Join The Fight To Stop Puppy Mills.
Pet store temptation - we have all suffered from it when viewing the cute and curious menagerie of animals on sale. Do you ever give some thought to where these animals come from?
In a relatively small number of cases that might be true, but the fact remains that puppy mills supply huge numbers of puppies every year to pet stores, internet sales and even apparently reputable dog breeders’ sites. What is a puppy mill? you may ask. The answer may shock you.
Imagine a compound of small cages where dogs are bred intensively; that is a Puppy Mill. Hundreds of thousands of puppies are farmed in this way across North America to satisfy a demand in pet stores. A Puppy Mill dog has a wretched and hopeless start in life.
Poor health, temperament issues and hereditary diseases are often the legacy of being bred at a Puppy Mill. Socialization rarely occurs as the puppies are taken away from their mother early, thus depriving them of these skills.
Their substandard living conditions, where they are housed in cages, sometimes with many others also lead to health and temperament issues, as they receive little chance to bond with humans before being shipped to the petstore.
It is responsible when breeding puppies to take into account any diseases a breed is prone to, and to carefully select dogs to mate, otherwise you end up with a walking wagging time bomb. Good breeder will make proper vet care, immunization and health a priority.
You can check when buying a pedigree puppy if they come from a respectable breeder, by first visiting the premises, but also they should give you a certificate of bloodline. You should also get a guarantee, check with the breeder about the fine details; but you should not ever have to “exchange” the puppy.
It’s a far cry from the puppy mill, where money is the main motivator. The goal is a conveyor belt of puppies to maximize profits. There is no interest in screening parents, checking for disease or making sure bloodlines remain clean, which can lead to a huge amount of problems.
The mothers may have the worst of it, as they must carry puppies every time they are on heat, and there is no escape from the poor nutrition, lack of medical care, housing or breeding cycles. When the females are no longer useful, death or abandonment generally awaits them.
Puppy mills are still in operation despite laws to control them. The way to combat these farms is to remove the demand for puppies by only purchasing your puppy from a good breeder, or adopting one from an animal rescue centre; don’t trust pet stores, which may be ignorant or misleading of the truth.
It is imperative that you don’t buy a puppy from a mill to rescue him. It is creating a demand for another puppy to be bred into a life of suffering. Contact the appropriate bodies, and demand they take action.
Puppy mills, tragic and inhumane as they are, are a problem caused by the consumer, so use your spending power wisely and put an end to these hellish establishments.
