Barbie,
There are breeders out there that source pet stores, sell puppies at inns and road sides, and over the internet. 1 person can have 600 dogs, and breed all of them, twice a year. What doesn't sell can be culled, dumped in a shelter, or marked off at the pet store.
A LOT of the general public wants puppies. Shelters have puppies some of the time. This is true of breeders also. But, usually you can find some breeder somewhere with a litter of puppies. And so the general public can get its puppy, and usually they do not have to wait for it. They are not going to go for an adult dog from a shelter, they want a puppy.
And if they cannot find a puppy at a local breeder, they will go to a pet store and buy a pup from there. And the fellow with the 600 dogs gets and order from that store and he breeds another bitch.
It is all supply and demand. If the small breeders all close up shop and say they won't breed again until all the shelters are empty, the fellow with six hundred dogs will hire a few people and keep 12 hundred and produce 2 or 3 times as many puppies.
It will not empty the shelters. It will only change the dynamics of where purebred puppies are produced. Even someone who cuts corners, but has a reasonable number of dogs and even if they are breeding for the pet market, it is better that these people are breeding dogs, better for the breeding dogs, than the dogs that are kept to the USDA standards for dogs.
Because most of those puppy mills that are raided, actually have passed inspections. After a number of years, someone gets sick or falls on hard times, and stuff gets out of control, and they start failing their inspections. But prior to failing, those dogs have no life at all. Living in conditions approved by the USDA is the bare minimum to maintain life. And there are no standards that address treating the critter as a being with a personality, and individual needs.
Dogs that are unsuitable for breeding or come up dry, will be culled, no point spending money feeding bitches that don't produce puppies.
Breeders who are maintaining a number of dogs, dogs that are retired from their program, dogs that wash from breeding, dogs that are currently being bred, dogs that are up and coming and in training, who are able to care properly for them and have a reasonable number of litters per year, actually keep the large scale breeders from getting even larger. And most of them are breeding for some purpose, though some are breeding only for the pet market.
But the pet market wants puppies, and they will get puppies. And the shelter is not where the majority are going to go for a laundry list of reasons. Shelters have even imported puppies from outside the country to provide puppies to people.
The reason for dogs in shelters is because people don't commit to training and providing for a dog's needs when they obtain one from whatever medium. A small breeder who has a limited number of litters and sells to each individual himself, may be able to make better choices where their puppies go, may keep track of them, and may take them back if the need arises. Someone with 600 bitches isn't keeping up with where the dogs go, aren't selling them with any amount of discretion, most of them he is not selling, rather some high school kid is selling the dog in a pet store in a mall. But some dogs from smaller breeders may land in shelters, because a price tag does not guaranty that pup a forever home, neither does a long complicated application, nor does any clause about rehoming and first right of refusal.
The problem with shelters is that people get dogs that they probably shouldn't get, and fail to manage or maintain them properly, or fall into situations where they need to let them go, or they die and fail to leave some avenue for the dogs to be provided for. Some may be within the breeder's ability to help, and some may not. Breeders retire and die.
I think rather than having a philosophy that all dogs should come from shelters. A better philosophy would be to see where your dog is coming from. How are the puppies kept, how are the breeding dogs kept. You can't do this by looking at a website. A website is what a breeder chooses to show the world. Teach people to not buy from pet stores, inns, roadsides, and auctions.
The only way to cut down on the number of dogs kept in truly horrendous conditions is to stop buying sight unseen. When their pups will not sell, they will not breed as many litters and give up some dogs.
And then they will figure out some other way to sell their pups to the public.
The problem is not going to a breeder, because no one walks into these large organizations and comes away with a puppy. These litters are pretty much called for and shipped out without the public ever coming onto the property.
Go to shelters, and go to breeders for pups, stay away from pet stores, etc, and use the internet to narrow your options and then go and visit.