Very few people can resist the urge to look at puppies inside the windows of pet shops. However many people do not look at the puppies and wonder where they came from. If you were to look into their background, a vigorous past would appear. Have you ever looked behind the screens to see how the pet shops gain control of the puppies, or what those little guys had to go through to get there? The inflated prices people pay for the puppies do not relate to the hell they were put through.
People in the United States tend to focus their attention on other things and are blind to the cruel reality of the ways a puppy is contained in a puppy mill. First off, you should learn a little about these nasty places. Puppy mills are not a popular topic for most people to be familiar with. Generally speaking, a puppy mill is a large-scale commercial breeding facility for all breeds of dogs. They are where the pure bread puppies are bred. There, most definitely, are other pure breeders that sell their personal litters. However those small scale breeders less rigorous with their animals and the owners build stronger relationships with the animals they own.
Those are better cases. But in a typical mill, abuse, exploitation, and neglect are common ways animals are treated in mills. Along with the terrible treatment, insufficient amounts of sanitation, food and veterinary care are provided for the animals. Dogs are forced to produce puppies at a repulsive rate, receiving little to no rest between female 2 cycles. Sadly, they are bred for pure profit, making the owners more focused on money rather than the well-being of the animals themselves. The owners of the mill do not care about the quality of the purebred dogs; they only care about the quantity.
This could make way for a problem. For how little of care and attention the owners put towards their dogs, how are people supposed to trust whether the puppies they are purchasing are really true pure breads. A buyer could simply buy a dog for a decent price and they are tricked into believing it is a pure bred. But the puppy mill owner is being dishonest and selling “fake” pure bred dogs. Therefore they would make more money by lying. When a person takes on the “bigger the quantity, the bigger the profit” mentality, a gravitational pull becomes stronger.
The idea in the previous sentence can lead to unnoticed genetic defects, personality disorders, and disease that can be passed on to future generations. The diseases can also be spread through air. Since the puppy mills are typically overpopulated, the diseases can spread rapidly. They also spread rapidly due to the rapid production of puppy litters. Once problems do arise, for instance, social problems, some puppy mill owners will just kill these innocent pups. Killing them makes their job easier. They are always looking for the easy way out and the quickest way to make money. Instead of doing what is best for the animals.
Money, time and patience are three assets needed when adopting a puppy that grew up in a mill. Those assets are immensely important because of how much they encounter while they grow up. The crazy conditions these dogs/puppies brave, in the duration of puppy mill life, are intolerable. Wire cages are used to house all the animals. There is absolutely no protection from Mother Nature. Through the brisk winters, moist spring, breezy falls, and scorching summers, they are supposed to withstand all conditions. There is no choice for the puppies to transition from indoors to outdoors when the weather calls for it.
However there are different 3 circumstances. Some mills are strictly indoors opposed to closely outdoor. When housed at an indoor mill, most of the animals may never catch a glimpse of sunshine until they have found a home. Meanwhile, the cages have no bedding to protect the individuals from other factors besides weather. Daily, dogs are compelled to live in their own feces and urine. Not only are they compelled to live in their own waste, they are unwillingly forced into living in their associates as well. Even worse, the bedding-less wire cages are stacked on each other.
Therefore, the waste from the dogs above carelessly falls through. This makes the lower occupants obligated to live in other dogs bodily fluids. This just proves the absence of sanitation throughout the mill itself. As rare as sanitation is amongst these disturbing places, veterinary care and good nutrition follow the same path. Not a very good path either. Small amounts of food and water are given, an unhealthy amount that is. The malnutrition and little veterinary care boost the chances of various different diseases appearing. Death by disease is profoundly common. A list of the diseases found in or caused by puppy mills could go on and on.
Withal, common diseases causing the deaths include epilepsy, cataracts, eye lesions, hip dysplasia, and mammary tumors. Epilepsy is formed by a widespread list of causes, but anemia is a main cause, electrolyte problems and eating poison. Eye cataracts are caused by damage to the eyes which leads blindness and is attributed to diabetes. Hip dysplasia is caused in puppy mills by over breeding, and over use of the dogs. They never have time to rest because every time they are in heat, they are going to be bred. It has been said that when a dog is 5 years old, they can have up to 10 litters of puppies.
