The Truth About Pet Stores

When you buy one of adorable puppies in the pet shop, make no bones about it, you buy more than the puppy, you are fueling a profit-hungry industry that's harming innocent creatures. Even if the store claims the pups come from a "breeder", not a puppy mill, NO REPUTABLE BREEDER would ever allow their dogs to go to an unscreened home!

In this country where we treat our animals as valuable members of the family, where they have their own TV Shows, heck entire Cable TV Stations dedicated to them, how is it possible that puppy mills still exist? It is possible because every time someone buys a puppy from a pet store, even if they think they are “rescuing” that poor little puppy, all they are doing is opening up a spot for another puppy to fill and therefore feeding the monster!

So, “What is a puppy mill?” you ask… A puppy mill is a commercial dog breeding operation where the sole priority is profit. The well-being of the dogs is not important, as long as they can produce high yield litters. That is all that matters. With responsible breeders, importance is placed on producing the healthiest puppies possible, where puppy mill breeding is performed without the consideration of genetic quality. The result is generations of dogs with unknown and unchecked hereditary defects.

You say “The pet store gave me the lineage of my puppy!” The truth is Puppy mill puppies are typically sold to pet shops, most of the time through brokers, or middlemen. The puppies are often sold as young as seven weeks old and the lineage records of puppy mill dogs are often falsified.

And let’s talk about the lineage, no, how about just the puppy’s mother… that puppy's mother's life (if you can call it that) is a desperate struggle. Her body is used up from years of overbreeding and because of this; she will probably never live past 5 years old when most dogs live anywhere from 12 years or more. She doesn’t know what love is, to be held or to even play with a toy. She feels the wires of a cage under her feet everyday has no idea what it would feel like to run in the grass.

She does not have a normal life; she is not a normal dog at all. Her sole reason for existing is to breed. She lives her entire life in the same small cage where she eats and sleeps and where she's probably given birth to several litters.

None of this matters to the puppy mill owner. Profit is their only concern. Breeding every six months to keep the money coming in the puppies going out around the country to pet stores and puppy brokers keeping the monstrous cycle going.

When she's no longer able to breed or her numbers start to decline, she'll most likely be sent to auction because, the truth is, she will probably still be worth a few dollars to a testing facility: A laboratory that uses dogs for the sake of testing new products. 

I BEG YOU; help put an end to this torture. Join the fight to eliminate puppy mills by refusing to purchase a puppy from anyone other than a reputable breeder. There are also millions of animals around the world in need of adoption. You might be surprised to know that one in four dogs rescued by the ASPCA, Humane Society and similar shelters is a purebred. You can also check out http://www.petfinder.com./

We will never stop this cycle of abuse as long as we keep buying puppies from pet stores.