petstores

You walk into a pet store. In the glass cages there are the cutest puppies. You give into those big brown eyes and buy a puppy form the pet store. It is an adorable cute little thing that you absolutely adore.

What is wrong with this picture? Puppies from most pet stores come from Puppy Mills. Puppy Mills should be called Puppy Farms, because that is what they are. Millions of dogs are being forced to pump out puppies right now in these breeding farms. These puppy mills or breeding farms create a business for themselves by offering pet stores cheap “purebred” puppies. The pet stores then sell these puppies at a much higher price (because they are purebred, right?) and make a nice little profit.
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So, if you can get a loving companion from a pet store, what's the big deal? Who cares where the pup came from if you can love it and it loves you?

Well, it's mother cares. Because while the puppy is sitting in a pet store, even a clean pet store with kindly employees, the mother may be pregnant with her sixth litter of pups by age 4. The mother may be currently living in a tiny pen covered in her own filth and badly in need of a bath, some good food and a little bit of the loving attention her puppy is about to receive when he goes home with his new owners.

Your kids care. They care when their beloved dog, who has loved them faithfully ever since coming home from the pet shop, dies an early death from a genetic disorder such as epilepsy, Von Willebrandt's disease, or hip displasia because the puppy mill that produced him doesn't do health checks.

And you DO care, when you've spend thousands of dollars on allergy treatments, special diets, and expensive veterinary surgery to correct health problems the puppy mill never checked for. Unhealthy conditions, lack of veterinary care, and careless breeding lead to serious problems. By the time puppy-mill puppies are shipped to pet stores, many suffer from ear infections, bronchial illness, and serious congenital health conditions, such as hip deformities, epilepsy, and vision or hearing problems. People paying hundreds of dollars for puppies often find that they must spend thousands more for veterinary care.

The Life of a Puppy Mill Puppy These dogs are shipped off to various pet stores, around the country for sale, in large trucks just like cattle. Many don't survive the journey because of extreme temperatures. Thin, looking undernourished, but unfortunately, not bad enough to claim that they were neglected. At the Puppy Mill, dogs injure their feet by catching them in the wire of their cages, and they hobble painfully around the small space, trying to keep their balance. Timid dogs were terrorized by their more aggressive cage mates, who often prevented them from eating and drinking. Sadly, many of the old mother dogs had gone mad from confinement and loneliness. They circled frantically in their small cages and paced ceaselessly back and forth—their only way of coping with their despair.

These conditions are typical at hundreds of puppy mills across the country. Laws offer little protection and are poorly enforced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

How can you help?
If everyone who wanted a companion dog were to adopt from a shelter instead of buying from a pet store, tens of thousands of dogs would be spared and the puppy mills would go out of business—preventing thousands more breeding dogs from enduring lonely, miserable lives. If not adopting, buy a puppy from a reputable, responsible owner.

In the last few years, large pet supply chains have invited local shelters and rescue groups to bring their adoptable dogs to the stores for meet-and-greet sessions. The resulting adoptions are ruled by the individual group's policies. This can be a win-win situation for all parties