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Encourage state and federal officials to stop the mass production and exportation of sick and traumatized dogs. In addition to passing new laws, legislators can demand that existing laws be enforced.
Urge other people not to buy puppies from pet stores, over the Internet, or from newspaper ads.
Write letters to the editor about puppy mills and pet stores. Explain the mills' inhumane treatment of puppies and their contribution to pet overpopulation.
Contact your member of the U.S. House of Representatives and your two U.S. Senators, asking them to urge the USDA to strictly enforce the Animal Welfare Act and to support efforts to increase funding for USDA/Animal Care.
(Members of Congress can be contacted by addressing your letter to: The Honorable _______________, U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC 20510.)
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what are puppy mills?
Puppy mills are facilities which are licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture that mass-produce puppies for pet stores throughout the country and to emerging foreign markets. Puppies are subjected to horrific conditions from birth and during transport from breeder, to broker, to pet stores hundreds of miles from where their life began. The breeding "stock" suffers a constant misery living in small cramped cages often soiled with their own excrement.
The average puppy mill will house between 75 and 150 breeding animals, most forced to live in hutch-style cages with wire floors with very little room to move and often crowded with other dogs. The fecal matter drops to the ground below and waste accumulates beneath the cage, providing a haven for flies and other vermin. Even with fairly prompt removal of waste, the ground becomes permeated with stench as the urine cannot be raked away. Dogs housed in indoor facilities endure an equally deplorable existence with ammonia vapors and odors permeating poorly ventilated buildings. Rodents, flies and other pests plague the animals almost constantly.
At 8 weeks of age puppies are "harvested" and cleaned up for the trip to the broker. They are bathed to clean up feces and odors they have endured during their brief lives in the puppy mill. Some will perish on their way to the pet stores, and others will be rejected by the broker only to be held back for breeding stock. Many others will be killed for their lack of monetary value and some may even be sold for research. Regardless, their lives (or deaths) may be better than the ones lived by their parents who were left behind at the puppy mill to be bred again and again until they can breed no more. The surviving puppies can be seen at your local pet stores.
If you have any compassion at all for the animals bred and raised under these miserable conditions, please do not buy anything from pet stores. Each puppy purchased from a pet store serves a cruel and inhumane industry. Thousands of unwanted animals of all ages and breeds are euthanized at shelters every day. Adopt and spay or neuter a shelter animal or rescued companion animal, and do your part to help end the plight of unseen thousands housed in puppy mills throughout the country.
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