Puppy Mills (part two) Prisoners of Greed

Thousands of puppies are raised each year in puppy mills !!

Mills are distinguished by their cramped, crude, filthy conditions and the constant breeding of unhealthy and genetically defective dogs solely for profit.

Very often the dogs in puppy mills are covered with matted, filthy hair, their teeth are rotting and their eyes have ulcers. Many dogs have rotted jaws because of tooth decay.

The dogs are kept in small wire cages for their entire lives. They never are allowed out. They never touch solid ground or grass.

Many of the dogs are injured in fights that occur in the cramped cages from which there is no escape.
Many dogs lose feet and legs when they are caught in the wire floors of the cages and cut off as the dogs struggle to free themselves.

Very often there is no heat or air-conditioning in a puppy mill. The dogs freeze in the winter and die of heat stroke in the summer. Puppies "cook" on the wires of the cages in the summer.

Female dogs are usually bred the first time they come into heat and are bred every heat cycle. They are breed until their poor worn out bodies can't reproduce any longer and then they are killed. They are often killed by being bashed on the head with a rock or shot. Sometimes they are sold to laboratories or dumped. This is often by the time they reach five years old.

Puppy mills and pet stores maximize their profits by not spending money on proper food, housing or veterinary care.
The food that is fed in puppy mills is often purchased from dog food companies by the truckload. It is often made of the sweepings from the floor. It is so devoid of nutritional value that the dogs' teeth rot at early ages.

Dogs in puppy mills are debarked often by ramming a steel rod down their throats to rapture their vocal cords.

Puppies are taken from their mother when they are 5 to 8 weeks old and sold to brokers who pack them in crates for resale to pet stores all over the country.

The puppies are shipped by truck or plane and often without adequate food, water, ventilation or shelter.

Many of the puppies do not survive the trip.

Innocent families buy the puppies only to find that the puppy is very ill or has genetic or emotional problems. Often the puppies die of disease. Many other have medical problems that cost thousands of dollars. And many have emotional problems because they have not been properly socialized in the mills. Don't bring this misery into your home.

Many of the 4000 federally licensed breeding kennels have substandard conditions.

Approximately 3,500 pet stores in the United States sell puppies. They sell approximately 500,000 thousand puppies a year. It is estimated that the puppy industry in Missouri is valued at 40 million dollars a year. The puppy industry in one county in Pennsylvania, Lancaster, is valued at 4 million dollars a year.

There are seven states that are known as puppy mill states because they have the majority of the puppy mills in the country. They are: Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

There is federal law, the Animal Welfare Act, and many states have laws that purport to regulate puppy mills but the fact is that those laws are rarely enforced.

Our research has shown that 98% of the puppies sold in pet stores come from facilities that we consider to be puppy mills. Pet stores often tell customers that their puppies come from local breeders or quality breeders. Don't believe them, ask to see the paperwork and find out where the puppies really come from. We even heard about a sign in a Massachusetts pet store that said their puppies were lovingly raised in homes in Missouri. Those puppies actually came from the notorious Do-Bo-Tri in Missouri - a puppy mill that has been cited numerous times for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

If the people of the United States refused to buy a puppy in a pet store, the misery of puppy mills would end. Please tell everyone you know about puppy mills and the pet store connection.

There is no excuse for the abuse in puppy mills to continue.
Boycott stores that sell puppies

What is a Puppy Mill?

There is no definition of a puppy mill. In our opinion anyone who breeds dog with profit as the main motivation and without consideration for the health and well being of the dogs and puppies is guilty of ethical crimes.

There are two kinds of these people - backyard breeders and puppy millers. They should both be driven out of business.

Anyone who has so little concern for the well being of the puppies that they have caused to be brought into the world that they sell them to someone else who will resell them qualifies as a mill in our opinion. Many of these people are required to be licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture (depending on the level of their sales and number of females).

The states with the largest number of licensed facilities are Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

These facilities vary in type - bad, worse and horrible.

BAD

These are photos from a breeder in Nebraska. She breeds Chihuahuas, Dachshunds and Italian Greyhounds. The place has been clean the times we have been there. The cages are fairly new and in good repair. The dogs have water and food. They are still in prison. We have taken several dogs from her.
They have been in terrible physical condition. One of the Chihuahuas we got was only 4 years old but he had gum disease so serious that his jaw had rotted.

WORSE

This photo is from B & J in Missouri. The dogs are out in the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter. The owner acknowledged that there were many litters of puppies born in the summer that died out on the wires of the cages - they cooked. Those little boxes were sweat boxes out in the Midwest sun. The dogs walked on uncoated wires. Many of the female dogs who were rescued from this mill had so many c sections that their internal organs were grown together.

WORST

The top photos are from a mill in Missouri. The conditions were horrible. The dogs were in small cages with bare wire and the cages were falling apart. Mud was everywhere. The bottom two photos are from a Collie breeder in Nebraska. This facility only bred Collies and did not keep hundreds of dogs. Some people might call this breeder a back yard breeder but whatever you call it, it's wrong.
All of the facilities shown above sold puppies that were registered by the AKC. The AKC says that they inspect facilities when more than six or seven litters are born in a year. Did the AKC inspectors see these places. Did they walk away from the dogs that were suffering?
Although people may differ on what exactly constitutes a puppy mill, I'm sure we can all agree that any of the facilities shown above are not the way that we want our companion animals treated. If you buy a puppy from a pet store, the parents of that puppy most likely came from a place like the ones shown here.
A big 'Thank you very much' to HUA for allowing me to use their puppy mill information> Please visit them at http://www.hua.org