They say that they have a careful screening process for breeder listings, including a code of ethics that each breeder must pass in order for their puppies to be listed. In fact, they say a lot of the things that people WANT to hear on their "about me" page, but it all seems VERY sketchy to me. For starters, they don't list the kennels that are associated with this website, they say nothing about the breeders' relationship to the NSCA, and a lot of the pictures look familiar -- I've seen strangely similar backgrounds and picture presentation from puppy mill kennels.
And I'm almost certain these puppies are not all currently located in California.
It's just creepy... so much false advertising all over the place. Are they really allowed to do this?! I'm tempted to call them just to see if I can get a real human on the line to answer some of my questions.
The prices that are being asked (and paid!) for these obvious puppy mill Shibas is outrageous. I have show dogs that didn't cost that much. What a scam.
Masakado Shiba Inu www.masakadoshiba.wordpress.com "Common sense isn't so common"
The prices that are being asked (and paid!) for these obvious puppy mill Shibas is outrageous. I have show dogs that didn't cost that much. What a scam.
Masakado Shiba Inu www.masakadoshiba.wordpress.com "Common sense isn't so common"
Yeah they are not legit, they have a similar site for new york, and for multiple breeds. I doubt a person can do anything about that, since pet shops typically make similar claims.
Whoa! That's pretty bad! The prices are outrageous--one of those pups was 17 weeks old, and probably a mess from lack of socialization. And some of those puppies don't look like Shibas (the ones that are brown and white?)
What a scam, and how sad for the pups, and for people who may get what are likely going to be difficult dogs who may or may not be Shibas.
Inoushi, I see what you mean. I just substituted New York for California in the above link and got the exact same website, with only the state name changed. Florida has one too. But not Wyoming (as a random state that I tested).
Even pet stores can be held accountable to the laws governing fair and accurate advertisement in their jurisdiction. The internet is a different beast altogether.
Just frustrating sometimes to see puppy mills/scam websites that are flashier, better organized, more searchable, and more accessible than rescue or other kinds of "official" websites. Makes me wish I had a lot more web design and database expertise.
"All of the puppies listed on this website are from our nationwide network of breeders and may not necessarily be located in California. We can transport our puppies throughout the US."
And those puppies that don't look like shibas? Maybe they are "california shiba puppies"--a phrase used all over the website, but that doesn't have any real meaning that I'm aware of. They don't have anything to do with California, so why call them that?
Some info from the contract:
1. Lifetime guarantee means 10 years, not an actual lifetime.
2. There is a section about bulldogs. ?!?!
3. The health guarantee doesn't cover luxating patella, heart murmurs, hypoglycemia, or any non-life-threatening disease common in dogs. So it does cover hip dysplasia, unless your dog is overweight or over-exercised.
They're also the first "Sponsored" hit (which means paid ad) on a google search for "california dog breeder"
The phone number is the same 866- number for every breed.
Also all the testimonials are the same.
Some of those pinto shibas are surely mixes. And the prices for all breeds are OUTRAGEOUS. I can't imagine how much money all the parties are raking in... I mean the breeders themselves are probably only getting 400 or 500 for the pups, and the broker (this site) is doubling and tripling the prices and taking the difference.
Seems like another way to avoid looking like a broker, which is what they simply are. The amount of traffic they must have, and the people staffed to keep up the websites (so many of them, all with different breed info articles and puppy info!) and to answer calls or e-mails must be astounding.
Check out the phone number on this site: http://www.buypuppiesdirect.com/ ... so in addition to the whole "california-blank-breeders.com" racket, they run THIS site too (same puppies listed)
They are clearly very good business people and I expect them to be around for a long time, much to my disappointment. Based on their blog (http://purebredbreedersllc.com/) it seems like they are in the ramping-up phase of their business plan, and it's going very well.
It really does seem like this huge, elaborate conspiracy. But it's not a conspiracy; it's a corporation.