That is like a women being pregnant 10 years straight. How crazy. Now, since the eye for signs of these diseases isn’t very strong, and the diseases are spread generation by generation, beginning to appear more often and raising the stakes. 4 Some people tend to ignore the cruelty being performed behind the closed doors of puppy mills. Those just so happen to be the same people who counter this argument. Some would say not every puppy mill is the kind I have described. However that may be true, but the number of large scale puppy mills I have researched fall into all the topics I previously discussed.
They are overpopulated, and understaffed to make a profit. The increased amount of litters being born the profit is increased due to the puppies being sold at a pet shop. Number of dogs being produced vs profit share a direct relationship. When one goes inflates, the other inflates. In order to make more money, the mills are understaffed. Now that means less pairs of eyes are observing the puppies’ conditions. This leaves them prone to the diseases discussed in the above paragraph. Once the dogs are shoveled off to pet stores, the mill is no longer liable.
This makes pet shops are paying a bigger price than they allotted for, in order to get the animals healthy again. Another reason people tend to dispute my claim is because they claim that due to puppy mills we are supplied an unlimited amount of puppies. Well I beg to differ; puppy mills lose over half of the puppies they produce. 1 out of 2 puppies die due to disease and malnutrition. They also say unsold dogs can be used for testing and to find cures. Of course I am all for finding cures for cancer, disease, etc. , but animal testing can be just as harmful, if not as the puppy mills we are discussing. What happens if a test does not go as planned?
The person in charge of conducting the test isn’t harmed. However the animal is exposed to many different things that can be hurtful and harmful. The opposition also states that for the economy, puppy mills provide jobs. Well if more people were provided jobs at puppy mills maybe the sanitation, veterinary care, and hygiene of the puppies and their environment would improve. Yes, technically it is a way to provide jobs, but since owners are frugal, they only supply limited jobs. One more thing brought up in the counter argument is that purebred dogs are popular and go for big money. Yes this falls 5 into the profit category, again.
The owner makes the money and lives in luxury when the animals making him/her the money are living in critical condition. The price the dogs pay for the luxury of the owner should make people sick. These puppies act as slaves, the owner is the slave owner but in the case the puppy owner, and reaps the benefits of the innocent baby dogs. Now here’s where a question begins to form. How can we put a stop to the puppy mill industry? Well, there is a continual search for the mills and people try to raid the mills and rescue the animals as frequent as possible. Organizations raid up to two mills annually. Puppy mills
aren’t illegal in certain states but if they are found to not be living up to the standards, they can and will be shut down. An easy way to slow down the rate puppy mills make a profit is to be sure you are rescuing a dog, and to avoid buying dogs online. When looking to purchase a dog, the best way to find one is to check your local animal shelter and ask about any puppies available. If the breed you are looking for can’t be found locally, an internet is a good way to search. Be careful with online purchasing though. There are specific websites that are rescue organizations.
A great website is www. petfinder. com. They provide you with specific breeds that have been rescued and will allow you to have a lower spending budget. Also it will ensure that the dogs do not have any diseases and are healthy before being sold again. If you cannot help end the puppy mill business by purchasing a dog, but you want to help, there is other ways. You can vote towards animal friendly candidates in local and state elections, repeatedly recommend pet shops to switch to a humane business mold, and even promote adopting around town and in your area. Also support the legislation near you that regulates and reduces the breeding of animals.
If we are able to limit the direct distribution of puppy mill animals, we will enable the mills to go out of business. With little to no money, a mill cannot be up and running. 6 After hearing the harsh and brutal treatment obtained in the raising of these puppies, many different things take place. A change needs to be made. People can stand up against puppy mills and fight alongside the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). Eliminating these harmful environments animals could be a major change. I understand that a profit is being made, but is the profit being made in an immoral way.
Harming animals is no way a person should make a living and feel good about their job. A way to end puppy mills may be by putting a limit on the amount of dogs can be held. Add a capacity limit. No dog(s) should be forced into this hell. So before purchasing a puppy or dog review a couple things; 1) visit a rescue shelter and see if they have a dog you can help and save, 2) if buying online, check to see specifically where this dog was previously (or buy from www. petfinder. com). Any contributions could help the cause and put an end to these gruesome puppy mills.