Thanks for your Concern
Hi.. I was noticing there were a few comments on the size of our offerings as of late. Yikes we do have far to many puppies than we would like to have.
No we are not in trouble in anyway. Rest assured our babies are all played with each day and everyone is getting their exercise and runs in the fields ..
We have two hundred acres here to run the pups and we love taking twenty at a time for a three or four miles hunt. If you have not done this before with your pups you really need to... They love it and it is great to be out in nature with these wonderful dogs. (Show coated dogs.. not a good idea. lol)
Someone wondered how we kept them clean, if you have not been here and by the way you guys are welcome to come for a visit if you like anytime. Our state of the art facilities are large and spacious and by design the runs are maintained in perfect condition each and every day, each run is power-washed by one of our full time men that all they do is clean and disinfect the kennels, runs exercise area, nursery, grooming facility etc.
The dogs are groomed by our full time AKC CERTIFIED GROOMER, she has a full time job keeping everyone bathed and groomed in a C&J Kennel cut, Kinda of like a puppy show cut.
Our Nursery Manager along with Edin, Kirk and Charlie, bath clean feed and play with the puppies everyday... One of the best jobs in the world as far as I am concerned.
Some made mention of the ACA opposed to the AKC.. As President of the Professional Kennel Club of Missouri, and director of the Missouri Pet Breeders Association, I feel strongly against organizations that have been working with the HSUS to deny you your rights to have and own a Cocker Spaniel. (There is a lot more to go into here, but basically I don't like sinking ships, the AKC registration is off over 75% year to date and it keeps getting worse. The ACA has been in business for more than 95 years AKC 120 or so. and they file their stud book with the library of Congress, I think the AKC stopped doing that. (Oh, if you want to register a dog with the AKC, you can submit a picture and they will register it too....)
I was not aware of any Cocker Spaniel Kennel Raid in Missouri, after all Missouri unlike other state does inspect and enforce our State laws concerning kennels, we do have a few breeders that give dogs to rescues and then they in turn call them "Puppy Mills" which I think is completely unfair, besides if you advertised them as the quality dogs they actually are from the good breeders the rescues may actually get more money for them.
Someone called Missouri a Puppy Mill State.. This is a good time to discuss this too, a few facts about Missouri... Missouri was the first state to have an Animal Welfare Act.. and it was written and supported by the Missouri breeders.. Even the APHIS Dept is paid for entirely by the licensed kennels not one tax dollar is spent on this . In the design and development, Not one crazy AR person or AR organization participated or even offered to participate.
Kennel raids happen in Missouri because we (Missouri Breeders) insisted the bad guys be shut down and still do. Most rescues would not be in business today without the support of the Missouri Breeders in the first place. We wrote the laws and created the environment where the dogs could be offed a better home. This simple fact has been lost somewhere along the way, but, we still feel it is important the dog are cared for properly and the bad guys and those (dogs) needing help should have the resources available to them if needed. Another intersting point is one of the oldest "Stop Puppy Mill Organizations" was founded by the owner of the first kennel shut down by the State of Missouri.. Not very nice people would you not say?
I hope I have fairly answered all the questions. We are not a "Puppy Mill" and we are not in over our heads..
Those of you who are not familiar with our program I will outline it for you briefly.
1. Prospective owners are carefully screened, causes us to have too many dogs at times, but it is worth it for the safety and welfare of our puppies... because..
2. No matter where you live or the reason.. should you ever not be able to care or do not want to care for our puppies they are returned to us at our expense. C&J Cockers are all micro chipped and we are joint owners or our puppies for ever. If a C&J coker is ever in a rescue or a stinking filthy nasty shelter of any kind it is because they were lost or stolen.. and then we recove them ourselves. We rescued six adults last week alone.
No help from any rescues on the ground we went to TX, TN, Il and Georgia for these pups.
I think this pretty well says it all. if you have question Just call me
417-452-2781
Joe Overlease
C&J Cocker's
