How They Sell Puppies in Cebu

They’re cute and there are quite a lot of them everyday!

I happened to be at Robinson’s Mall near Cebu’s Fuente Osmena yesterday for another errand and had to get out of the building for a quick puff of cigarette. Then I saw some cute little thingys being sold by vendors just under the stairs of the pedestrian skywalk. Yes, that portion of the building just below Jollibee. Cute little puppies! So I went near and noticed that there were many of them vendors there all showing their pups off to two young ladies who were ‘would be’ buyers. Oh wow, the number of pups being sold were probably 5X the number of vendors!

I stayed awhile and watched those vendors try to convince the ladies for this and that puppy. The going rate, I could easily hear them was from P2,500 to P4,000. Am not keen on these animals, so I don’t know if that was expensive or cheap. Again, I have never had a dog nor do I want one, so I also don’t know what breed or kind or type were those pups. I just find them cute to look at. Oh yes, at one point I had the chance to stroke the head of that cute brown thingy!

One thing that I noticed though is how those vendors handle the little darlings. They grab them out in a rush to be shown to buyers or dunk them like rugs into the baskets, cages or cartons when there was no sale. At one time a man seemed frustrated that the two ladies won’t be buying his pups. He put the two pups in his right hand, opened the wire cage with his left and with some force shoved the dogs in like they were non-living things. I heard some yelping and them pups were too cramped in their container so that some were climbing on top of others.

Hmm, again am not familiar with dogs or puppies and how they should be handled. But I really thought placing too many of those cute little beings inside small baskets or boxes is not proper. I asked one man selling the pups if they are there everyday and he said yes. I also asked if they have too many mother-dogs to have so many baby-dogs and he said yes. I asked where they grow them and instead of answering me, he opted to go to another passer-by to show two pups and probably convert a sale.

Go there folks if you want to see so many cute pups in one place. At the time I was there (a rainy afternoon) there were 6 men and 5 ladies – ALL have their own set of puppies contained in either that plastic basket, the wire cage or just carton boxes. Am not sure though if they’d openly want you to snap pics of the little doggies or even themselves as when I did these shots, some of them would move to avoid my lens and I think one lady was looking at me with some kind of contemptuous wrath hehe! Am not sure too if those pups are healthy or stressed whatever. They’re just cute to me. This one I should be sure about – there are no dog birth papers, vaccinations, registrations or anything like that hehe!

I am inclined to believe that the condition of how those pups are handled warrants attention of animal rights groups. Is there one in Cebu?

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