Have you seen these very cute looking pet shops, with even cuter dogs and cats inside? My daughter loves to stop and look at the miniature dogs. Each week they have different animals. My daughter was adamant that she wanted a dog from one of these stores, but I was a bit hesitant. Although the dogs looked clean, they seemed very young.
Also, the price tags were a bit ridiculous: RMB 20,000 for a smallish dog that keeps on barking. Why would we pay this much money for a dog, when we can adopt a dog, usually for free or a small fee? My own mother is a dog breeder, and rules and regulations are very strict in Europe. However rules are not strict at all in China, making it easy for people to take advantage, and breed many dogs in too short a time. Mary Peng from ICVS explains:
Breeding is a very new industry in China and is largely unregulated. In the local market, pets for sale are bred for profit, meaning the animals are mated to produce many litters quickly. This results in poor health of the puppies and kittens, as their mothers were bred too frequently and cannot produce sufficient or nutritious mother’s milk for the babies. The puppies and kittens are usually weaned too early from their mothers, and sold well before six weeks of age.
So instead of buying a pet from the shop, consider adopting. I am happy to say we successfully adopted a abandoned puppy, which is calm, never barks and is a very pleasant dog to be around. Even better, he is much cuter than the dogs in the store, according to my daughter. For more information visit the ICVS website.