I think what's most angering and depressing for me is how bald-faced their lies are... "All breeders must abide by our code of ethics as detailed below..." I couldn't get very far down their list before encountering a HUGE wtf: "I breed only for the purpose of improving the quality of the breed." Bull. Sheet. (Pardon me.)
And what seems obvious with just a few clicks of the mouse is NOT always obvious to the vast majority of people. I'm not even one of those "you *should have* known better" types, because there was a time that I certainly didn't. Trying to imagine myself as someone in search of a purebred puppy and wanting to find a breeder in my state -- of course I would turn to the internet and Google my state + breed + breeders. And everything I would read on the "About Us" page would SOUND good, you know? I bet they'd have a great sales pitch up to the point of "Well, can I drive out to meet the parents and see your kennel?"
Too good to be true.
It's also depressing that Shiba have become as popular as they are that there are so many in mill/brokered situations. They've made it to the list alongside all those infinitely more popular breeds in no time at all. What happened there?? (Just a side note, by way of contrast: Basenjis are nowhere near as common in puppy mills from what I've seen, though they've been circulating in the US for much longer -- puppy mill B's they're certainly out there, but commercial breeders are preying much more on Shibas, just as a point of comparison.)
I, too, have my problems with HSUS, but I agree. That said, I wonder what their standing to challenge is.
Edit: I've been reading reviews of the company, just out of a morbid sense of curiosity. One of the good reviews actually said that their puppy had worms, but the company was still great because every puppy has worms! I suppose I shouldn't be as surprised as I am but I'll admit it, I really, really was.
Also, another positive review from a person who was told their puppy's shipping needed to be delayed because of diarrhea from food switching. Which was treated with antibiotics. Really?
I don't know the proper legal terms, but it seems like the claim is that Purebred Breeders is engaging in fraudulent business transactions. If HSUS lawyers win -- which I hope they do -- it'll have some impact on this business as it operates within the state. But I think what this model makes clear is that internet puppy sales are a *federal* concern (if not international?), and so I don't expect any outcome of this case to touch the laws as pertains to that level.
But if they win, I wonder what that would mean for the future of domestic internet puppy sales. Might it actually pave the way for more effective federal legislation -- especially if we can get a group that's less tainted than the HSUS to back it up?
The thing with parasites, is that they do cross the placenta barrier and pups can inherit them from their dam. Not all dams will have parasites to share, but import Shibas are often infested. While they may be wormed extensively once in the hands of their American owners, the parasites often migrate to other tissues at that point and encapsulate themselves, where they wait for the right moment to re enter the gut and reproduce. No amount of oral dewormer will get rid of them at that point, but that will eliminate those residing in the gut. So, the dams pass parasites to their puppies.
It can take several generations of aggressive and routine deworming to remedy that spread. The diligent breeded will, at times, have parasite issues in their dogs even though everything is clean and up to date. So, it is not always a sign of a bad breeder, when a puppy has a parasite. However, most "good" breeders will worm the heck out of their moms and pups before they go to new homes, so the new owner won't have to deal with it and a sick puppy.
I assume that the breeders using this site to sale pups are not as conscientious, or keep their dogs as clean as they should be, but getting an 8 week old pup from a breeder who does test positive for coccidia, or hooks, does not always mean they are a bad breeder.
Masakado Shiba Inu www.masakadoshiba.wordpress.com "Common sense isn't so common"
Yay for the lawsuit against them, and I hope they're able to shut them down. There does need to be more laws around this, and yes, I would think they would need to be federal laws, rather than state by state.
I agree with Lindsay about the parasites/worms. In my vet assistant class they talked about this, and how common it can be, and how difficult to eradicate. So I agree that parasites themselves are not necessarily a mark of a bad breeder. Of course, we know that this particular business is shady in the extreme, and this adds to it.
