“The documented problems of puppy mills include over-breeding, inbreeding, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of socialization with humans, overcrowded cages, and the killing of unwanted animals. To the unsuspecting consumer, this often means buying a puppy facing an array of immediate veterinary problems or harboring genetically borne diseases that may not be detected until much later." 
    
~ Stephanie Shain, Humane Society of the United States

PUPPY MILLS

Puppy mills typically are large-scale dog breeding facilities that mass-produce purebred and mixed-breed puppies for resale to brokers who, in turn, sell directly to pet shops, and where emphasis on financial profit is placed above the dogs' health and well-being. 

Puppy mills can also be licensed facilities/kennels that sell directly to the public, and can house as few as a dozen dogs or exceed 1,000. 

And even so-called reputable or AKC hobby and show 'fanciers' can and do operate puppy mills. 

The majority of puppy mills are located in the Midwest, but several hundred are also found in PA's Lancaster County, where Amish & Mennonite breeders flourish in “the puppy mill capital of the East."

Holmes County, Ohio, population 39,000, now leads the pack with almost 500 kennels, and most of these are Amish-owned. For more information on Ohio's puppy mills, clickhere

In puppy mills, hundreds - even thousands - of adult dogs (the “breeding stock”) are bred continuously. These dogs live miserable lives in crude, tiny, mostly outdoor structures. The “breeding stock” never gets out of their wire cages; they never touch the ground or run in the grass; they are never free, safe, and loved. The breeding stock is often inbred. Puppies are taken from the mothers before their immune systems are strong enough to withstand transport. As a result, many puppies have contagious viruses, infections, genetic defects, parasites, and other health conditions. In addition, these puppies tend to exhibit a host of emotional and behavioral problems resulting from the poor health of the breeding stock, the poor conditions, the stress of transport, and the lack of maternal and sibling bonding in the first weeks of life.

High prices and American Kennel Club (AKC) registration papers DO NOT guarantee a quality, healthy puppy. Don't be misled by pet shop employees who claim their dogs come from "good breeders" or that their puppies are "hand picked by the owner."

PUPPY HELL

Lax regulations have made Wisconsin a haven for Amish and Mennonite puppy mills – breeders who turn out deformed dogs.

by Mary Van de Kamp Nohl / Milwaukee Magazine / January 2009

Click here for the full article

PHOTOS

ClickHEREto see pictures of Ohio's Amish puppy mills, taken in 2005 by an undercover investigator. 

Once in the album, click on Slideshow and then press F11 for full view. 

HSUS video documents a North Carolina puppy mill raid

ClickHEREto see the horrific world hidden behind pet shops and internet puppy sites.
 

Is there a legal definition of a puppy mill?

In itsrecent suit against Petland,the HSUS cites to a definition of puppy mill offered in a Minnesota court case:  "a dog breeding operation in which the health of the dogs is disregarded in order to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits." Avenson v. Zegart, 577 F. Supp. 958, 960 (D. Minn. 1984). 

And according to the Animal Law Coalition, puppy mills are described as like "an assembly line manufacturing process" for dogs:

 "To operate this puppy production line, female dogs are bred at every opportunity without sufficient recovery time between litters. Once these breeding females are physically depleted to the point they lose the ability to reproduce, they are generally destroyed using inhumane methods.

Thus, following a cruel life of breeding litters upon litters of puppies, the sire and dam of that puppy mill puppy is highly unlikely to ever make it out of the mill alive.  While alive and forced to reproduce, the breeding female and her puppies are confined to a wire cage barely large enough to turn around in, sometimes exposed to the elements, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and three hundred sixty-five days a year.

These cages are frequently stacked upon one another in columns to conserve space so the puppy mill can maximize its number of breeding females, and therefore, its production of puppies. These cages in which the breeding female spends her entire life, and the puppies' first several weeks of life, are floored with wire mesh to facilitate waste removal and cleanup without regard for the health and wellbeing of either the puppies or their mother. 

The conditions at these puppy mills have degenerated to a point of disregard for the welfare of the dogs leaving them in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions without adequate veterinary care, food, water, exercise or mental stimulation and socialization. 

As a result of these conditions and a disregard for proper canine husbandry practices, puppies whelped at puppy mills are highly prone to debilitating and life threatening conditions".

VisitTHE ANIMAL LAW COALITIONto read legal cases on companion animal breeding, puppy mills, and more.