If you remember only one thing from this article, please remember this ? never buy a puppy from a pet store. In fact, don’t even buy pet supplies from pet stores that sell puppies. It can be tempting to go to a pet store today to get a fluffy white Bichon Frise puppy ? and that’s exactly what pet store owners hope you will do. They thrive on impulse shoppers. They don’t care who they sell their puppies to, they only care about getting your money.

All pet stores get their puppies from puppy mills without exception. If they tell you otherwise, they are lying. They are just trying to make a sale and will say anything in order to close the deal. Pet shop owners and employees use the exact same sneaky selling tactic that you are probably already familiar with in other stores and car lots. No respectable and caring Bichon Frise breeder (or any other dog breeder, for that matter) would sell his or her puppies to a pet store.

Perhaps you once had a Bichon Frise, a Poodle-like toy dog that is becoming more and more popular. You should get your next Bichon Frise from a Bichon Frise breeder. A Bichon Frise breeder will offer a lot of little extras that no other pet store or even an all-pet animal shelter can. This is because he or she can spend a lot of time and effort on just a few dogs ? or at the most, a few dozen ? and gets to know their temperaments and quirks. In this way, you can be matched with a Bichon Frise puppy that is most compatible for your personality and lifestyle.

Pet stores that sell puppies rely on impulse purchases and do not do any background checks on what kind of person this puppy is going to. Quite often, people who have no idea what is involved in raising a puppy buy these puppies on a whim. Most puppies bought in pet stores wind up being abandoned when the puppy gets to be about nine months to one year old. Half of all dogs and cats that are surrendered to shelters are euthanized.

The next inhumane thing about buying a puppy from a pet store, rather than a Bichon Frise breeder, is that puppies are not animals that should be in cages. Other animals like baby hamsters do very well in cages. However, a puppy is caged right at the time of life it needs to learn how to be a dog in today’s complex world. The time a puppy can best learn is when they are seven to fourteen weeks old, right around the same time they are in cages at pet stores. This means that pet store puppies are often a lot harder to train than puppies from breeders.

The puppies bred in this condition are often sickly, have behavioral problems and often aren’t purebred. There is no legal overseeing group that makes sure a dog is a purebred. Anyone can fill out whatever they darn well like in pedigree papers and no one checks up on anything. Bichon Frise breeders not only will sell you a healthy, behaved puppy but one that is pedigreed. They also are great sources of accurate Bichon Frise information throughout all of your Bichon dog’s life.