While I'll admit that I had no idea about any of the stuff Lindsay mentioned (thank you, by the way, it was very interesting :D), the thing that really struck me was that all new puppies had worms. I've seen so many people on this board bring home puppies without worms that it basically struck me as a sign of just how very many poor sources this person had gotten dogs from if they thought that every (or nearly every) new puppy brought home was going to have worms.
Either way, they definitely deserve to be sued. I'll be really interested in seeing how this law suit turns out, given the history of this sort of suit in the past. I did some research awhile back on suits about puppy mills on LexisNexis (because they give me free stuff for doing legal research on there) and the only lawsuit I found (against Petland) had failed. It was thrown out of federal court because many of the harms the plaintiffs were alleging had causation problems. Now, exactly what that means is this: any tort suit requires causation, meaning the defendant must have caused the harm to come to the plaintiff. This causes a problem in certain kinds of medical malpractice and other negligence suits, because you can't know that without the defendant's actions the plaintiff wouldn't have been injured anyway (in legal terms meaning that there is no actual causation, normally defined as "but for the defendant's actions, the plaintiff's injury would not have occurred"). So, basically, the problem for a lot of the plaintiffs in the Petland suit was that, because you can never guarantee anything 100% from even a reputable breeder, that means that's Petland's bad act, which was getting dogs from puppy mills and then lying about whether the breeders were reputable, didn't necessarily cause the dogs to be sick or have bad temperament. They might have been that way from a reputable breeder as well. So the Petland suit was thrown out. Now, there are doctrines out there that would let the kind of causation we have here (basically that they greatly increased the chances of the harm) stand up in court but those are narrow doctrines. The court would likely have to expand them in order for this suit to stand and I suspect they'd be worried about a flood of litigation if they expand it to these sort of cases. That said, you never know. Personally, though, I suspect we won't see one of these sorts of suits being successful until someone sues in California. California loves making new kinds of tort law.
Sorry about the block of text, folks. Hopefully someone else will find what I said as interesting as I did. :D
Edit: Found the case I was talking about if anyone is interested: Martinelli v. Petland, Inc., 274 F.R.D. 658. The case name comes up with results on Google, so others should be able to find it, and talks about what I mentioned under the heading "Injury." Interestingly, there was another element that this failed on that I'd forgotten about: apparently there was trouble proving that the customers relied on Petland's fraudulent claims in choosing to buy their puppy.
Thanks...that's interesting, if a bit depressing, as it sounds like this may not go anywhere then. However, it's worth trying, and any lawsuit costs money, so perhaps it will cost enough to hurt these guys.
I agree, it's worth trying. The law never changes unless people challenge it. My feeling on the matter is this: if courts see it as a problem, they'll change their doctrine. That's basically what happened with the medical malpractice stuff, which had some of the same problems, so I'm hoping it will happen with this stuff too, eventually.
Right now my plan is to prosecute, but I have to admit, I do seriously consider animal law sometimes. It's something I care a lot about (because I'm sure you couldn't tell LOL). Mostly, I'm not sure how one gets into practicing animal law without becoming in-house counsel for someone like PETA or HSUS.
@notoriousscrat, I realize this is a Canadian example, but what do you make of the recent ruling against Paws R Us in Ottawa? As I understand it, they were actually found guilty of cruelty to animals though a lot of headlines ran the news as Paws R Us found guilty of being a puppy mill, which I don't think was the issue. Honestly, it was a happy shock to me that the judge ruled against Paws R Us, though apparently this didn't put her out of business for good (which just reinforces the fact that it's not ILLEGAL to be a puppy mill, which isn't even a defined term, though it is illegal to be cruel to animals).
Anyway, that was brought on by the HSI in Canada. So I wonder if the HSUS is hoping some of that good fortune will rub off on them. In any case, it seems this case with Purebred Breeders is a little different, since they act as brokers and not breeders themselves. I'm having trouble wading through the news reports because they make it sound like the crime is that they're getting their dogs from "puppy mills," when -- shock and horror! -- these operations aren't *in and of themselves* illegal, it's just a difference of what the consumer is led to believe they're paying for (healthy dogs from "top breeders"), and what they ACTUALLY receive.
