Puppies & Christmas – Why not to buy one as a present

Christmas puppies

With Christmas time  fast approaching  some people may consider buying a puppy for someone as a Christmas present, before your do please consider the following:

Pet stores, backyard breeders, puppy mills.

Christmas Puppies

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, you’ll start to see a lot of adverts on websites such as Gumtree/Pre-loved/Pets4Homes/Free-Ads appearing offering all the latest and supposed popular puppy for sale.

Most of these puppies have been born for one reason, to make their sellers “MONEY!!!!!”Some may have been born in inhumane conditions such as puppy mills.

Some may be healthy puppies, but many will not be, puppy mills tend to be large operations with lots of other dogs all there for the same reason, to produce puppies for MONEY, their life is nothing but a production line of breeding and birthing the next generation to sell.

When someone buys a dog from a puppy mill, they are helping this businesses to stay up and running, you may think that giving a puppy mill baby a good home for Christmas is worth it, but please remember her mother will remain at the mill, she will be expected to continue having litter after litter until she’s either too sick or old to reproduce – at which point she’s making no money for the owner and is just costing him money, it’s at this point that she will most likely be killed or dumped

A puppy soon grows up

When people buy puppies at Christmas, they probably all have a picture in their head of a cute little ball of fluff that wants to play and lick their faces. But what about after Christmas, have they considered that the little ball of fluff they gave/received on Christmas morning, will soon start to grow from a puppy into an adolescent dog with a lot more energy than the little puppy who was licking your nose only months earlier, then give it a year or more and you’ve now got a full-grown, adult dog with all the needs that come with it.

Don’t think that just because the first few weeks after Christmas involves a few hours of play and then the rest of the day sleeping in a bed/crate, that this is going to continue like that.

Pretty soon that little puppy is going to be 5lbs heavier and wanting to be playing/chewing with everything in reach, a few more months and say 20/30lbs later your sleepy little puppy will have grown into a very wide awake, full of energy dog.

So if you’re still thinking about getting a puppy at Christmas please be realistic; a cute puppy may seem cute on Christmas morning, but soon turns into an adult dog that you’re going to be responsible for the rest of its life, that’s not a couple of days/months, that’s a couple of years, most likely 10-12 years.

Remember your buy a puppy, your adding a new member to your family and with family comes commitment; a commitment to love that dog, to ensure that it gets exercise, to ensure it stays healthy and get the best care you’d give any member of your family and also a financial commitment to feed and care for him/her.

Adopt a family member

If your still thinking of getting a dog for Christmas after reading the first  2 points, please consider adopting a dog, after all they are going to be part of your family and when did you ever hear of someone buying a child for a family, dogs should be adopted not bought.

By adopting from a rescue and not buying from puppy mills/backyard breeders you’re reducing the demand for puppies from the people who run, reducing the amount of dogs they breed, your cutting off their income and hopefully preventing more dogs ending up in the rescue system,
You might justify buying from one of these types of breeders because you want a particular breed of dog, but please before doing so research the breed you’re interested in, because you’ll soon discover that there are numerous breeds of dogs in the many rescues around the country and there may even be a breed specific rescue out there, with dog you’re looking for waiting to be adopted by loving forever owners.

Most importantly all these dogs in the rescues will have been assessed as individuals by the rescues, they will be able to give you advice on the energy levels of the dogs and how much exercise they need, do they have any issues with other dogs etc, all of which helps the rescue, the dog and the prospective owner to be better matched to each other.

Since some shelters and rescue organisations shut down adoptions this time of year to prevent problems associated with giving pets as Christmas gifts, there is a greater tendency by people who would ordinarily adopt to go the puppy mill or backyard breeder route.

Please don’t be one of them. Wait until the holidays are over and visit your local shelter or rescue organization.