http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1466764_meet-the-other-wags-salford-pet-shop-has-a-man-uniteds-best-friend

Sadly these people will encourage the puppy farming and retail sale of puppies.  We need the KC to have an education/PR department that can immediately remedy such things and point out what negative PR it is for the team members/players to be seen to be supporting puppy farming.

Utterly depressing, they write about those dogs as if they were handbags or pairs of shoes. it's so frustrating, it doesn't seem to matter how loudly rescue's shout about puppy farmers, as long as there are twonks in the limelight buying lives as if they were fashion items, puppy mills will prosper.

The pet superstore must be getting desperate for sales to have asked for the support of the newspaper to write such an article. The celeb purchasers are clueless or will they do anything to get their names in the papers.  I wonder how many have these puppies 12 - 18 months down the line. I did register to comment on the article but when I last looked it was not shown, maybe just a delay or perhaps the moderator did not like what I wrote.  May try again later. Has anyone else tried?

I couldn't find how to comment (could be invisible to me because of my settings in high contrast mode).

Found the comments and the majority are disgusted.

I;d already put a post on this, but sadly as this store has advertised for years with MEN there's no way that they'd get rid of one of their main advertisers.

>Are these the most pampered pooches in Britain?

>Chances are that they may be - because their owners all play for Manchester United

Cor blimey, talk about a sweeping statement!!!!
Thats like saying eveyone with ginger hair will look after ginger cats better than people with brown hair.
Or All people with money will look after dogs and give them better treatment than people on a lower wage.
Of course, no one with alot of money mistreats animals, noone with money neglects animals, and ALL man u players are the most perfect dog owner going......... more thaqn lickly GOOD breeders wouldnt touch them with a barge pole unless they had a partner that took on the dog ownership, as the Man U player is away more than at home!!!!
(and I am not saying all Man U players could not own a dog, just that they should have got them from better places!!!!)
The one good thing is that they are able to pay all the vet bills that they will need!!!!!!
Lea :)

We need the KC to have an education/PR department that can immediately remedy such things and point out what negative PR it is for the team members/players to be seen to be supporting puppy farming.

I've sent a letter, e-mail every year to the KC asking them to do some kind of promotional work to help the GP work out a good breeder from a bad, I get zilch back apart from them saying they are doing their best to promote responsible breeding by the introduction of the ABS, that is as far as they will go they do not see it a problem for them to sort out and educate the public, particularly as it would cost millions to advertise, so we are on our own folks!

The KC care about protecting their own name and actions but unfortunately not enough about dog breeds as a whole (which you would think they would) to try to protect their future outside their own organisation............. Sad but true, especially as they are the only people with the funds to do this.

We can only educate through forums like ourselves, the majority of the GP know no different and from where I sit they never will............ :-(

Carrington, I dont know how much the KC earn from registration, And not picking on you just repkying to your post about what you said , but,
A TV advert campaign is ALOT of money, (I am thinking £100thousand but I probably wrtong) Could the KC add 1p to every registration and earn enough to do a TV add campaign for a couple of weeks IF they WANTED to??????
Lea :) :)

The puppies sold at this Pet Supermarket are mainly sourced from Ireland and Wales. When I ran a puppy class in Manchester, I saw the paper work given to the new owners, always a Dog Lovers registration certificate. First Vaccination only done by there in house vet.
Many of these poor little souls had serious health issues, and did not resemble the breed they were supposed to be, on many occassion I had to ask the new owners what breed they were !!!
There were no details of any health testing of the parents. Over the years we saw a lot of hearbreak with dogs needing lengthy vet treatment, hip replacements, eye problems as well as severe digestive problems.
You could tell the puppies that came from Dogs R Us as they were always nervous and unsocialised. This place has been going for years under various names I knew it in the sixties as Mayfield Kennels when my parents bought a dog from there that died of distemper within weeks of purchase.
They offer a money back gurantee, but the pup has to be returned to them, and by then most people have already incurred significant vet bills and become attached, many people would not want to return a sickly puppy to such and establishment and they know that.
They have been advertising in the Manchester Evening News for years and years, and the article must be some sort of pay back. There have been various campaigns to get this vile trade in puppies stopped, but as they are not breaking the law nothing gets done. But surely selling sickly pups to the general public must be breaking some laws.

