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What is a Puppy Mill? A puppy mill is a substandard commercial breeding facility, where dogs (and often cats) are raised in inadequate, often inhumane, conditions with little or no regard for their health or well-being. The concern for profit at these places far outweighs concern for the animals, who often are not fed adequately or properly, are not provided water daily, are never bathed or groomed, and receive no social contact, exercise, or affection. These pathetic animals are often kept in small cages made of chicken wire their entire lives. They are bred every heat, until they stop producing full litters, at which time their faithful service as non-stop breeders is rewarded with a bullet in the head - often at age 5 or 6. Legal requirements to remove waste are seldom met, so rodent, flea, fly, and parasite infestations are common. Animals are often stacked in cages on top of other cages, so that when the top animals go to the bathroom, it falls on the animals below. Their urine and feces-saturated fur gives way to severe skin diseases, which are rarely treated. Eye, ear, and teeth infections must also be endured by these animals. Parents with genetic defects such as blindness, renal problems, skin diseases, epilepsy, dislocating kneecaps, etc., are still bred over and over again, which has led to the flap over the quality of Kansas-bred puppies. Puppy mills prevail in the Midwest, mainly because the industry adapts well to agricultural facilities and is a good second income for cyclical farm revenues, and largely because of lax cruelty laws which are poorly enforced. In other words, puppy mills exist here because animal lovers allow them to. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has had jurisdiction under the Animal Welfare Act to inspect brokers and large commercial breeders since 1970, but has failed miserably to eliminate, or even decrease, the suffering going on in puppy mills. Photographs of USDA-approved facilities have revealed feces accumulations 18-24 inches deep, animals so crippled or ill they could not walk, animals with literally no hair left, animals with no food or water. Consequently, in 1987 the State of Kansas passed its own "Animal Dealers Act", creating a "Companion Animal Program", commonly called the "Puppy Mill Program" to inspect and license commercial breeding facilities. USDA estimated there should be approximately 2200 commercial breeders licensed In Kansas. In early 1990, the WICHITA EAGLE-BEACON set the estimate at nearly 3900. To date, the State has about 1000, but many of those who are licensed do not necessarily meet minimum standards. Approximately 200,000 puppies and 100,000 kittens are exported out of Kansas each year. Chances are they were born in conditions so horrible a civilized person could not imagine it, and they were nursed by mothers who never escape their cruel prisons. News casts have titled their segments on puppy mills "Puppy Prisons", "Kennels of Shame", and the like. That's what puppy mills are. |
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