Dog-Sense: For All Dog Owners

Choosing A Christmas Puppy

Think. Where does a puppy-for-Christmas come from? Puppies need sunshine and outdoor play time for normal development. Is that puppy foreign born, mass produced…

December 2018 | TheDogPress.com ~ Staff

…raised in someone’s basement, or cruelly kept in outside pens? You’ve seen photos of puppy-producing machines imprisoned for life in blistering sun, wind, rain, or snow-covered cages. Unless you visit the breeder-seller how do you know the puppy-for-sale isn’t a puppy mill or distributor in disguise?

You know to beware of pet shop puppies but now there’s a new twist. This year the internet is flooded with “Christmas puppies available” ads from what appears to be reputable dog breeders.

Here is what you should be aware of and try to ascertain: First, where was it actually born? Was that Christmas puppy from a southern state or was it cruelly snatched from the nipple and shipped from Mexico, South America or some other reverse-weather country? That puppy will have suffered both physical and developmental damage.

So early in your communications, determine where the seller lives. Then verify the postal and area code match that location.

Why? It could reveal another health concern. While a domestic dog may come into estrus in late fall it is not normal unless mother dog lives in a temperate climate. In all species, nature times reproductive cycles according to hours of sunlight exposure. ^{{Ref #1 - Wolf In Your Dog}} Many mid-western or northern puppy mill “machines” (female dogs) are hormone-induced into reproductive cycles timed to produce puppies for Christmas.

It stands to reason that conditions will have some detrimental effect on the puppy’s growth or hormonal health. Horses, cattle and other large mammals that carry a fetus nearly a year so that offspring is born in early spring when grass is great. Carnivores, with shorter pregnancies, also ovulate so that their litters are born when food is plentiful. That includes the offspring of cattle, deer and other grass eaters. (Nature knows dogs don’t eat corn or wheat.)

Canine Reproduction specialist and SAAB Member, Jane Barber, DVM did an enlightening column on the estrus bitch, pointing out that she is a dog in wolf’s clothing.^{{Ref #2 - Estrus Bitch}} Nature has a plan and when we interfere there are “natural” consequences. Winter puppies raised under artificial heat and lighting (if they are lucky) are not part of nature’s plan even though they fill the demand for Christmas puppies.

The bottom line is simple. A “puppy for Christmas” is a gift of devotion. Religious scholars equate the totally forgiving, always-and-forever love of a dog with God’s promise to mankind. We are not scholars so our staff simply points out that “dog spelled backward is God.”

Reference Information:  {1} The Wolf In Your Dog     ~     The Estrus Bitch, A Wolf In Dog's Clothing

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