Lea, the KC earn millions of pounds of profit a year.

They could easily do a campaign without even the need to ask for more from those of us who already KC reg, however if they wished to add an extra 1-5p charge for this purpose none of us would begrudge it I'm sure. :-)

Unfortunately, it costs millions to put on a TV campaign so it probably isn't the best way to get the message across as also a few weeks won't stay in the memory for long.

What they need are Newspaper/magazine adverts particularly around the holiday seasons, minimal advertising costs (at least compared to TV) they could easily get away with a page spread as little as just 6 times a year, it would reach millions of people and help stamp out the puppy farmers and BYB's helping the GP source reputable breeders.

From such advertisements it will encourage others on TV shows, radio talk shows etc to also spread the message, people like to pass on good advice and talk of what a reputable breeder is and thus the word soon spreads but it needs to start with an official body like the KC making that first move. :-)

>Lea, the KC earn millions of pounds of profit a year.

I think you might be confusing income with profit, but could be wrong. Have you the figures to hand?

If the Dogs Trust can get someone famous to do an ad for them, surely the KC can afford to get one done.

Some years ago a friend of mine had booked a puppy and asked me to go along. As soon as we turned up at the gate I knew it to be a puppy farm and wouldn't go in. I told her why but she still went in. She didn't buy that day, but did go back a couple of days late and brought one home. She was never away from the vets. If there had been more information available she might not have gone back. :-(

> If there had been more information available she might not have gone back.

But you told her why so she did have the information.  Some people just cannot accept that what the want is not always for the best.  
The other issue is many of these purchasers would never be sold a puppy by a responsible breeder due to their situation or lifestyle but people cannot always accept that either. They know best :(

I noticed that the shops web site mentions the puppies all have a 6 month guarantee !, does that make them ethical to the public somehow ?.

>But you told her why so she did have the information.  Some people just cannot accept that what the want is not always for the best.  

>The other issue is many of these purchasers would never be sold a puppy by a responsible breeder due to their situation or lifestyle but people cannot always accept that either. They know best 

I wasn't into breeding at the time, so what did I know? ;-)

I felt so sorry for the puppy (Westie) but it was too late by then, they had already bought him. I speak to people reularly about this and they are all so ignorant of the way the pups are brought up, and the fact that they aren't rescuing a pup from the situation so much as making space for another litter. I have managed to put a few people off over the years but it is still soul breaking to hear of another pup from these so called breeders.

they (the Kennel club) actually have some really excellent articles on their website about buying a dog, responsible breeding etc, but obviously people don't look there.

What is needed for the general public to do is what I did when getting my first dog, and make the Kennel Club their first port of call if they are thinking of a purebred dog.

It was an automatic first step for me to go that route, as I had already been involved in a different animal fancy, where all participants were members of the governing body.

This enabled me to understand the structure of Governing Body, then National Breed club, possible regional breed club, and that is where you got details of breeder members, got on waiting list to get your puppy.

Those wanting a purebred rescue can be filtered to breed rescues,a nd those who are happy to take pot luck have the large rescue centres and charities to look at, all of which seem to have a higher profile than the Kennel Club.

It's the haphazard approach to acquiring a dog that allows puppy farmers and dealers to flourish.

The information is out there and promoted by several sources already.  How many people have really never heard the mantra "always see a puppy with its mother"?
The internet may be all too easy when it comes to buying puppy farm output but it also holds masses of information regarding what to look for and where to find a healthy ethically produced puppy for those that want to investigate properly.
I really wonder what percentage of the people that go on to buy a puppy farm pup really care and would have stood any chance of getting one from a more ethical source.

