Take a Chance
Pup ‘thrilled’ to be rescued from Pets Unlimited
By RICK CONRAD Petpourri
CHANCE is a six-month-old puppy who, up until a week ago, didn’t know how to play, run or climb stairs and is so used to being cooped up in a kennel that he can’t go to the bathroom anywhere else.
Tony Quinn, a local entertainer and public speaker, bought him recently at Pets Unlimited in Halifax’s Bayers Lake business park. But he didn’t get him to keep. He wanted to take him away from a situation he says he found unbearable.
He believes the little beagle had been there for about four months, living in an aquarium-style kennel.
"What I saw was a male beagle that nobody wanted," Quinn says.
"Everybody was buying the tiny little fluffy dogs. And this one male beagle just sat there and sat there and sat there month after month."
He says he and his wife first spotted the dog in the summer when they went to the store to buy a treat for their bichon frise. They visited him about half a dozen times.
Quinn says it was devastating to see Chance in those conditions. He appeared depressed. He wasn’t wagging his tail and was living in his own feces and urine, Quinn says.
"I really felt bad for the dog."
So a little more than a week ago, he paid about $600 for the beagle, spent another $400 on supplies and vet bills and after a couple of days donated him to the Animal Rescue Coalition so they could find him a suitable home.
"It was absolutely thrilled to be out of its environment," he says.
"But one thing I noticed: It couldn’t really run successfully without falling. Also, jumping off a one-foot patio was a big ordeal. It didn’t really know how to do it."
Quinn’s vet diagnosed Chance with underdeveloped musculature in his hind legs, he says. His nails were so long that he couldn’t walk properly.
The irony is that by buying Chance, Quinn supported the same business he blames for the dog’s condition.
"That was my dilemma that I wrestled with," he says.
"Spending the money at this particular store is wrong, I know that. . . . But what do you do? I didn’t really consider it to be a purchase. I considered it to be a rescue."
Annette Armitage of the Animal Rescue Coalition, who has found a foster home for Chance until he’s permanently adopted, is all too familiar with stories like this one.
She said she knows of a four-year-old pug who had been in a pet store kennel for too long as a pup. He developed hip dysplasia and still isn’t house-trained.
"To be living on a farm or with their mother in a house is one thing," Armitage says. "To be living in shredded paper in a glass cage in your own feces is quite another."
I took a trip to Pets Unlimited in Bayers Lake on Saturday afternoon. It was depressing.
They had about a dozen young dogs and four kittens in aquarium-style enclosures. Some shared cages, while others had their own.
A six-month-old cocker spaniel was selling for $1,199. The spaniel had already urinated in its kennel, sat in its own feces and pawed hopefully at the glass any time someone got close.
A pair of dachshunds was next door with a few spots of diarrhea in the paper shavings in their cage.
A six-month-old Jack Russell terrier, listed at $799, was tearing around his apparently clean cage, digging at the bottom.
People crowded around to see the cute "puppies," which I found to be just as upsetting. I don’t get it.
Animal-welfare groups and veterinarians usually urge caution when buying an animal from a pet store.
"Typically pet stores obtain the dogs they have for sale from puppy mill-type organizations or backyard breeders," says Judith Gass, spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia SPCA.
"Pet stores are a great thing, we just wish they wouldn’t sell animals. Or they could be a great thing if they just sold food and accessories and that type of thing and there are pet stores around that do that."
She advises people to deal only with registered, reputable breeders or with the SPCA or other rescue groups.
Dr. Lesley Steele, a veterinarian at the Eastern Passage Village Veterinary Clinic, says part of the problem is that some reputable breeders have a waiting list of a year or two. If you want a dog more quickly than that, you’re out of luck.
And while some pet stores provide insurance coverage and health guarantees, others do not, she says.
"I just think people need to be asking more questions, they need to be demanding to know where these animals are coming from and what kinds of people are willing to breed their dogs and let them go to pet stores where they have no control over who’s purchasing them and what’s happening to them and they need to be demanding that they’re not coming from multiple-breed breeders," Steele says.
"We have to decide what is ethical and what’s not and we have to refuse to purchase pets from unethical situations."
A store manager who didn’t want to be named told me Sunday in a phone interview that a male beagle had indeed been in the store for months until it was bought recently.
"He was here for a little bit anyway because he was probably about five-and-a-half-months-old," she said, though she believes he was there for 3 1/2, not four, months.
"I’m not 100 per cent sure because I don’t have dates in front of me."
The store keeps the dogs until they’re sold, she said, adding that they get them at "the right age to be taken away from their parents" — about eight weeks old.
"And we take care of our puppies, just to throw that out there."
She suggested I call Pets Unlimited’s head office on Monday for further comment. I called twice, but didn’t hear back from anyone before press time.
Chance is doing better, learning how to be a puppy but still struggling with house training, Armitage says.
"He’d make a great pet," she says. "He’s very loving. All he wants right now is contact. All he wants to do is be with you."
If you want to give Chance a loving, permanent home, contact the coalition at
arc@seabright.ca. You’ll have to fill out an application and provide references. And expect to be interviewed. The adoption fee is $150.
As for Tony Quinn, he doesn’t care about the money he spent rescuing Chance.
"I was interested in just doing one gesture for one animal, this particular one," he says.
"But I know that the dog is going to have a really good chance at a happy life."
Rick Conrad, The Chronicle Herald’s education reporter, freelances this column. ( petpourri@herald.ca)
PETS UNLIMITED this is nuts(how can it happen)
Although, if you post the entire article, it doesn't disappear, as some links are wont to do. 
Linear Mode
