A bit about breeders
There are many pug rescues in the world that rescue thousands and thousands of pugs. So many of these pugs come from breeders, as pug rescuers already know. I was looking at the results of a quiz on a pug website that asked where your pug came from, and it was terrible to see that a tiny fraction of pugs come from rescues and the great majority came from a local breeder. This is not meant to be offensive, but even if the breeder does treat the dogs with care, there are already so many pets abandoned that we do not need to purposely make tons more of them. And certainly irresponsible breeders should be stopped. There are so many sweet pugs available from rescues (I work with a rescue and you would be amazed how sweet the pugs are in spite of their previous circumstances) that any person would love once they met them.So if you are thinking of getting a pug and you were considering a breeder, please trust me that rescuing a pug is the best choice you could ever make. I can hardly stress that to you enough.
A look at puppy mills
So you are thinking, "Okay, no breeders. So we will just buy a pet from the pet store." If you want to know why this is also a horrible choice, some pet stores have puppy mills in the back. I am not saying that all of them do, only some. As far as I know, Petco and Petsmart to not have puppymills. Certain pug rescues have adoption events at those pet stores, and many other animals rescues have their's there to. But some other pet stores do have puppymills and when you think you are not buying a dog from anywhere harmful you are really supporting a horrible thing without even knowing it. Again, this is not to be taken offensively if you have bought a dog/cat from a pet store without knowing it was from a mill. Infact, recently I was at a pet store playing with a puggle and when I came home I found it was truly from a puppymill. Puppymills are extremely cruel to the animals, I know because I am around pugs that have been forced to have as many puppies as possible and you can tell that they were treated horribly. Some are shy and afraid. Some have back/leg/hip problems from living in a cage where they have to sit because it is not big enough to stand. And they are all in terrible health.
One step at a time
I know that if all of us pug enthusiastics work to put and end to these two horrible sources of pets, they will be nothing but a memory eventually. We can't think that they are to difficult to end, we have to keep going to stop them so that pets can live happy and healthy lives from the day they are born. We can do it one step at a time.
