Itsy Puppy

Lesson be learned - DON'T DEAL WITH *** BREEDERS! They will charge you out the *** and never help you again.

They think they are "God." They demand that the buyer do what THEY say because they are know-it-all. Which is completely untrue. They are just lazy *** who don't know how to care for dogs and are just in it for the $, so they gather up a male and a female dog and have them breed and then they come up with outrageous prices to charge. Shelters are the way to go!

Already neutered or spayed pets for $50 adoption fees. All paperwork included.

Mostly healthy with maybe a slight case of URI here or there.

True... however if you want a specialty dog like a micro-Pomeranian you simply can't find one at a shelter, unfortunately... otherwise I would absolutely have gone that route.

that is rude, as we are not idiots. She is a dog, she goes on daily walks and runs outside in our extensive backyard, playing in the snow and enjoying the pool during the summer.

Whenever she wants to go outside, she will tell us by ringing a bell.

She lives a better life than any dogs you ever have will; in a large home with a surplus of toys, collars, and beds. Therefore, we are not idiots, just educated dog owners that DO NOT need your criticism.

Take your dog outside to *** and let it be a *** dog instead of a *** accessory.

Idiots.

Hi my husband and I just purchased Viola a beautiful micro tea cup poodle from Rachel. The experience was a great , Rachel was professional hones and very caring of her puppies!

Viola is well socialized and you can tell that they have put a lot of time and effort into the care of their puppies! We would recommend this breeder to anyone who truly wants an elite micro puppy!!!!

I found the same photo at http://maltesekingdom.com/available-puppies.html while looking to buy one of their micro teacup maltese puppies. Since they are presumably located in Norfolk Virginia and I have to pay for the puppy by money gram I got suspicious and decided to look for other listings of maltese puppies. The first photo of your puppy is advertised at Maltese Kingdom as a male puppy available for sale.

i was researching maltese kingdom as i was considering purchasing from them.

spoke on the phone and i believe it was an internet phone. the guy had a heavy foreign accent so i got suspicious.

google searched the site and didnt come up with much.

he sent me the pay information, via moneygram or westernunion.

i searched the address 7566 *** court, norfolk va 23508.

i searched google and google maps for the address and came up with NOTHING of that address in the zip area. Not sure what to think.....

It's a scam! My brother got screwed

If you're *** enough to pay 3500 bucks for a dog, you deserve to be ripped off when there are thousands that die in shelters every day.

I'm very sorry that you had such a bad experience with this "breeder." That having been said, I do feel that you should have done a lot more research on the breed and breeders before making such a purchase.

You would have learned that there is no such thing as a teacup Maltese, and no breeder worth his/her salt would be selling them.

They are just taking the smallest puppies from their litters and breeding them, which usually gives them smaller puppies. Sadly, these puppies also commonly have a LOT of health problems, like heart and eye issues, structural and temperament problems, and short, expensive lives. When dogs are bred for size alone, these genetic problems are ignored, and almost always come back to haunt the new owner.

There are several breeds and mixes that are sold as "teacups," "tinies," "baby dolls," etc.

If you read the AKC Standard for the breed you're interested in, they will tell you what the approximate size and weight of the adult dog should be. NO REPUTABLE BREEDER will try to breed for one or two characteristics of a breed, (size, eye color, coat color, etc) then charge an outrageous price for these inferior puppies. I'm always amazed that someone will spend so much money on a puppy without finding out everything they can about the breed. A good breeder would have wasted no time telling you that there is no such thing as a teacup Maltese, Chihuahua, Pomeranian, Malti-Poo, ChiWeenie, etc, and would probably have been happy to either tell you where to learn more about the breed you're interested in or pointed you to someone who had some nice pet puppies.

I understand that you feel that you did not get what you paid for. But you're looking for something that does not (or should not) exist. Had you done your homework before making such a large purchase, you'd have known that. Now you're complaining because you got cheated by these people.

That's like buying a unicorn ONLINE, and being upset when you get a goat with one horn sawn off.

Research your breed. REALLY research your prospective breeder. You'll be a lot happier with both when you know what you're looking for.

And you won't be helping keep these puppy mills in business by purchasing one of their puppies.

Part of the responsibility here rests on your shoulders; these people would not be able to stay in business without customers looking for a dog that will fit in their pocket or purse, and healthy, sound puppies of that size are very rare. Smaller is rarely better.

Your $3500 could have gone to help save a multitude of animals from being euthanized at shelters. Your greed, pompous attitude and craving for false recognition is inexcusable. Save a life - adopt a shelter pet.

You have major issues!!! I hope you have a job worthy of saving shelter pets...since you condemn a person who may have spent thousands of dollars on shelter pets.

Good luck with your approach to life and making people see your point of view: POMPOUS ATTITUDE AND CRAVING FOR FALSE RECOGNITION IS INEXCUSABLE. Your words ...maybe you should self reflect.

