One of my most favorite features of the US is the attitude towards pets. Ethical attitude to dogs owners and the respectful attitude of dogs owners to others, the hospitality of street cafes to guests with dogs, the abundance of playgrounds for dogs, the culture of keeping the cleanliness during the walks with dogs. This is what I see every day on the streets of our town in Florida.
And I've never seen a homeless dog here. In Russia, unfortunately, it's a different situation. We talked here with a lady of venerable age in the store. She was holding so cute half-breed poodle, and I wondered how she got it. I confess I I hoped to hear that she had taken him to the orphanage. I'm interested in how the "shelters" system works in the States. Imagine how surprised I was when she said that she bought her pet "only" for $800 ... I was in shock for a long time and I'm going to explain why.
In Russia, it is impossible to sell a mix-breed in principle. Every owner of a breed female dog can have puppies from her, puppies with documents, but what is really bad - that's the wrong opinion that every female dog should birth puppies "to stay health" ... As a result there're so many people in Russia who do not even know what it means to grow up healthy puppies, pretend "the breeders" and produce puppies and mostly they do not care about their further life, about genetic tests or correct diet.
And as soon as the puppies are about 3 months the owners of females are happy to give them to any person, just because they suddenly figured out how bothering and hard it is.
So, lots of breed dogs with time get out to the streets. And the destiny of the breed off dogs is even more sad. I gonna write about it later in details.
So, uncontrolled procedure of producing puppies in Russia leads to the situation when there're more dogs in the country then could be arranged in the families. Sure, there is still excellent world famous kennels, whose dogs are "elites'. But mostly people used to think that to get a dog cost nothing. No taxes, lows that can protect them, vet's treatments are really cheap and many people don't care about normal dog diet, or birth control surgeries. Recently we had an awful accident when 7 puppies of Central Asian Shepperd puppies with tattoos of FCI were just threw out on the highway in the suburb of Moscow, and two of them were already dead when the volunteers arrived to save them. I'd give the link in the comment if you'd like to know more about it.
Sorry, for a such sad post... I'm still taking all these facts close to my heart, I wish that attitude to pets in Russia could be the same way that you have in USA. And maybe once visiting Russia I'll also know that somebody bought an unbreed puppy to give it the love and care that it deserve.
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