fighting for dogs everywhere
who deserve a much better life
and who are  "Dying for Love"

You're in the mall, and you just have to stop and look at those cute little doggies playing in the window of the pet shop.  You go in, almost in spite of yourself, and before you know it, you have one of those cute little darlings in your arms, or you're sitting on the floor in a puppy room with a little one to cuddle.  “How much?" you ask, finding the licks and tail wags impossible to resist. “Only $600,” the salesperson says.  “Special this week.  He was $950.”   And the next thing you know, you're walking out of the pet shop with a puppy all your own.

You probably have no idea that you are helping to finance one of the biggest torture machines in the animal world.  Puppy mills, where the majority of pet shop puppies come from, are cesspits of filth and disease, where dogs are kept confined in cages all their lives -- till their feet are deformed and their fur falls away from their bodies in mats.

The mother of the puppy you hold in your arms is probably exhausted, starving, sick; has never run on the grass in a yard or felt loving arms cuddle her.  She has never known kind voices or a full meal or a warm clean bed to sleep in. She has never been brushed.  She sleeps on wire.  Her toenails will grow around until they cut into her pads.  She will pace back and forth compulsively, if her cage is big enough for her to move.  Feces and urine may drop down on her from the other little dogs in cages stacked above her.  She shivers in winter and pants in summer, with no shelter to protect her from freezing winds or blazing sun. She may die this month, from any of a number of ailments.  If not, she might wish she did -- if she could wish.  She will die young -- whether from neglect and abuse or from being shot when she no longer produces puppies for sale. She will not be “adopted.”  She will not be loved.  She will die alone.

Your new puppy's litter mates may have died in the cage with him in the truck on the way to the store.  They were only five or six weeks old, after all -- too young to eat dog food, too sick to care, too lonesome for their mother. Your puppy is one of the “lucky” ones.  But another puppy you saw in there just last week was not so lucky.  He was sick.  He died because it would have cost the pet shop too much money to call a vet to have him treated.  So they let him die.

Yours may die too, if he has a congenital defect -- something puppy mill breeders do not care about.  Kidney failure, blindness, hip dysplasia, deafness, behavioral problems ... the list goes on and on.  Will you be attached enough to your puppy to get it to a doctor?  Or will it die too?  If it is sick or does die, the pet shop will not give you back your money. They'll give you another puppy instead.  That's how they make their money.  Puppies are cheap.

To irresponsible pet shops and to puppy mills, puppies are not lives.  They are livestock and inventory -- something to be thrown away if defective. They either don't believe or don't care that dogs suffer pain, hunger, loneliness, fear.  It doesn't fit into the bottom line, and all they care about is their profit margin.

And how many people don't really think about what's involved before they fork out the money for that little doggie in the window? How many of those pets will end up dumped by the side of the road, or in a shelter, only to be put to death when no one comes in to adopt them? Far too many.  Animals are dying for want of homes, but the puppy mills don't care.  They just keep breeding more, and more, and more. And how many people leave the pet shop with a puppy only to find that they really do not have the personality to have a pet -- or that their pet's personality doesn't mesh well with theirs?

If you want a dog, if you REALLY want a dog, please don't go to a pet shop. Please go to a shelter and adopt a dog who otherwise will die -- you'd be amazed and sickened to learn how many purebreds end up this way -- Or go to a reputable breeder, who cares about the dogs and who raises them in a home where they are socialized and cared for and where they learn how to be loving pets.  And their prices and guarantees for pet quality healthy purebreds are much better than the unknown quality pups in a pet store.

CKC & APR

Today's "In" Registries For Puppy Millers

The American Kennel Club has developed some new rules aimed at deflecting some of the criticism they've received for supporting puppy millers by registering the offspring. AKC dogs must be micro-chipped before they can be sold at auction. AKC requires DNA specimens on prolific males. AKC inspectors have pulled dogs from auctions for not meeting these conditions. Why are they doing this? Because of rampant fraud and deceit committed by disreputable breeders who are destroying the sport of the purebred dog. No, these measures are not sufficient. But they are a beginning.

