Well, I'd rather see the kittens at my local shelter than in my local pet store. Very few (any?) Swedish shelters euthanize healthy cats and the shelters are full of people who love cats so I know the kittens will be taken care of at the shelter and I know that the shelters are very picky when they choose owners to their cats, I can't say I trust the people at pet stores in the same way. Actuarally, many Swedish shelters have "acute homes" for sick cats, kittens and pregnant females which means these cats don't live at the shelter, they live in an ordinary, loving home until the shelter finds permanent homes to the cats.
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Breeder vs Petstore
- Thread starter christian1971
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It's different here in US where they euthanize cats. I don't think the pet store takes very good care of the kittens either, but they seem to find homes really fast.
Hi - I know what kitten mills are, but thanks.Originally Posted by CathyG
Hi Wellington
All pet store kittens and puppies in the U.S. come from breeders too. No one has a sign outside that says "kitten mill". It always makes me laugh when pet stores say the puppies and kittens are from "private breeders" and the public totally falls for it, picturing a warm kitchen with a cozy nest of kittens and their mother. Just what is the definition of a private breeder anyway? That there is a "no trespassing" sign out front so you can't go back into the barn where the cats are kept?
Kitten and puppy mills *are* breeders. They are high volume/commercial breeders. Mill is a nickname for a high volume breeder. Not all mills are terrible places. Some are very clean and well kept. However, these animals are NOT pets and are considered livestock.
The bottom line is that these cats/dogs in the high volume breeder's facility are living their entire lives in small cages and exist just to churn out kittens/puppies for the pet shop industry. When they are no longer producing, they are destroyed. Every time someone "rescues" a kitten from a pet store, an order will be placed for another to take its place (because that breed is obviously selling so well) - ensuring a breeding female's continued misery.
Pet stores don't buy directly from a high volume breeder. Brokers (such as the Hunte Corporation, Lambriar, and H&H Pets) buy kittens and puppies from various high volume breeders and keep them in a meticulous "holding facility" where they are washed and groomed to look like their particular breed. Pet stores call the broker to place an order. The pet store never has contact with the original breeder so even they don't know where the animals really come from. A teenage clerk in the pet store, making minimum wage, is only repeating what has been told to her ("we don't buy from mills, we buy from private breeders!").
I personally fell for this ruse many years ago when I bought a Russian Blue kitten from a mall pet store in NJ and was assured she was from a lovely local breeder they purchased kittens from. When I saw her papers and later did research I found out she was from Missouri, from a cattery with 400+ cats.
She was a wonderful pet, but I can't help wondering about her sire and dam who were trapped back in that cattery in Missouri. How did their lives turn out? How many of my cat's littermates remained behind as "breeding stock" themselves?
