ON CBS Sunday Morning, May 21 2006, Bill Geist did an awful story promoting "Deisgner Dogs". This story prompted Janet to contact this magazine and ask: "everyone - please help by writing letters - these creeps have made having a puppy mill even more lucrative! Please flood CBS with calls, emails and letters. The Wisconsin kennel where these dogs are bred is just a huge puppy mill and CBS is promoting it. Come on rescue community, let CBS have it for airing this nationwide".
Wallace Havens, inventor of the puggle, said of the new breed "They were hard to sell because people would ask what kind of dogs do you have and I would tell them I had a beagle crossed with a pug and they'd laugh and say they didn't think they wanted one of those."
But puggle sales apparently soared, despite their $950 price tag, when celebrities began buying them - a lot of them from David Deitz at Brooklyn's Puppy Paradise. The puggle has been so successful, Havens has added the pocket puggle to his designer line. Actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Sylvester Stallone have purchased such designer dogs.
Havens has bred about 50 different hybrid dogs. Gary Garner, president of the American Canine Hybrid Club, says his group lists 325 hybrids to date. The American Kennel Club will not register hybrids and the Poodle Club of America has launched a campaign against them.
To read the offending article go to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/21/sunday/main1638400.shtml or to write your protest send to CBS News Sunday Morning, Box O (for Osgood), 524 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail: sundays@cbsnews.com.
