Buyers are often mislead by the overzealous promises made by the pet sellers on their quality. Man’s search for a perfect best friend (Dog) has become more difficult than ever. Getting the right breed and the perfect dog is almost impossible with the constant duping by the pet traders. shruti chakraborty If you’re thinking of bringing home a pet from the pet store, you might want to be wary of being duped by the “animal lover” running the pet store and might want to ensure exactly where your pup is coming from, before your little four legged friend, joins the family. On the tiled floor of a pet store in Karol Bagh, in Delhi , an exhausted looking black Labrador puppy, hardly breathing, with fleas on its body, lies looking almost like a lifeless stuff toy, waiting to be sold. Small cages line the walls of the shop waiting for new puppies to come in and fill them. The shopkeeper tries enthusiastically to sell the pup saying that it’s an extremely healthy pup, which is why it’s the size of a 3 month old pup, whereas its only 40 days old.
Ira, who now lives in Dehradun, recounted the memory of her first pup purchased in Delhi; “We were told she was a lab, by the vet who we got her from, not only did we later find out that she was a mixed breed, but also for the first few weeks she puked worms and fell terribly ill. The vet offered to exchange her for another pup, but we chose to keep her and take care of her instead”. Kara, a volunteer at Friendicoes, an NGO based in Defence Colony, said “recently some one brought in black Labrador pups to us that were born with dysfunctional penises. The vet confirmed that it was caused due to inbreeding and the resultant condition was extremely painful for the pups.” Vrishnika, a resident of Vasant Kunj recently bought a Labrador pup; she was told by the trader, that the pup was not more than 2 months old. A visit to the vet told her differently. The pup was instantly identified as being over 3 months old! The Dhandas bought a pup hoping to give it a loving home. They were assured that the pup was 2 months old, and that it was safe to take the puppy home. The lethargic pup, with seemingly weak hind legs soon had to be taken to the vet, who told them that the pup had been weaned off too early and sold to them. These were accounts of some pet owners who experienced a rude touch of the puppy industry in Delhi . “Puppies purchased from pet stores are often brought in here with viral infections like distemper, flea and tick infestations to name a few, amongst other problems.
Many of my clients have also found puppies they purchased from pet stores dead within a few days of their purchase” says Dr. Vinay Chhabra, a vet based in Gurgaon. Forming a rather well knit team in Delhi’s flourishing puppy industry, pet stores, vets and breeders all have a share in the huge profits that this industry is making, the size of which cannot be estimated since there are no assimilated records of even the total number of pet stores, vets or breeders in Delhi yet. Much of this profit is made from duping unsuspecting and unaware customers at pet stores. “The problem is that most of the pet stores are unaware of the basic vaccinations to be given and there is often overcrowding of puppies in the places where they are kept. The mothers of the pups also pass on infections, which is one of the reasons why the pet stores will never show you the parents of the puppy” Purchasing a pup from almost any pet store will mean, that no matter how much you may insist, it is most likely that the parents of the puppy and you will never be introduced, leaving you with no way to ensure whether the puppy was born to a pair of healthy parents. “We bring puppies from all over the country” said Kaushik Shah, owner of a well reputed pet shop in Saket. Other pet shop owners say they bring in the puppies from their farms and contacts in Punjab and Meerut which is why it becomes impossible to make customers meet the pup’s parents. “There has been a lot of interference from NGO’s towards breeders in Delhi , who claim that we are ill-treating the animals for the sake of making profits” said Vijay, a breeder in Karol Bagh. “This is one of the reasons that no one will show you the place where these puppies come from,” he says, standing next to a small cage with one of his German Shepherds recovering from tick fever in it. “Breeding them in Punjab is much easier. We just bring them in from there” said another pet shop owner in Delhi . The pet stores only claim to be fulfilling a demand, when they are asked about the exotic breeds they supply that are unsuited for the Indian weather. “Saint Bernards are suited for only cold climates, but people ask for them in Delhi , we are only fulfilling the demand” said Lalit, who is a breeder in Delhi ’s Dwarka area. “I can provide over 40-50 breeds of dogs to you from my pet store” boasts Kaushik Shah.
Pet shops and vets are connected closely to breeders, who bring in the pups, which the vets and pet shops sell, keeping huge margins thereby making profits that are most often neither taxed nor kept a track of. Delhi has breeders working at different scales of operation. Some breeders have 1 or 2 breeds, being bred at home, while others have 6-7 breeds kept in different locations. The breeders operating on a scale larger than that are usually owners of farm houses or other large houses dedicated to breeding of dogs in areas around Delhi like Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Narela, Meerut, Faridabad and Rohtak amongst others. The owners of these establishments keep a track of the business by networking with pet stores. They keep a breed or two with them in Delhi and bring in the others as the demand arises.
Pet store owners in Delhi also bring in puppies from various other parts of the country amongst which Punjab works out as one of the favourite options because of the cheap availability of puppies and the option of cheap transportation using cars or trucks, as opposed to farther off places like Calcutta or Bangalore. The large pet stores also import pups from countries like Russia, Uzbekistan, amongst others into other cities of India, before they bring them for sale into their pet stores. Breeders in Delhi , blame the puppies brought in from Punjab for the reputation the pet stores have gained. “The pet stores buy the pups for 2,000-3,000 rupees in Punjab, where the pups are cheap because they are most often very poorly bred; here they sell the same pups for 8,000-10,000 and give no guarantee on the quality of the puppy” accuses Daisy, a breeder of Dalmatians in Delhi . “The whole system of pet shops is flawed,” says Ambika Shukla of People For Animals, an NGO actively advocating a boycott of pet shops for purchasing puppies. “The demand for puppies has made this an active industry, encouraging the treatment of puppies like commodities, this leads to the cycle of exploitation of the females, wherein the breeders keep them continuously pregnant so as to produce as many pups as possible”. “Under section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act a number of rules are laid down for keeping animals in captivity, which these pet stores are constantly violating” she added. Many pet shops blatantly deny the existence of puppy mills in India . But Daisy, a breeder of Dalmatians, feels comfortable saying; “the dog is like a machine for us, it’s our source of income. We don’t feel so attached to the dogs”. “The problem in the industry is as much because of the people who buy these pups as those who sell them,” says Ambika Shukla. Many of the owners of pedigree dogs abandon them when they are unable to take care of these dogs or in case they find out that they are of a mixed breed. Many of these dogs find themselves on the street or abandoned in front of NGOs. Friendicoes took in Mastiffs, amongst other pedigree dogs from the street that were critically ill when they came and had obviously been abandoned. “Many of these dogs are also abandoned by breeders who don’t want to take care of these dogs once their reproductive age is surpassed, whereas some who are interested in adopting pedigrees come looking for the females, and return disappointed when they are informed that the dogs have been sterilized” says Geetha Sheshamani of Frendicoes SECA.
A trip to the Shadipur depot flyover shows another team of players in Delhi ’s puppy industry. Mixed breed puppies, stolen puppies, and often stray puppies are sold to unaware customers as pedigrees for anything between a few hundred to a few thousand for a puppy. The slum at Pandav Nagar in Shadipur is where these sellers come with their puppies from. This surprisingly, is not the only slum in Delhi where slum dwellers have tried to cash in on this trade. The unregulated and unorganised state of this industry leaves enough room for exploitation; be it on the puppies, on the unsuspecting customers at the pet stores, or anyone else who relates closely to this industry.
Posted on July 10, 2009