This place has lots and lots of puppies so panders to people who do not want to wait or go on a breeders list, they can wander along and look through the glass, and provided they have a card or plastic can just pick up a pup there and then, no checks done.
Some people think that breeders should be able to produce puppies to suit them !!! And for the more money than sense brigade this place fits the bill !!!
Puppies are just seen as a comodity or the latest fashion accessory. I remember a lot of publicity about the Beckams getting two Rotweiller puppies when they lived in Cheshire lots of photos in the Manchester Evening News at the time. I wonder what happened to them ??? Passed on when they got tired of them I assume !!!

Isn'r the KC about to sell Clarges Street for a gazillion quid? Maybe they can afford the PR campaign after all :-)!

> Maybe they can afford the PR campaign after all :-)!

They have campaigns.  Their website is highly informative and they put stuff out there.  My vets waiting area, for instance, has a stand clearly supplied by the KC stocked with their leaflets.
Personally, I do not think the public lack information.  As I said before some people are not interested in that information because it is contrary to their own desires.  The only thing that would stop people from shopping for unethically bred puppies is to prevent that happening.  We cannot hope to ever see the vetting and licencing of people to own dogs as it could not possibly be funded.  Perhaps the only real hope is a law that prevents the selling of any puppies except directly by the breeder.

> the only real hope is a law that prevents the selling of any puppies except directly by the breeder.

Oh how I wish.

The kennel club need to stop registering litters from puppy farms, most people on seeing that the pups are kc registered think they are getting a good pup. I tried to put a comment on the newspaper article but it's not been printed. I was only asking if perhaps Colleen Rooney's Bichon might have been related to my Bichon who came to me from a puppy farm in Wales where she was used as a breeding machine, no idea why they've not printed it.

Does Man Utd have a fan page on the web or facebook? If so posting links to pictures of puppy farmed dogs might actually make some fans think twice before rushing out to buy a pup from a store like Dogs4Us?

It certainly rattled a few cages when this tactic was used on the Welsh websites and Welsh facebook pages.

What a good idea Polly, here you go http://www.facebook.com/manchesterunited?sk=wall

Thier facebook page is

https://www.facebook.com/manchesterunited?sk=wall

I have just posted.

Will you add a post with a link to a puppy farm campaign group too?

No problem http://www.puppylovecampaigns.org/

I've posted on your comment on facebook.

> The kennel club need to stop registering litters from puppy farms,

The vast majority of commercially bred puppies are not KC registered, most use one of the Mickey Mouse registers or simply sell with a pedigree which new owners think is 'papers'.

Certainly that will be the case where these pups were sold from as it is the former owner who has one of the paper registries.

The KC has stopped registration privileges when it has been proved that they have sold puppies through retail outlets.

The info in the mickey mouse registries is also not available for scrutiny by interested individuals like the breeding stats for KC litters.

But they do still register puppy farmed dogs, I don't care how many it is it's wrong and more needs to be done by the kc to weed out the puppy farmers that register litters with them, how they do it I don't know but it needs to be done.

that is not the main problem though it is the puppy farms finding a ready market that is the issue.

Don't think many puppy farmers will find it as profitable to use the KC system when they can only register a maximum of 4 litters with minimum and maximum age restrictions.

It is why we have the mickey mouse registries, since the KC has tightened up it's registration rules.

The more the KC tighten things the fewer Puppy farmers will use theri services, but that certainly won't make any diffference to them or the dogs.

No so right Barbara only a change of law will make a difference.

and then only if it is enforced.

The main problem is that the general public do not understand the difference between KC papers and Mickey Mouse papers.
They buy a puppy that is said to be pedigree and they get a sheet of official looking paper with a family tree on and assume that they have done well. I don't know how you get through to them that their bit of paper is totally useless.

If they did understand the difference the Mickey Mouse registries wouldn't exist.