While I find Angie's comment pretty harsh, because I know there's a HUGE amount of propaganda placed out there by the AKC and good and bad breeders regarding reasons for getting a bred pup. There are reputable breeders - they should, for example, either work with or run a breed rescue program for returned animals, so if you are insistent on a specific breed, you can still adopt an existing animal that needs a home.

Good breeders will be honest about why the animal was returned. Often it's just some appearance flaw.

Before I go any further (and it may be too late, but I have to say this), under all this discussion there's still a puppy who may not be perfect by your standards, but who is entirely blameless in all of this. I do hope that you ensure the puppy's safe return or, preferably, that you keep her.

It's easy to potty train - it just takes about two days of taking the pup to the appropriate spot every hour or so, or any time they seem restive, and praising the *** out of them when they produce. Treats are good too. Punishment does NOT work, they just get more frightened and confused - all you can do when mistakes happen is pick them up, take them to the right spot and see if they can squeeze out a bit more, and praising, praising. It helps, in my opinion, if you have a word or a phrase (or a clicker.

Clicker training is amazing, fun to teach because you learn to think like your dog, really fast, and your dog enjoys the learning process. You can clicker train anything, including cats and your pre-verbal toddler. How tos are all over the Web. Karen Pryor created it working with dolphins, so check her site first.) that the pup associates with peeing or pooping.

Later, it will help you to speed the process up if you're in a hurry for some reason (like, it's raining and you'd rather be inside, it'll remind your pup why they're there.) In training, you use it whenever you take the puppy to the pad, whether they produce or not. Then they get the idea that word=pad=pee, and eventually, word=pee. (Or ***.)

You say she's sleeping on her peepad. That's undoubtedly because she's feeling very insecure and frightened.

Dogs and cats are both extremely perceptive. Because dogs are pack animals they are deeply aware of and influenced by the mood of the alpha, which should be you. The peepad is the only familiar thing. She knows perfectly well that there's something wrong about her - your anger and frustration will be completely clear to her - and because she doesn't know what she's done, she's even more frightened.

Think how traumatic it would be to be taken from your mother at 2 or 3 years (the comparable age for a human) put in a box and placed in something loud and scary, jiggly, possibly cold, and dumped out at the other end in an utterly unfamiliar place among people who clearly don't like you or want you. I'd have behavior problems too! And so what if she's older? She was gonna get that way anyway, and I assume you weren't planning to pitch her in a river when it happened.

Give her a chance, poor thing, and have some empathy. She's not a piece of furniture you can just ship around the country without any impact, she's a frightened baby.

Also, I've had or lived with six dogs so far. The first was a wolfhound/mastiff cross adopted from a family whose dogs had bred. He was, I think, the smartest dog I've ever known, and though he was certainly a giant breed mix, he lived to be 13 because of cross-breed hardiness.

My second dog was a Great Dane that I adopted for free at 2.5 years old. She was sweet, well-mannered, and a wonderful dog, and she lived to be 11. (Most giant breeds die at 6 - 8 years.) She was a bit of a dingbat, though - as was my next dog, another Dane, that I'd obtained from a shelter simply by sending out a general word that I was looking for one and checking back with various shelters. I got him less than a month after I put the word out.

Again, a sweet fellow, beautiful, but no Einstein, and he had a number of picky little health problems, esp. early on. After that I got only crossbreeds, because I wanted that crossbreed hardiness. While my dogs had lived longer, I saw too many purebreds die so young, like the pomeranian mentioned above.

It's just a fact that the AKC has overbred many breeds while seeking certain popular or trendy appearances, often to the complete ruination of the breed's natural intelligence and health. This is why in the 80s and 90s we had so many German Shepherds built like hyenas - sloping backs - with appalling hip dysplasia as a result. That result became widespread, resulting in dogs crippled by age two or three, or living in constant pain. There are many, many other examples.

Crossbreeds, in contrast, are making new gene combos and as a result are far, far hardier. Their intelligence is usually much higher as well. All of my shelter dogs have been complete whiz kids. Of course, I could visit with them and spend a lot of time with them before I adopted, which is an option not available to someone who has either contracted for an unborn pup or has purchased one sight unseen, as above.

The main thing, though, is that we have such an overwhelming number of dogs and cats in this country that starve to death, freeze to death, go feral and pack up - which most dogs will do, although the "feral" aspect often changes rapidly if such dogs are offered human kindness.

Or they are abused, tortured, or neglected to death. It's hard to understand paying $3500 for a puppy after you have seen these starving, neglected dogs, still feebly wagging their tails and trying to lick your hand in the hope that perhaps THIS human will be kind. (Often they're yearling purebreds that the owner deliberately bred with the intention of selling them, but then discovered how expensive and time-consuming it was to care for them and train them to an adoptable age. So they're dumped on the road, or in a barn, or just kept and starved.) It's so hard to see this, and then understand why a person would spend so much money for one puppy.

