I dunno Robin, it's been my experience that they all say that. Oddly enough, when I was your age I applied for a job at a pet shop. The owner said the same thing to me. Literally during the interview, a van pulled up stuffed to the roof with kennels full of puppies. There had to have been over 50 dogs in that van, maybe more! He was making the stops at all the various pet shops in this pet shop chain. The owner excused himself to sign off on the puppies, and started examining them. One puppy was very lethargic. He just laid there. The owner asked the delivery guy what was wrong with it. He replied that he thought it was just car sick. The owner said, "I'll just put him in the back for a few days and see if he comes around. It's probably nothing" This puppy was in a small breed kennel with 5 other puppies!

What you can do is, ask for the breeder numbers on some of the puppies and look them up. If you don't want to jeapordize your job, have a friend come in and do it, pretending they're interested in a puppy. You can see if the breeder is a licensed kennel or not by their number. If they are, they're most likely either a puppy mill, or mass BYB that specifically sell to pet shops. But regardless, most breeders will agree that if you're a responsible breeder you don't sell to pet shops. So if you, you might not be a puppy mill, but you're definitely mass producing puppies for profit.