Never Buy From Pet Stores - Buy From Shih Tzu Breeders Or Rescues

Perhaps you’ve seen people picketing your local pet store because they were selling puppies. Don’t these people have anything better to do with their lives? Actually, no they don't. What they are doing is calling attention to not how the puppies in a pet store or treated, but where pet stores buy their puppies from – puppy mills. Puppy mills are not only cruel and unsanitary, but the puppies that come from there are often sickly, have ingrained behavioral problems and are sometimes sold with false papers.

If you want a Shih Tzu or a Shih Tzu mix, then you are best off getting your puppy not from a pet store or an Internet site that sells puppies with no questions asked (except your method of payment), but from reputable Shih Tzu breeders or an animal rescue shelter. The puppies and their parents from Shih Tzu breeders are kept in ethical conditions an receive great veterinary care, often get to live inside of a house and come with health guarantees. These are some of the many advantages of buying from Shih Tzu breeders or adopting from a Shih Tzu rescue.
Even Hitler didn’t deserve to live in a puppy mill (well, maybe), let alone innocent dogs that never committed a crime or bore anyone a grudge. If you want to stop puppy mills, then you have to do certain things. You can write to your local politicians demanding the end to puppy mills. You could support charities fighting to bring about the end of puppy mills. And, you can bring down puppy mills in the nicest way of all – buying your next puppy from a Shih Tzu breeder or adopting one from a Shih Tzu rescue.

Sometimes Shih Tzu rescues and your local animal shelters might have Shih Tzu or Shih Tzu mix puppies for adoption. Six to nine months of age is one of the times dogs are most abandoned. They’ve passed their really cute puppy stage and cold reality is setting in. If you bought a puppy on impulse (which often happens in a pet store), then you may be saddled with a dog that you are not compatible with.
Always buy a Shih Tzu puppy from a reputable Shih Tzu breeder. Think about how a puppy lives in a pet store. They just sit in a cage all day and all night until they are sold. Every day they are fed, watered and their cage cleaned. The pet store employees usually have so much work to do that they cannot give the puppies the individual attention they need at this critical time. A puppy learns best from eight to fourteen weeks of age. When they miss this window, they will have a hard time learning to be a good pet.

Nobody wins when a puppy is bought from a pet store. The buyer doesn’t win, because they have a sickly and maladjusted puppy. The puppy’s parents sure don’t win, being forced to live in overcrowded wire cages until they are shot for being too old to breed. But the biggest loser is the puppy. That someone will most likely buy Shih Tzu puppy in the window on impulse bereft of any Shih Tzu information can cause the puppy to soon be abandoned. A Shih Tzu breeder makes sure you and the puppy are well matched for life.

Rebecca Simpson hopes to win the lottery so s/he can spend the rest of his/her life as a Shih Tzu breeder. This author has worked with many Shih Tzu breeders, owners and judges over the years. This author is currently working on a book on small dogs, including a large section on Shih Tzu information.