by Dave Gibbons
It’s Saturday afternoon, and you are walking down main street doing a little window shopping, when you come across a pet store. As you peer into the window, you see a cute and cuddly puppy just sitting there staring at you, pleading with you to buy him. So you think, “Why not, we could use a new member of the family, and this would be a great surprise.” Buzzzzz! Wrong Answer! The problem with pet stores, is that most of them get their puppies from puppy mills. Puppy mills are commercial mass-breeding facilities, located mainly in the Midwest, that churn out litters of puppies to sell to pet stores. The cute puppy that you see sitting in the window, is probably another product of a puppy mill. Puppy mills are notorious for their cramped, crude, and filthy conditions and their continuous breeding of unhealthy and hard-to-socialize animals. It is a known fact that pet stores keep puppy mills in business.
The vast majority of dogs sold in pet stores, up to half a million a year, are raised in puppy mills. Puppy mill kennels usually consist of small wood and wire-mesh cages, or even empty crates or trailer cabs. “All dogs are kept outdoors, and the females dogs are bred continuously, with no rest between heat cycles. The mothers and their litters often suffer from malnutrition, exposure, and lack of adequate veterinary care. The continuous breeding takes its toll on the females; they are killed at about age six or seven when their bodies give out, and they no longer can produce enough litters” (Ahrens 1). The caretakers of the dogs have no feeling or compassion towards the dogs at all. They are just a business to them, and could care less about their suffering.
The mother dogs and “studs” spend lonely lives in small filthy cages, producing litter after litter. Recently, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) found dogs at one puppy mill living on hard wire with no bedding, little protection from the searing hot summers or the frigid winters, and little or no veterinary care. “Crusted, oozing eyes, raging ear infections, mange that turned into a mass of red scabs, abscessed feet from the unforgiving wire floors - all were ignored or inadequately treated. The collar on one Labrador retriever had not been adjusted, as the dog grew, and had become embedded in his flesh. Sadly, many of the old mother dogs had gone mad from confinement and loneliness” (Pet Stores and... 1). They circled frantically in their small cages and paced ceaselessly back and forth. Unfortunately, these are the conditions in hundreds of puppy mills across the United States. Laws offer little protection and are poorly enforced by the Department of Agriculture.
By the time the puppies are taken away from their mothers and shipped across the country to pet stores, many of them suffer from ear infections, bronchial illness, and serious congenital health problems. Some of these health problems include hip deformities, epilepsy, and vision or hearing problems” (Pet Stores and... 1). People then find out that the puppies they have paid hundreds of dollars for, also need thousands more for veterinary care. Once the puppies reach the pet stores, this hellish trip continues. “A employee of Petland, a national chain of pet stores, reported the puppies arrived in boxes, caked with their own feces and urine, frightened, hungry and barely weaned. For two weeks, they were kept in crowded cat carriers, where they couldn’t even escape their own waste. Their cries for help filled the back storage room. Another employee told the horror of seeing tiny puppies having convulsions. Instead of calling a veterinarian, the puppies were left without care, and several were dead within 24 hours” (Pet Store Scandal 1). This terrible neglect is not confined to only dogs. Many animals suffer from being in pet stores. At a pet store in Virginia, fish tanks with algae-laden water contained as many dead fish as live ones. “Birds with fractured wings and broken beaks were shoved into tiny cages and left without veterinary care. Two inches of feces covered the bottom of the birdcages. Store employees kept small mammals caged in the bathroom”(Pet Store Scandal 1). No animals should have to suffer through these horrible conditions. Customers at a Wisconsin Petco, saw employees kill fragile, ill parakeets by twisting their necks until they snapped. Ailing or injured animals were stuck in the freezer, where they slowly froze to death.
Many people claim, “But the pet store owner I got my puppy from told me that he came from a good home, and he was well loved and cared for.” Or maybe, “Oh, the pet store I got my puppy from doesn’t get their animals from a mill!” Dateline NBC visited many pet stores and heard from them many times that their puppies weren’t from puppy mills. They stated that they would never buy from mills, just reputable breeders. “The owners gave them pictures of puppies being raised in a cardboard box in the corner of the kitchen. Dateline then tracked puppies from these same stores, including one of the most upscale pet shops in Manhattan, back to the same puppy mill in Kansas where they found such awful conditions. Puppy mills stay in business because no matter how good a pet store’s intentions are, the only way to have all those different breeds at any one time is to deal with a puppy mill. It’s all based on economics" (Pennington 1).
There are many things the public can do if they want to keep this atrocity from happening. First and foremost, everyone has to stop buying from pet stores. The reason puppy mills are still around is because people are buying their pets from these stores. Many people say, “well, I wanted to rescue that cute one in the window and give him a good home.” The answer to that is you did give him a good home, but you took lives from thousands of others by keeping the pet store in business. Another thing you can do to help out is report signs of abuse in pet stores. Whining or crying, a strong odor, ill or crowded animals on display, are all good indicators that it is a bad pet store. Another way to help, is to contact your state and federal representatives and voice your opinion. Tell them that bills should be passed and enforced to save helpless animals from suffering under these conditions. Finally, tell everyone you know to stay away from pet stores. Let society know what is happening behind closed doors. If you have the time, resources, and love necessary to care for a dog properly, adopt one from either a shelter or pound. If you must have a particular breed, you may be surprised to find that 25 percent of shelter dogs are purebred. Only when people refuse to support pet shops, puppy mills, and breeders, will this chain of misery be broken. Next time you stop to look at that doggie in the window, think of all the painful and horrible things, it has been through, and do something positive to end the atrocities of puppy mills.
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