The Continental Kennel Club  

The response of puppy millers is to seek out alternative registries. One of these is the Continental Kennel Club. The requirements for registering a dog with the Continental Kennel Club are not nearly so stringent. In fact, you need only tell them your dog is purebred - they'll take your word for it. If you prefer, you may even register on-line. They offer many services: Standard Registration ($8.00), Standard Registration Plus Pedigree ($23.00), Color Photo Registration ($16.00), Color Photo Registration With Pedigree ($31.00), or the creme de la creme, Color Photo Registration And Photo Pedigree ($41.00). What A Deal! And none of those annoying identification requirements to contend with. Nope, all it takes is a credit card. Another attraction: They do NOT require litter registration.

The Continental Kennel Club also offers, but does not require, DNA testing/certification and micro-chipping.

Bottom line: When you buy a puppy registered with the Continental Kennel Club, as with any registry, you are relying on the breeder's integrity. How reliable is this? Read the following excerpt from a Missouri Pet Breeders' Association (MPBA) chapter in Lebanon, Missouri, right in the heart of puppy mill country. It was written by a member and addressed to "My Fellow Pet Breeders":

"One huge problem looms large for the pet industry with the change taking place.  We have all heard of the stupid abuses performed by breeders in the past, switching registration papers, putting papers on dogs which 'look right'.  Breeding poodles into cockers to enhance that wavy hair coat.  Breeding Shih tzus and Lhasa Apsos to get bigger litters of the smaller dogs, and since they look so much alike, who can tell?...Not keeping track of which sire was with which female, combining litters of puppies on one registration to save a penny or two...We all know what we have been accused of, and we all know somebody who has committed, or who has been accused of committing at least one of these LITTLE (my emphasis) lies....  If you have not read the breed standard for the breeds you own, READ THEM, and do away with each and every dog which is too big, too small, wrong-colored, crossbitten, bad-kneed, bad-hipped, kink-tailed, or which otherwise does not comply with the breed standard...If you hear of somebody not being honest, please, by any means, kill them and destroy the evidence."

In the words of a fellow rescuer, "...if they stop the LITTLE LIES and get rid of all the dogs that don't fit the breed standard, and kill the breeders that aren't being honest...well by-golly, we really will have no puppy mills!"

The American Purebred Registry
The American Purebred Registry was founded in 1979 to assist folks with "Lost registration papers". To register a pup or dog with them, they require that you submit the usual information, i.e., name, sex, breed, color, B/D, etc., then sign an application attesting to the validity of information provided.  Again, all pertinent information is provided by the owner or breeder of the dog. In their own words, "When an application is received by our office and accepted, we issue a registration certificate. From that moment on the animal is considered a registered animal."

Cost: $10.00, check or money order.

Be aware, a dog's registration  is no guarantee of pure breeding, health, or anything else.

The best way to fight against the atrocities of the puppy mills is to educate as many people as we can about what they really are, and to get our State's Representatives to fight for tougher punishments for animal abuse. 

Shouldn't your dogs look like this.  This is how most people picture the lifestyle of their dog's, or anyone's pet for that fact.  Pampered,  well fed, with fresh water to drink, clean, given the health care they need by a veterinarian, and above all loved by the family that owns them. This is the way we all would like to believe that all companion animals live. 

But there is another side to this picture.

This is the way that too many dogs live.  There is no way to describe it but to say that is is abusive.  They are put into cages and there they stay until the day they die.  They usually have very short miserable lives.  They are fed barely enough to keep them alive, let alone healthy.  If they get sick they are left to die in pain and misery.  The females are bred every season and their bodies are depleted of all nourishment by the constant litters of puppies that they are forced to have.  Some have never had their paws on the ground, or felt grass.  This is a far cry from the cute little puppy in the pet shop window, but this is how it begins.   

• Just what is a puppy mill?: Could it depend on who you ask?
• Puppymill nightmare: Canine victims suffer deprivation and death in nightmare puppy mill
• How to stop a puppy mill: If you think you've found a puppy mill, there are several things you can do
• What does AKC registration really mean?: It's not a mark of quality
• AKC inspections: Now registrations can be revoked for substandard conditions