What You Can Do The state and federal governments do not enforce the laws to protect the dogs. The AKC does not protect the dogs. Local enforcement officers do not protect the dogs. The breeders and brokers have huge well-funded lobbying efforts. The only person who is going to make a difference for the dogs is you. You, the people, can help them. What you can do... Never buy a dog in a petstore. Boycott stores that sell puppies and tell the store what you think about selling puppies. Organize a protest at a petstore. Join an organization fighting puppymills. If you live in one of the seven puppymill states, write your local officials and ask for stronger zoning ordinances to stop mills. Boycott Lancaster County Pennsylvania - home of more puppymills than any county in the country. Write your state and federal representatives and ask them to pass stronger laws to protect the dogs. Investigate a petstore and determine where they are buying the puppies. Adopt a dog from a shelter or rescue. Write a letter to the editor of your local papers. Call in to talk radio. Educate the public about puppymills. Put up a billboard about mills in your area. Tell everyone you know about puppymills. All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing Visit HUA.org for more ideas. Hearts United for Animals Box 565 Westtown, PA 19395 hua@hua.org Prisoners of Greed Hearts United for Animals copyright 2002
Go ahead. Tell her that she should spend her entire life in a cage. That she should never be able to play. That she should never be touched with love. Tell her she should never get a dog biscuit. Never get to taste ice cream. They deserve to be loved, protected and treasured. They have committed no crime but they are in prison. They are prisoners of greed.
The dogs in puppymills are just the same as your dog. Tell her it is ok for the collar to grow into her neck slowly choking her. (Four hours of surgery and 72 stitches to remove the chain from around her neck.)
Tell her that it s ok for the kennel owner to grab her and carry her by her front leg. In fact breeders often keep puppies who have obvious genetic defects or other physical deformities and use them as breeder dogs because they can t be sold.
The puppymills do not have the breeder dogs tested for genetic defects before breeding them. Tell her it s ok that she has no medical care. Tell her it s ok that she gives birth to litters of puppies year after year.
Tell her that she does not deserve to be loved. A state funded survey in California found that nearly half of the puppies sold in pet stores were sick or incubating diseases. This doesn t include the puppies suffering from genetic defects.
According to research conducted by Hearts United for Animals, 92% of all puppies in pet stores come from facilities we would consider to be puppymills. What Makes This Dog Any Different Than Your Dog?
A puppymill is a commercial breeding facility that maximizes profit by reducing costs. Many dogs born in puppymills and sold in pet stores suffer from diseases, genetic defects and parasites.
The bulldog is lying down because he s dead. There are approximately 5000 commercial kennels in the United States.
500,000 puppies are born in puppymills every year. Dinah s left ear had been chewed off by a larger aggressive dog.
Dogs are trapped in cages with other dogs who often turn aggressive from the stress of the constant confinement and total boredom. Hundreds of thousands of dogs live and die in puppymills. across the country.
The majority of puppymills are located in seven states - Pennsylvania, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas Bari s head was always cocked from neurological damage. He constantly went round and round in circles.
Some dogs are so psychologically scarred from the mind numbing boredom of being imprisoned in a small cage for years and years that they have developed repetitive habits like going around and around in circles. This puppy never knew love or comfort or a soft bed. She died in filth, alone, afraid and in pain.
There are federal, state and local laws that govern kennels but the laws are weak and are typically not enforced. Most are terrified of people. Some are angry, looking at people with hatred.
Almost every dog is wounded emotionally. This kennel without heat, air conditioning, ventilation or light was licensed and inspected by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Often cases of horrific cruelty go without adequate punishment. Some dogs have such significant tooth decay and gum disease that their bottom jaws rot away leaving their tongues hanging out.
Every dog over the age of about two has rotting teeth from malnutrition. One farmer sold 1293 puppies for 290k even though Federal inspectors had cited him for numerous violations since 1992 including crowded cages, inadequate sanitation, pest control, feeding and watering.
Puppymills vary from the austere to the horrific - but to the dogs they are all prisons. Layla s suffering is writtten in her eyes. Layla was rescued from a puppymill in Lancaster County Pennsylvania where there were 580 other dogs in prison. She was so covered with mats her hair had to be shaved. She had sores of infection under the mats.
This dog s hair was so matted that he could not see. A Pennyslvania breeder said It s only an animal. It s just like any crop that comes along.
The dogs are kept in cages for their entire lives. Mercy had a mass of matted hair surrounding his body like a cacoon. His skin was covered with infected sores. His hairless tail was oozing pus and trapped in the mats. He had so many mats that he could not even scratch himself.
Essentially every one of the thousands of dogs Hearts United for Animals has rescued from the mills has been filthy, matted and sick with infections. A Pennsylvania inspector said: People don t like when dogs are held in pens all their life and never let out, but there s no law about that. As long as the kennels are clean and meeting our regulations, I can t do anything.
Many dogs are severely injured when their feet are caught in the wires of the cages. Very often their feet and legs are ripped off. Storey s teeth were so rotten that infection had spread up his face. He was severely malnourished. He had lost a leg when it was trapped in the cage wires.
So was this bulldog. A few dollars of medication would have saved his eyesight. Look closely. Burton only has three legs. The fourth was cut off by the wires of the cage.
The dogs are bred when they are only six months. This dachshund was just 8 months old when she was rescued from a puppymill in Kansas. She had already weaned one litter of puppies. She only has one eye because of a genetic defect that would have been passed on to her puppies. This Bulldog was blind from an untreated eye infection.
The health care needs of the dogs are often ignored in an effort to reduce expenses. This Pug had a hernia that was as large as a grapefruit. The dogs are bred every time they come into season until their bodies are worn out and they die at about five or six years old.
Typically the kennels do not have heat or air-conditioning When Cassidy was rescued from the puppymill he sounded like a little bird. He had been debarked and was suffering from advanced heart failure and years of mistreatment. His leg had been broken at some time in the past and had healed without being set. He had lost all of his teeth so his tongue hung out all the time. He was only 5.
When Derry was debarked her jaw was broken. She had to have her jaw wired shut so it could heal. She was fed through a feeding tube for 8 weeks. The dogs are subjected to all extremes of temperatures - freezing in the winter and sweltering in torrid summers.
Often puppies die from exposure. Kennels have publically stated that puppies have cooked on the wires of the cages in the summer. When Coventry was debarked in a puppymill in Nebraska, her jaw was broken and she died.
A popular mehod of debarking dogs is to shove a metal pipe down their throats and hit it with a hammer to rupture their vocal cords. Often wind and rain blow into their cages.
This kennel in Pennsylvania had no heat or airconditioning. There were no flaps on the doors to keep out rain and snow. There wasn t even any shade from the sun. A horrifying percentage of dogs from puppymills have been debarked.