.
Neuter your damn dog, already.
Yes, I know you're raking in fifty dollars per live pup, courtesy of the pair of dogs you've acquired. The ones that look like pit bulls, and probably do have a fair amount in their immediate ancestry. Who needs papers, anyway?
That'll lift you out of poverty, improve the breed, bring joy and happiness to deserving families who've been waiting all this time, to buy a puppy just from you, because your puppies are irresistibly so cute and adorable. After all, nobody else has pups as special as yours, do they? Every one will be sold to the very best home ever, and will live out their long, healthy lives in the loving arms of that same family that handed over the pair of well worn twenties and a slightly damp stack of one dollar bills. Ten of them, you carefully counted, for a total of fifty dollars, earned hard.
Why should anyone have to pay several hundred dollars, a thousand or more, to a "professional" breeder, when they don't cost that much? It's just greed, you know. You feel good about allowing someone the privilege of owning a "pureblood" dog, for less than that fulltime kennel keeper charges for a deposit on one of next year's litter. And none of your products ever end up in the animal shelter, waiting on the magic needle, nor scattered across the asphalt or stifflegged and bloating alongside.
No, they all become a beloved, lifelong part of whatever family paid you for them.
They eagerly join their new owners who are ecstatic that they've found the perfect companion, and live happily ever, far into their dog years. Those pups are healthy, just look at 'em! Why take them to the vet for worming, or first shots, they don't need that, they're just babies after all. The new owner will be thrilled to provide excellent health care for their new friend, if they need to go to the vet, they'll be glad to take care of it. No need to spend $22.79 just for that Parvo vaccination, when they'll be needing two more in the coming weeks. A rabies and distemper shot would set you back over $40, and with six of them, that's more than you can afford, isn't it.
They're so cute at four weeks aren't they? Eyes open, toddling around like champs, and into everything. The perfect age, still tiny and cuddly, who can resist? Their mother gets up and leaves them for a few minutes at a time now, and she encourages them to mouth the beef flavored nuggets in the dogdish. Sure, let the first one go, see how he does. A sweet fifty dollars already, and five more to go.
So sad, one of them died during the night. No idea what could have happened to her, she was perfectly fine the day before. Sometime after you finished watching the race that afternoon, and before your kids streamed out the door to the school bus the next morning, she up and died. Bummer. Well, she must've been a runt or something.
Five weeks, and it's time to start putting up handwritten note cards offering your products at the quickie mart across the highway. The free bulletin board the locals post used cars and lawnmowers for sale, avon and beanie babies and dozens of other items of value, grasscutting services, yardsales and rooms for rent. And all those "free to good home" notes, with a description or maybe a picture, begging someone to take the unwanted pets off their hands. But those free pets, they're not special like yours, if they were, the owners wouldn't be giving them up, would they?
You post your note on top of the others, carefully moving the flyer advertising low cost and free spay and neuter clinics at the shelter every other Thursday, out of the way. There. Now the phone can start ringing, and you'll begin collecting on the bounty your helpless dog gratefully blesses your family with every three or four months. Hope they buy them quick, because poor mama is expecting again; and you don't want to get stuck with a couple halfgrown leftovers from the previous litter like happened last time. Had to drop them off at the shelter, so sad to see them go, but you are convinced someone will fall in love with them and whisk them off to their forever homes. Can't be stuck with two extra, growing, and unsaleable mouths to feed.
Your merchandise doesn't end its life in a laboratory, or as bait in a dogfighting ring, does it.
To be continued...
