Page 30 - K9 News - Issue 14 - December 2020
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could all be girls when you want boys. The only all this will happen on the back of a prolonged
certainty when you are dealing with Mother period of fundraising difficulties and undoubted
Nature is that nothing is certain. You can be hardship.
absolutely sure of that.
It was patently obvious that people home-alone,
And adding even more cold water to even more or home with out-of-school kids, would be
pessimism, and as an eternal optimist I agree looking for distractions or company. And what
that there are times when pessimism needs better than a puppy? All round entertainment,
to be the wine of the day, what happens if you less dangerous than alcohol, and a lot less
can’t home all the pups and have to run them depressing than New At Ten.
on? Do you have the facilities, the time, and the,
We experienced it ourselves. Do you remember
dare I say it, money? Do you have the capacity
the gang of five from my last article (Episode
to deal with a dramatic and possibly long-term
Two of the Weird World Chronicles), the one’s
increase in the size of your pack?
from our pre-lockdown litter that we hadn’t
And it might not be a sudden increase. It could managed to get to their new homes before the
be an unexpected increase just when you fertiliser was launched into the cooling system?
thought nothing could possibly go wrong. But if You would not believe the number of calls and
something should go wrong, and it could be for emails we received. It was easily ten-fold on
one of many reasons, and one (or more) of your the norm. A majority didn’t know we actually
well-vetted and delighted puppy owners cannot had puppies (though they were all spoken for)
keep their charge, can you do as any breeder and the contact was purely speculative. A few
of sound ethical standards would do, and have were genuine and we have kept in touch for
them back? the future. Most were clearly fly-by-nights and
had contacted a large number of ‘breeders’ and
At the very best, your achievement as a breeder
these lost interest the minute we started asking
in financial terms - and I am talking purely
questions and they found out that we didn’t
financial terms here - could be that you end
have any puppies immediately available. But
up with the puppy that was the integral part of
what was really disturbing was that there were
your original master plan and, to all intents and
several that were blatant about the fact that
purposes, the little monster hasn’t actually cost
their sudden desire to get a puppy was because
you an arm and a leg. And if you’re lucky, he/she
they wanted company for themselves or the
could even be cost-neutral!
kids, even though they had no idea how long
If you are going to breed, you should do so they would be working from home, or what they
because you want to achieve something for your would do when things returned to normal and
breed and something for yourself. You should they went back to full-time work. And, even more
have an objective. And that objective should disturbing than that, was the knowledge that, as
include an improvement and it should be part of I put down the phone or hit the send button on
a long-term plan. the email, they would move on to the next and
would almost certainly end up with something.
The breeding of dogs should be a hobby, not
a business. It should be for neither money nor Demand for pups was bound to escalate….and
glory. as with any leap in demand, there will always be
someone there to take your money.
When this pandemic kicked off, one of the first
things I said was that the rescue centres need The puppy farmers started having Christmas in
to be thinking well ahead. It was always going March.
to be a rough ride. And, when it’s all over (or at
And let’s be honest here. A puppy farmer
least settling down to the point of tolerability) the
doesn’t necessarily have to be based in a filthy,
demand for their services is going to rocket. And
dark barn in the back of beyond of Wales. They
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K9 NEWS DIGITAL / DECEMBER 2020