This news report also mentions a recent successful case against a Florida petstore called Wizard of Claws.
this maybe terrible to say, but i purchased my first shiba, yumi from this site. i looked up breeders from the NSCA website and wrote emails to the listed breeders, but either the information was old or i never got a response... after a couple of months of looking, i became too impatient to look up a legitimate breeder and a few people recommended the site to me, so i figured, "why not?" yumi came to me healthy and well, she is so well-behaved and a prime example of an aloof shiba. i'm not sorry that i have her in my care, but i do wish i had a more personal relationship with the breeder.
as for my second pup, genji, i got him from another website who breeds only shibas and tamaskan wolfhounds. i was excited that they emailed me and had web cam sessions with me showing me my puppy and his littermates, but once i got him he was so riddled with parasites! round worms, hookworms, giardia, and coccidia! luckily he didn't have parvo... after a few stops at the vet and a doing various holistic approaches to his ailments, he is a happy and healthy puppy who is so loveable and obedient!
all in all, i think my experience with pure breeders was much better than the other one.
The Canadian case actually has little to do with this one, but not because it's Canadian (we're all common law systems here, so our court proceeding and the elements of our crimes and torts are often very similar). It's because it was an animal cruelty case. That's a criminal case with different elements. It's a lot like comparing a fraud case to a battery case. They're similar in that they both require someone to cause an injury, but the nature of the injury is different so the problems you run into are going to be different. Not to mention, of course, that the other basic elements of the crime are going to be different (battery=an offensive touching, fraud=making a false statement that someone relies on to their detriment).
The Florida case, though, that's really interesting. It sets a precedent for this sort of case (a fraud case, according to what I've found on the suit) not getting kicked out of court, and in the same county to boot. This case could have a better shot than I thought if someone has already gotten a judge to listen t a similar case. That said, it also may not bode as well for this case as it could. Wizard of the Paws, from what I've gathered via a Google search, was only represented by the owner, who probably didn't know to challenge this sort of case based on causation. So it's probable that the court has never heard argument on some of the juicier issues here. That's the nature of an adversarial court system, if neither side brings something up, it's never a problem. Moreover, it sounds like the lawsuit was filed, an injunction issued about selling the dogs, then their was a settlement and Wizard of the Paws went bankrupt. The only thing the judge probably ruled on was the injunction, which again is going to have different issues than the case itself because it's a different thing. The article on the injunction makes it sound like they were focusing in court on how well the dogs were treated, which makes sense because injunctions are usually focused on what kind of harm is trying to be prevented by getting an injunction. There's a lot of guesswork going on here with the Florida case, though, since I don't have a court who's issued a written opinion on the matter, nor have I looked up the applicable statutes. Still, it'll be interesting to see how the previous case does or does not effect this one.
Notorious, thank you for your response. Though we're all outsiders observers here, I think it helps to have someone with an informed perspective talk through some of the details, since the news reports are fairly generalized.
Sounds like you're talking about Right Puppy Kennels, which is a known puppy mill. It's a good thing that your dogs are healthy, but that doesn't justify sites like this as a good alternative.
Yes, thanks for the further info Notorious. that is helpful!
And @ladlylike....It's hard to know what a puppy mill is if you're not educated on it, and most of us aren't until we either get a puppy from a mill or end up on a forum like this. So I certainly understand your confusion. However, as @Nekopan notes, you ended up getting TWO dogs from mills, and while one was slightly better, they are both still mills. These places need to be shut down (though I'm not hopeful they will be anytime soon) so that other people don't buy dogs from them, and more importantly, so dogs don't suffer as breeding machines from these awful people. Seriously, if you got a dog from Right Puppy, there is plenty of pretty awful info. out there about how they treat their dogs....and it's worth knowing, so you can steer others away.
