We brought Cassie home from a local pet store when she was 10 weeks old. Three days before we purchased her, she had been drugged, stuck on a plane, and shipped to Illinois from some unknown location in Arkansas. At the time we had no idea that buying animals from pet stores was not really legit. If the animals sold were harmed or produced from puppy mills, they wouldn’t have "papers," right? And papers encased in a baby blue folder were just what the teenaged worker at the pet store handed me after I shelled out $750.
All the papers said, really, was that Cassie was a female weimaraner pup from Arkansas and that she met the AKC standards for the breed. Nothing else.
We had much to learn about rearing a pup, and not just behavioral training. I remember standing in the backyard with our new baby, watching her totter around on her fat puppy legs. The neighbor who lived kitty-corner from us (and who had some really obnoxious, non-friendly Rottweilers) asked what breeder sold us Cassie.
“Oh, we didn’t get her from a breeder,” I said. “We bought her at a pet store.”
The woman clung to her fence and looked aghast. “A pet store! Shame on you! Don’t you know those animals all come from puppy mills? You just supported that horrible practice!”
Confused, feeling guilty and not really sure why, I scooped up my puppy and brought her into the house.
We were lucky. Cassie had no health problems—strong heart beat, all her limbs worked, all her internal organs functioned, and she already understood that when she went outside, she should poop. The only physical issue she had was kennel cough, easily treated.
Something worse was wrong with Cassie.
When we put her in her crate and went to work, she screamed all day long, to the point where neighbors thought she was dying and tried to break into the house. While in her crate, she peed all over her blanket and pillow—repeatedly. If we gave her water, she spilled it. If we slipped in a treat, she crushed it under her paws. We tried playing classical music for her while we were gone, and when that failed, we turned to country. Even Shania Twain didn't soothe her.
The problem extended outside of her crate. If Kurt and I happened to be standing outside and Cassie was inside, she would scream and howl and throw her body at the windows, trying to reach us. Once, when Kurt was shoveling snow, Cassie scaled the fence around our backyard so she could get to him. She wouldn’t go outside unless one of us went with her, and at night, when we put her back in her crate and went to bed, she whined all night long.
Cassie had separation anxiety.
From what I understand, this is somewhat common in Weimaraners, being that they are incredibly intelligent companion animals who want to be with you ALL THE TIME. But I also had suspicions. Suspicions that Cassie had been taken from her mother too early (she suckled in her sleep the first month or so that we owned her). Urinating in her crate was what she knew how to do, having spent much of her life in one. When she was small enough, Kurt and I took turns holding her against our chests, where she would fall asleep to the vibration of our heartbeats. It was almost as if she craved the physical and emotional contact and feared with every inch of her being that it would be ripped away from her again, at any moment.
That was nine years ago. We worked diligently to help Cassie get over the anxiety, and she is much more mellow at nine years of age. It’s easy to forget how hard it all was, coping with a dog so needy and seemingly so unhappy. And with her separation anxiety came all sorts of behavioral issues—she’d scratch up the door if one of us was on the other side of it. She ripped out the screen in the backdoor in her hysteria trying to get back in. We couldn’t travel because we couldn’t leave her with anyone else. Add all that on top of regular puppy mischievousness and the Kallios were headed for a nervous breakdown.
One afternoon, I sat on the floor in the loft, on the phone with Kurt. We’d been hinting around the idea that maybe we should throw in the towel and give Cassie up for adoption. Give her to the Weimaraner Rescue, to someone who could handle her better.
“I think it’s the best choice,” Kurt said, and I agreed.
As I hung up the phone, Cassie looked up at me with her bright blue puppy eyes and I started to cry. She was already beginning to lose some of her initial terror—she wagged her tail when we got home; she brought us her toys to hold while she tugged on them, and when she cuddled into you, she did it with her whole heart. Nothing this creature did was half-hearted, and here we were, about to give up on her.
I pulled her into my lap and made the decision that we were hers and she was ours—for better or for worse. I vowed to find a way to make everyone happier, healthier and better.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with puppy mills, they are basically warehouses for mass producing dogs. The puppies are seen as commodities, not as living breathing creatures, and they are treated as such, crammed into small cages which are often piled one on top of the other. Food is scant and vet care is debatable. When females can no longer breed, they are usually killed. These puppies are either sold to pet stores and, more recently, online, and many buyers end up with an animal that has never socialized with humans before; there can be behavioral, temperament, and physical defects. The latest trends in dog breeding, the “designer” puppies like Maltepoos, Chipins, and any other hot new mixed breed of the moment can rack up anywhere between $800 to $1000 a pup for mill operators. And, much like dog fighting, even with growing awareness out there, puppy mills continue to operate. According to an April 13, 2009 article in Newsweek, there are between 5,000 and 10,000 puppy mills in the U.S.
Now that I know about puppy mills and pet stores, I can better understand my neighbor’s horrified comment all those years ago. But I no longer feel guilty. I feel that Kurt and I saved Cassie from an unknown fate. We bettered her little life, but what’s more important is that she bettered ours. For that, $750 was a small price to pay.
Works Cited:
Smalley, Suzanne. “A (Designer) Dog’s Life.” Newsweek. 13 April 2009. 52-55.
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