Mommy, Where Do Puppies Come From?
Gabrielle Moore | Dec 08, 2009 | Comments 1
The holiday season is around the corner and little boys and girls around the country will be begging for a puppy; but do parents know just where the puppy they give to their child is coming from?
The Humane Society of the United States wants people to make sure they know where they’re getting their puppies this holiday season, by encouraging people to not buy from pet stores and Internet sites, and to screen any breeders before buying a dog from them. The Humane Society’s National Puppy Mill Action Week was last week, but the Humane Society is still actively encouraging people to join the fight against puppy mills.
Puppy mills are large-scale dog breeding operations where dogs are often crammed into small cages and kept in unsavory conditions. Often, pet stores who sell puppies get their animals from puppy mills. The best place to purchase a pet is from a reputable breeder or an animal shelter, which will ensure that your puppy comes from a healthy and responsible background.
Last week, Wisconsin outlawed puppy mills through legislation that requires breeders who house more than 25 dogs to obtain a license. This happened just before Joyce Kitsemble, an activist who had fought for almost a decade to outlaw puppy mills, suffered a heart attack at Wisconsin’s capitol building in Madison. Kitsemble and her husband Ed had worked with the Wisconsin Puppy Mill Project to work towards that very legislation. Ed said that Joyce was struggling with health problems but said she would live until the act was signed, and she did.
This last week also marked the creation of the Humane Society’s Puppy Mill tip line, 1-877-MILL-TIP. The tip line was started to help the Humane Society get information about potential criminal activity or animal abuse at large scale dog breeding facilities. The Humane Society’s puppy mill task force manager, Justin Scally, printed in an announcement, “Hundreds of thousands of dogs across the country are trapped in constant confinement their entire lives, producing puppies to profit the puppy mill owner. This tip line will be a vital tool to help free these dogs from a life of abuse.”
The Humane Society has a website dedicated to informing people about puppy mills and how to stop them. Here’s a list of some things you can do to help fight puppy pills.
1. Get educated by learning more about the horrors of puppy mills through the Humane Society or other Internet and media sources.
2. Talk to your local pet store about becoming “puppy friendly” and refusing to buy puppies from puppy mills, and only buy puppies from reputable breeders or adopt from a shelter.
3. Spread the word by telling friends and writing to your local newspaper to help inform other people about puppy mills.
4. Lobby for laws to help regulate dog breeders and abolish puppy mills.
5. Donate to the Humane Society, or learn more about what you can do or take the pledge to fight puppy mills on their website.
Filed Under: Awareness
About the Author: Gabrielle Moore is a Michigan State University journalism student. She's still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up, but she harbors a passion for telling moving and meaningful stories, and appreciates the power of storytelling to influence the world. An animal lover since she can remember, she volunteers at her local animal shelter and is involved with Michigan's Children, pushing for legislative support and funding for children's programs across the state.
What many people don’t fully appreciate is how purchasing purebreds has allowed puppy mills to thrive. It’s incredibly difficult to find a breeder or pet store that isn’t supplied by puppy mills. And the actual regulation of puppy mill acts is incredibly poor, especially in largely rural states like Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri who can operate them under the cover of barns situated on large patches of land.
The designer dog craze in particular is responsible for a substantial number of puppy mills springing up almost overnight. As long as the animal looks somewhat comparable to the breeds the individual is claiming it to be, people have no trouble forking over $500 for what may be, from a strictly purist perspective, an absolutely worthless bloodline.
But dogs have moved away from being necessary work assistants and companions to fashion accessories. Thanks to the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, shoving a chihuahua in a purse is as essential as carrying around an iPhone. The personality of the animal (for example, people who have no patience for the strong-willed, difficult nature of the pug and the immature personality of the beagle have no business owning a puggle) has become less important that how aesthetically appealing the animal will be in a plaid coat.
And in the background, millions of dogs are being euthanized every year. Animals that are purchased and turn out to be more than their inaptly-named owners can handle, ultimately finding themselves abandoned. Yet the puppy mills continue to profit, rightly counting on the capricious nature of the consumer: even if it didn’t work out originally, you can always come back and try again. And try so many Americans will, unaware of the disease and devastation their money is creating.