It's true that such money could feed most shelters' animals for a month, or enable them to build more rooms, and find families for even more animals that are often euthanized simply because the shelters have no room for them. California alone, for instance, euthanizes over 10,000 animals a year. That's an old figure, so it's probably higher now.

I live in a rural area where people rarely think to spay or neuter their pets (if it's a conscious choice not to, it's often done with the idea that the animal WILL be bred, and become a big moneymaker. They hear that they can sell these kinds of pups or kittens for $800 or more (frankly, beyond all other concerns here, I think you were WILDLY overcharged) and because they're so often doing this based on what their cousin Bob told them, they don't bother to research it at all.

As a result, they never see all the ads in the local paper from people trying to sell the same sort of pups for $25. Papers, no papers - doesn't matter. And the pups get dumped. Sometimes in bags in dumpsters, still alive.

So. Though I can understand why people go to breeders - and there are reputable ones, certainly - this is why I grind my teeth when I hear these stories. With a bit more research and patience, you might very well find the exact pup that you wanted at a shelter. Purebreds turn up all the time, and contrary to popular opinion, shelter animals rarely have behavior problems that aren't made perfectly clear by shelter staff, who do, after all, work with and around all of these animals all the time.

And no, you will NOT get papers, even if the animal came in with them. The primary goal of ALL animal protection groups is to stop all unwanted (and irresponsible wanted) breeding, and they don't want to hand off anything that might make that easier. In fact, they will require you to "fix" your adoptee, if it hasn't already been done. (The animal will cost less and you will get a partial refund on the vet bill.) And why would you want to breed an animal, when the same sort of pups are already available at shelters for $100 or less?

You're not exactly going to make a killing in sales. You'll only likely cause some.

This is in response to whoever is, shall we say "uninformed", enough to believe in crossbred hardiness. IT IS A MYTH. If one were to breed some *** Poodle to a *** Cocker Spaniel, do you actually believe the resultant puppies would be better than their parents or a carefully-bred purebred pup?? That is just ***, and it shows how gullible the public really is.

If you want to adopt from a shelter, that's great. It is very true that purebred dogs sometimes end up there. Those that do, though, are dumped there by irresponsible owners who would have dumped a mixed-breed just as quickly. But most of the time, it's like reaching into a grab bag, hoping that you don't end up with a dog that likes to snack on small children, has any or all of a zillion other behavioral problems, or comes from a puppy mill, and has so many health issues that their owners can't afford to keep them any more. OR you could get a sweet, healthy dog that some lazy owner dumped because it outgrew it's puppy cuteness. Good luck with that.

Or you could take your time, learn about the breed you're interested in, find several breeders, and do some comparitive shopping. A good breeder will be more than happy to provide you with copies of the results of genetic tests of the sire and dam of their puppies, let you visit with the dam and the rest of the puppies as much as you like, and educate you as to what you can expect an adult to look and act like. Don't be thrown if the sire is not there; show breeders very often use a dog that can be across the country to sire a litter BECAUSE HE IS THE BEST MATCH FOR THE DAM. They will also show you a pedigree of the puppies they have, which should have MANY champions no farther than 2 generations back, and I would even want at least one parent to be a champion.

The AKC does not overbreed any dogs; the AKC is a registry only. They do not breed dogs at all. And there are no OVERbred dogs; there are BADLY bred dogs.

We have two beautiful, healthy girls here, one is a champion and the other will be by the end of the summer. There are at least six generations of champions behind both girls. That's six generations of dogs that are as close to the AKC Standard as possible, have been genetically tested whenever possible to ensure that they won't pass on any genetic problems, and come from breeders whose sole purpose when it comes to their dogs is to breed the best possible puppies for both show and pet purposes. Like most of these breeders, our puppy buyers have to sign a legally binding contract that

Guarantees the puppy to be free from any genetic problems for their first 4 years of life Requires that all pups not being shown will be spayed or neutered, at which time they will be provided with registration papers listing them as sole owners States that we will take the dog back at any time in his/her life should the owner become unwilling or unable to care properly for the dog. There is a specific clause in the contract that their puppy is NEVER to be dropped off at a shelter. We brought that puppy into the world, and take full responsibility for that puppy. Showing, testing, stud fees, shipping costs (the dam is often flown to the stud, then flown home after the breeding), the costs of raising a healthy litter, all these things are expensive. Most breeders don't even come close to making a profit on a litter. It is absolutely a labor of love. And we don't get half of $3200 for our puppies, including show prospects. So before anyone goes around bashing good breeders and spouting off ignorant things about genetics, cross-breed vigor, etc, I would suggest that they actually spend some time with a fee GOOD breeders and get their facts straight.

Your dog is like this because you probably got a puppy that was from either a backyard breeder or a puppy mill -- all have proven to have *** dogs with loads of problems not unlike you described, plus some potentially fatal medical issues.

Adopt a pet from a shelter next time. Never trust online pet breeders if they do not have the credentials and all their dogs are papered and health-checked. And def do not trust pet stores in malls or any other shopping center.