Dog breeding businesses are businesses, they want money and they exploit animals to get this money. To explain, dog breeds are sought after just like new computers or phones are. Much like how phone companies work to constantly update their products, dog breeders manipulate DNA to create new looking dogs, inbreed dogs to preserve pure-blooded breeds and kill dogs that do not match their product description or expectation. Thus, breeding industries do not care about their dogs’ wellbeing, they care about the efficiency of the trade and the number of the profit. This focus on efficiency and the number is where the abuse grows from. Puppies are put into small cages, fed food filled with medicine, and are sometimes even killed if they are sick, deformed, or not sold within a certain time frame.  

Consequently, consumers of industrial breeders must be aware of the cruelty that they are supporting. As mentioned, breeders reproduce dogs to change their natural appearances to fit a newly desired, trending look. They then overly reproduce this poor, inbred dog as products to match artificial demands. These demands stem from the customers’ superficial craze for a certain dog’s aesthetic. This can be as simple as wanting a dog with unique-looking traits to obsessing over a celebrity’s new puppy. Therefore, the demands are artificial because such dog breeds are trends that do not take into account that owning a dog requires discipline, time, dedication and love. Customers of such breeders must thus be aware that they are responsible for supporting animal abuse and responsible for supporting an industry that only worsens the overpopulation crisis. 

While more and more dogs are bred for profit, dog shelters are constantly overwhelmed with orphaned dogs that are neglected due to the breeding industry. Not only do dog breeders add to their overpopulation, but they contribute to a stigma that bred dogs are somehow better, cleaner and nicer than shelter dogs. No dog should be less wanted just because of where they come from. A dog from a breeder and a dog from a shelter both deserve love. However, it is merely a fact that dog breeders create new dogs to sell, while shelters try to find dogs a home. Thus, please adopt from shelters that attempt to house already-existing dogs, rather than from breeders that bring new dogs into this world for money. Dogs should be adopted, not bought.