About these puppy mills
Every year 2 to 4 Million puppies are bought from puppy mills, operations that function under terrible conditions. In a puppy mill the bitches usually live their lives in very small cages, with very little to no human interaction, under terrible sanitary conditions with the sole purpose of having one litter after another.
Puppies from these places are often riddled with medical conditions from the start, have no positive association to people and grew up under sub-standard conditions. They often end up in pet shops, or are being sold privately under the disguise of coming from a reputable breeder.
Now the number of pets that are being euthanized in shelters every year is also about 2 Million. These animals are being killed because there are no homes for them. At least that is what we are told. So half of theses killed animals are dogs and there is a demand for twice to four times as many dogs out there. So if only half of the people that shop from puppy mills would go get a shelter dog, there would be no need to euthanize another dog in any shelter.
So why are the people not going to the shelter? Why are we not putting the puppy mill owners out of business by not buying their goods?? According to Nathan J. Winograd’s book 'Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America' the main reasons to why people generally do not desire to go to the shelter to get an animal is the way the shelter is run. (There are more and more shelters now that are no-kill shelters, and what would it take to exponentiate that number?)
What would it take to reform shelters around the country and the world, so that the animals have a chance to be re-homed? Did you know that most of the animals dropped off at shelters are usually euthanized? Shelters are proud of their accomplishments if they 'only' euthanize 50% of the drop offs.
It looks to me that if we started to be more aware of the situation and demanded change we could do two things: Get our dogs adopted out of shelters and put most puppy mills out of business… How does it get any better than that??? What would you like to do?
How to recognize a puppy mill http://www.badgerkennelclub.com/puppy_mills.htm
More information on the shelter system in need of reform click here http://www.nathanwinograd.com/
