Saturday, February 11, 2006

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

One thing that owning a fur-baby has taught me is to research and question everything. I think I used to be very naive in the way I sought out information. Someone would say something and I would believe it to be true. Why not? Well, there are very few absolute truths out there. I have learned that a truth for one person is not necessarily a truth for another. Every situation, every person, every family, every *dog* has it's own story. So now, learning more and more about dog health, nutrition, and advocacy has become more challenging, but more fun! There is so much information hanging around on the internet these days. Sometimes it can be hard to sift through it all and come out with any definitive conclusions, but I like feeling like I am learning.

I am on several Yahoogroups that are dog-related: TheTruthAboutVaccines, NaturalBerners, BMDCNV, and RawfedNE. Recently, on one of these groups, someone posted that they saw a baby Berner on Petfinder. Everyone gets all bent out of shape when we see a baby Berner being sold in a pet store or on-line. We (Berner owners) can be quite protective of our breed. The issue was that the seller claims to be a dog rescue who "saved" this baby girl from an auction. They go on to claim that she certainly would have otherwise been shipped off to a puppy mill and bred to produce puppies by the time she reached 7 months of age. Many Berner owners, including myself, initially thought the seller was legitimate. What nice people to rescue a puppy from the hands of puppy brokers and puppy millers. And they are now looking for a forever home for her! Right?
Wrong.
Reliable sources tell us that our Berner Rescue has been onto this woman for awhile now. Our Berner Rescue tried to get this baby girl and this seller actually bid against us. Now why would they try to outbid a Berner Rescue if they are a rescue themselves? Rescue is an expensive task! They are pulling at the heart strings of many many people out there for one simple reason: PROFIT. This is a sad situation. We can only wait and hope that the seller cannot find this puppy a home. Soon she will grow too big, too rambuncious, too expensive to keep around. Hopefully then the seller will relinquish her to our Berner Rescue where her rehabilitation will begin. She will be untrained, unhealthy, and a harder sell to adoptive homes. But this way, maybe the seller will think twice about getting another Berner puppy next time. Less demand, less supply. Unfortunately, this needs to happen at the expensive of that beautiful Berner baby.

Just goes to show you that not everything is always as it seems.

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