporting functions, which is a great shame!

Then there is also the opportunist type breeders who pick dogs up as I pick up dog books. What ever the flavour of the month is, they will own one or two just long enough to catch the hype and make as much money out of them as possible. Then once they’ve made their money and the hype has dwindled down they sell them on or drop them off at the nearest shelter without any care in the world.

These are the same people that talk a good talk about how much exercise they do with their dogs, how much they work their dogs, how many health tests they put their dogs through and how they are breeding to improve the breed and breed better dogs, but in reality the only thing they want to improve or better is their pockets. As soon as the interest or the prices of pups has gone down they get rid of them as if they were nothing more than a piece of meat and onto the new flavour of the month.

This is something that I don’t think will ever change now, unfortunately the dog world is now mainly all about the monetary value of a dog. Long gone are the old days of keeping and having dogs for a function or a purpose. A dogs value used to be based on its ability to do a function, now it’s based on its genes, coat colour, how big or how heavy it is and how hard it makes their owner look. This mentality of look at what I have seems to supersede everything else, even common sense, ethnic breeding and above all what’s best for the individual breed.

I urge everyone to not buy from these so called dog lovers and breeders…