Breeder-Go-Round

One dog’s history revealed

By Kelli Ohrtman: Best Friends Staff

The little red box was swept across each dog’s shoulders, searching for microchips. Part of the process whenever new animals come into Best Friends’ care is checking for microchips, and the dogs from a commercial breeder in Virginia were no different. Permanent identifiers such as an existing microchip would not only help us to keep track of the newly rescued dogs, but we needed to know if any of the dogs in our care had been someone’s pet, somehow scooped up into the world of commercial breeders. About every third dog’s check resulted in a little beep from the scanner, and an ID number popped up on the screen.

We dutifully recorded each number, and if there was no chip found we inserted one that will forever be registered to Best Friends. Once we had all the existing numbers compiled into a list, we called Avid, the microchip manufacturer. All but one came up as lot numbers—used but never registered to a family or owner. But one little dog, a black Cairn Terrier boy who a volunteer named Baggs, had a microchip registered to a pet supply company out of Iowa. It was a longshot, but it was a lead.

Baggs’ Long-Lost Family?
I called the Pet Supply company, nervous that Baggs had been used in pet pharmaceutical research, which is legal and would explain the microchip, but the company rep who answered the phone said that they sell microchips to individuals, and that she had a name and phone number associated with the chip. I left my name and phone number, and less than two hours later, I got a call from who I hoped was Baggs’ long-lost family.

The woman who called immediately knew the dog in question. “Yes, he’s a dog I used to have,” she said. As I was about to ask how she lost her dog, the woman said, “I bought him from a breeder years ago when he was a puppy, and sold him to a broker in Virginia. That broker told me he sold the dog to an Amish breeder in Ohio. Where is he now?” My heart sank in hearing the news.

The little scruffy black dog tucked in our kennel up in New York had been sold from breeder to breeder his whole life. Before we got him, he was about to be sold yet again to another breeder. I told the woman that the dog was now in New York, to which she answered, “Wow, he’s been all over the place!” She didn’t ask how he was doing, or why we had him, but also didn’t mind sharing what she knew of his life story. In the breeder world, swapping dogs happens every day through auctions, brokers and private deals. I suppose to the dogs, a cage is a cage and a breeding facility is a breeding facility.

No Longer a Number
I went down to spend some time with the one dog whose past we know. He’s one of four male and fourteen Cairn Terriers in the bunch (that’s right, we’ve got lots of little Totos here!) I hadn’t spent time with him yet, so I went in to his enclosure, where he is housed with one other dog in an in-out run. The dogs were sitting on the raised Kuranda bed, and bounded to the door when I walked up. Once their initial excitement calmed a bit, Baggs plopped himself in my lap, while his run mate (named Chardonnay) rolled on her back for a belly rub.

Baggs likes to be hugged close, so I sat with him in my arms, wishing there was a way I could tell him that soon he’ll get to go to a home where he can be hugged all the time. He won’t ever be sold to another breeder where he’ll live in a cage. From now on, he’ll just be someone’s pet instead of a commodity to buy or sell.

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Pictured: Baggs with Jill, a Pets Alive volunteer