Retire or Fire?

This is a touchy subject amongst Breeders. When your mama or daddy dog is done having litters, what should you do with them?

Some may think the answer is obvious: You keep them! Let them retire in peace at the home they know and love! But this creates it’s own set of issues. The biggest and baddest of which is Animal Hoarding.

In almost every account of the dreaded Puppy Mills being investigated and dismantled, you hear the wail of the puppy mill breeder: “I just loved them so much I couldn’t let them go! I had to keep them even when they weren’t breeding anymore! I keep all my dogs!”

That’s part of the way they end up with so many dogs; too many to take care of. Because they weren’t able to let go when they needed to. So they just kept adding more and more dogs until they were drowning in a sea of retired dogs and new dogs and puppies.

When you keep every single dog in the world, you aren’t able to give them each the care and attention they deserve!!

So then there’s the other option: You send the retired dogs away! Let them live out the rest of their lives in a new home with a new family who loves them!

But this also comes with negatives: What would your dog say if they had a choice? Dogs are creatures of habit. They love to be somewhere familiar. So is it cruel to uproot them from their homes (Which, hopefully, if you’ve been a good breeder, is full of love and good memories for them!) and send them away? Would they rather stay with their pack?

That’s it. Those are the two options; Keep them or send them away.

I think this is one of the issues with letting your breeding business turn into a huge operation. Then the choice is pretty much taken away from you- because if you have ten dogs and you keep all of them even when they’re not breeding anymore, then you have to get ten new ones to keep the business afloat and your pack size increases exponentially until one day you wake up and realize you’re a horrible puppy mill!

At Castle Grogan we only have three dogs. (Although Kayla is currently searching for a black and tan puppy just because she wants one) so we’ve decided that even when it’s time for Luna and Finn and Everest to retire, we’ll be keeping them. They’re our babies! We wouldn’t dream of sending them away! But that’s not to say a breeder who sends their retired dogs away is bad, or didn’t love the dogs. In fact, their sending the dogs away is probably because they want what’s best for the dogs.

We just personally have decided that it’s best for our pack to stick together no matter what!