puppies too young!

LisaO

Was in a large petstore yesterday & met a family with a tiny rottweiler pup they had just got. They "thought it was about 6 weeks old". Puppy looked small, even for 6 weeks & seemed very subdued - not how I would have expected a young rottie pup to interact with people. I thought it was very sad that A. the breeder didn't know/care the pup was too young to leave it's mother and B. the new owners didn't know/care it was too young to leave it's mother & that bringing a pup of that age into a petstore was maybe not the best thing for it

star-pants

Whilst we've established there are breeders out there who don't care, and people who are ill informed / don't research / shouldn't have pets, there's not a whole lot we can do.
I would have told them they shouldn't have gotten the pup that young nor should they have had it outside, honestly, without vaccinations and everything. Not even a clean back garden, a petstore.

Rommie

This is getting ridiculous!! I work in a pet store myself, and if i see one more person coming in with a six week old shih tzu (which i would advise not getting until at least 10-12 weeks of age) I really am going to lose it. Medium breeds at 8 weeks, large breeds at 10 weeks and toy/mini breeds at 12 weeks. I can't believe there are so many breeders selling off puppies at such an age!! Without the lepto vaccination, that puppy will be a goner if he comes into any contact with rats at all.

babystrawberry

Are pets hops not regulated some way to stop this ...we all know it is wrong and the absolute MINIMUM age for pup to leave its mother is 8 weeks ...how are they getting away with selling them at 6 weeks

Surely they can be reported to some Regulated Agency?
Why do people not research this before buying ... do they just go for spin on a saturday, go into a pet shop, like teh 'look' of some fluffy pups and buy it on the spot

its ridiculous:mad:

LisaO

They didn't buy the pup in the pet store - think they were just bringing it along for the "aah" factor. They seemed to enjoy the inevitable attention much more than the poor little pup was.

I am surprised these stores don't have a policy that doesn't allow people to bring very young (unvaccinated) animals in

*Lees*

I went into a pet shop in Cork city on friday and the owners had a little pug puppy on show in there, they had him on a little blanket on the counter the whole time, I asked how old she was and the owner said she was 10 weeks so obviously not old enough to be in the shop!

Rommie

Pet shops shouldn't be allowed sell puppies full stop, thankfully where i work, we dont sell animals, and we tell people either to not bring in young puppies or at least to keep them up in their arms at all times. They can pick up anything without the vaccinations. It's the breeders who are the problem though and I know of a few pet shops that are selling puppies around christmas, which means the owners have no idea of the backgrounds, and the sellers have no idea what homes the pups are going to. In something like a pug, you need to be really careful, I mean you could spend over eight hundred on a pug and have no idea of any health issues or problems it might have. And that pet shop in cork city (doesn't take a genius to guess which one it is) did have two pugs for sale just as few months ago.