What Are Puppy Mills?

What Are Puppy Mills and why are they such a big deal? Selling puppies is a multi-million dollar industry. It's not illegal to sell puppies and make a profit doing so. Businesses need to make a profit to stay in business so why the big deal about puppy mills?

The reason puppy mills are such a target is that puppy mill dogs are kept in horrendous conditions. Often these dogs are left to sleep inside chicken wire cages stacked 4 to 6 cages high. The cages are often left unprotected from the extreme heat or cold. Dogs easily die of exposure. The cages are crowded and the stress of their living situation causes the dogs to exhibit stress behaviors such as bullying, fighting, hiding, and pacing starting from a very young age. The dogs are never let out of the cages and are not trained in any way.

Keep in mind, when you factor in good nutrition, vet care, genetic tests, and a dog show schedule the cost of breeding goes up and profit goes down. This is why good breeders rarely make much profit. Healthy breeders make enough money to supplement their dog hobby.

The puppies are the lucky ones. They get out of the situation early unless they are kept as breeding dogs. The parents of the puppies may endure years of neglect and when they can't breed anymore they are killed.

Who sells puppy mills dogs? Most of the time puppy mill dogs are sold in pet stores. They often come with health certificates signed by a veterinarian that works with the pet store or puppy mill verifying that the puppies have passed a health check. Any time you see puppies for sale in a pet store you are seeing puppy mill puppies. Store employees often deny this because they don't know where the puppies came from. Puppies are bought from brokers who are the middle man between the store and the puppy mill. Unless a pet store works directly with a shelter or rescue organization to adopt dogs, you can bet the puppies come from puppy mills.

Are pet stores the only place that sell puppy mill puppies? Nope. Puppy mill dogs are sold through newspaper adds, all over the internet, in parking lots of major stores, and where ever you can create a cute puppy scenario. Puppies don't need much advertising. They easily sell themselves - especially when they are in sitting in a box on a hot or cold day. In order to sell puppies you need to have them in an accessible place for people to see and handle them.

How would I know a website is selling puppy mill dogs? One simple way is to ask the owner of the website what breeds of dogs they are selling. Most professional breeders only breed one or two kinds of dogs and only have a litter of each a year. If a breeder tells you they have puppies available often you might be talking to a puppy mill. If you look at a pamphlet or brochure and you see more than one or two BREEDS of puppy on the literature it's the sign of a puppy mill. If a newspaper advertisement lists several breeds of puppies for sale that's a strong sign you are reading an ad by a puppy mill broker.

Not all puppy mills look like factory farms. When you go to a breeder's house to look at puppies, check around to see if there are more dogs living on the property and check out the condition of those dogs. Other dogs on the property may be in poorer condition than the ones you are looking at. Often a puppy mill breeder will have dogs out back that you may or may not be allowed to see. Finally, don't assume the parents of the puppies are the actual parents. Just because a Siberian Husky male and female are on the property doesn't mean they are sire and dam to the Siberian puppies in front of you.

Aren't puppy mills illegal? Breeding dogs isn't illegal. When you start tapping into the idea that breeding dogs is illegal you head down the road of mandatory spay and neuter laws. California is trying to pass Assembly Bill 1634 which requires all dogs and cats over 6 months of age be spayed or neutered or you pay an intact animal fee. Most puppy mills are on the outskirts of towns where law enforcement is limited.

Aren't I saving a life by getting a dog from a pet store? Good question! What do you do with all the puppies for sale in the pets stores if people don't buy them? Do you ask the stores to give them to the shelter and stop selling all together? Do you ask a rescue group to find them homes?

Puppy mills are one of the easiest atrocities to stop. It's really easy to stop puppy mills, but everyone has to participate. Make selling puppies and dogs illegal! Only adopt from shelters. After all, there are many pure breed dogs and puppies in shelters. Most of those dogs originated from a puppy mill. The tragic end to a spontaneous shopping moment. This would end the pet overpopulation problem and the puppy mill problem. Ah, but you see what kind of argument that presents. That creates a black market for puppies. A black market is an illegal market. If you think puppy mills aren't regulated now, imagine how life would be for those dogs if they were dumped onto the black market platter.

What do you think about puppy mills?

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Definition of a Puppy Mill  So, if I sell (or give) puppies to a pet store to sell, does that make ME a puppy mill? Does it matter if the puppies are intact or altered?

If I only ...

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