I was going to follow up and say I'd never gotten any weirdness from people over having a rescue, but then I have had just a few people in disbelief that Macky was a rescue because of her temperament and level of training. Lol bizarre. First off I got her at 10 wks, so yeah... But even if I hadn't, not all rescue dogs are messed up, and you can certainly achieve a high level of training with many of them. I myself admit we hit the jackpot temperament-wise, though.
One lady was like, "Oh, it's good you rescued her, instead of buying her from a breeder." I said I had no problem with good breeders, and she was like, "Oh but I mean like a puppymill breeder." Oh, ok, well that's not what you said...
Mostly my experience has been that a great many people don't understand the difference between dedicated breeders and puppy mills. To them it's just all the same, they must all do it for money on some level. I actually talked briefly in a class about hobby breeding (they were asking about Keeva in panties, LOL) and when they asked if she would be bred, I said maybe, pending a lot of things. I explained health testing, I explained that my goals would be to produce sound-of-body-and-mind Cardigans for performance sports and ideally stock dog work. Most of them had never thought of breeding that way, it was an eye-opener. I think many people just need a little education.
That said, yeah, some people are just jackasses. I had a client turning in paperwork for daycare ranting about intact dogs and all of these greedy breeders - like out of nowhere. I think they didn't have proof of their dog's spay, but she came from a reputable local HS and I said don't worry about it, I know they spay their dogs. And somehow he was like, "Well we wouldn't want her if she wasn't!!! All these greedy breeders blah blah blah and my friend asked if she would come into heat. Clearly he doesn't understand the point of spaying! I'm not some puppymill, why would I let a dog come into heat?"
His timing was too good, so I just smiled sweetly and said, "Ah, my dog's in heat right now, her first actually. She doesn't like wearing her panties!" He was like,
LOLOLOL