Where, Oh Where Do Poles Get Their Dogs?

I just returned from a walk --side note, Park Południowy + leather Adidas = bad idea-- and I saw all kinds of pooches. Golden Retrievers, Pugs, weird little European dogs, you name it. Now, I've traveled around Poland a fair bit, and not ONCE have I seen a pet store. I mean, the kind that actually sells pets. Where are these dogs coming from?

From people who keep dogs and have puppies. Simples.

We bought a dog from a private advert in Poland, i think it was a local paper advert, went around to the guys flat and he had about 30 dogs of the small variety, mainly Yorkshire Terriers and Shih Tzu's.

Thats how i would probably buy a dog in the UK as well that or maybe a kennel.

You can find a list of breeders on this website, http://www.royal-canin.pl/hodowle/psy that's if you want to buy a pedigree dog.
If you want to rescue a dog you could visit animal shelter in Wrocław - http://www.psy.info.pl/schronisko_wroclaw/
On the Internet you can also find people and organisations that specialize in rescuing dogs of specific breeds: http://www.bull-bazarek.eu/, http://www.sos-bullterrier.pl/, http://www.nadzieja-amstaffa.pl/
You can also check pet stores and veterinary clinics, people that have puppies and kittens to give away usually place there some notices.

We got our Cocker Spaniel from an amazing breeder close to Poznan. I found a stray puppy last week that we were going to keep after some debate. We posted his picture on a rescue page and somebody fell in love with him too. So we gave him a new home.

Don't even get me started on stray animals. It is probably the biggest thing I hate about Poland. There are a few places that are genuinely amazing at rescuing strays- but they are few and far between. And then there are disgusting people who throw animals on the street. Makes me ill.

Perhaps some of the dogs are rescued from animal shelters.

You find dogs in classified ads in Poland. Dogs are normally not found in pet shops in Poland.

There are pet shops selling various animals in shopping malls, though probably not dogs, I hope.

Anyone buying a dog should be checked out, to make sure they realise the commitment involved. Sadly, this isn't the case most of the time (the UK's RSPCA and other dog charities there do that, despite large numbers of dogs and cats needing rehoming). The Sunday market in Wrocław probably still has the animals for sale section across the road from the main pitches -- there you will find dogs and cats etc for sale from dozens of breeders and sellers. If it were me, I'd buy a dog that needs rehoming, rather than a puppy.

Just for the record, I am 100% against farming puppies, therefore I would not buy a dog which was advertised in a newspaper or for sale from a pet shop.

16 months ago we added a puppy to our family, it took us over 6 months to find the right breeder, we used eurobreeder.com as basis for our search, we spoke to many breeders and excluded the puppy mills, we visited several breeders throughout Poland and decided on one after checking the pedigree and getting third party reco's on the breeder, we also visited dogs shows and spoke to many other breeders about the breed. When you take a puppy into your home it's for 10-14 years, wrong breeder = size-able vet fees.

You can check the internet there are dog shows twice monthly throughout Poland from march to october, the main one is in Warsaw during July.

I agree, unless the newspaper ad is a family whose pet has had a litter.

Also, if anyone buys a German Shepherd Dog/Alsatian, it's very important to get a hip score -- an assurance from a vet that the parents were not prone to hip problems, because if they were the puppies are sometimes likely to lose the use of their rear legs in middle-age or younger, and this also can cause them to lose control of their bowels indoors.

This question caught my eye because I know a tiny bit about it. My wife and I have a friend who, although without any Polish ancestry, has spent a lot of time in Poland, where she discovered, years ago, that rare Polish breed, the Cocker Spaniel Angielski. She has had at least three over the years we've known her -- when one is getting up in years, she will come back home with a puppy under her seat on the airplane.

She gets them from the same breeder, a lady serious enough about it to have printed a glossy four page brochure featuring the breed in general and her kennel in particular. I think somewhere near Warsaw. But not a volume breeder. All three have had great temperaments, and have been healthy and long-lived. They look a little strange here because their tails are not docked, as is typical for bird dogs.

Probably farms maybe?

We are an owner of one of these dogs. They don't dock the tails anymore. Thankfully.
This is our kennel. The dogs are amazing. www.renmil.com

but, our next dog will be a rescue- If I didn't work I would adopt one in a second.