http://www.petplace.com/Articles/artShow.asp?artID=1017
The Battle Against 'Puppy Mills'
by: Virginia Breen
Bonnie Peters slammed on her brakes in the pouring rain when she spotted a tiny,
ailing puppy on the roadside in upstate Galway, N.Y.
“It staggered when it walked and then laid down near a tree,” Peters wrote in a
court deposition about her encounter with the sickly black Labrador mix. “He was
very thin and his hair was sparse and he was shaking.”
After scooping up the pup in a blanket, she drove him to the Saratoga County
shelter, where she discovered he was near starvation and had sarcoptic mange, a
parasitic skin disease humans know as scabies.
Somehow, the pup had escaped from the nearby Highland II Kennels, which
authorities labeled a puppy mill after raiding the warehouse and garage that
housed 50 breeds. In a plea deal, kennel owners Michael Garrick and Carmello
Galway pled guilty to misdemeanor animal abuse charges and had their business
shuttered.
'Puppy Mills' Dupe Dog Lovers
Despite decades of negative publicity, substandard commercial dog breeding
facilities - called “puppy mills” - continue to flourish, victimizing countless
animals and duping dog lovers into buying pets that may harbor severe health or
temperament problems. Lax law enforcement and consumer demand for purebreds are
the driving forces behind the industry, experts say.
“It’s a horrible system,” said Nancy Blaney, director of the ASPCA’s national
legislative office. “You’ve got animals living in wire cages stacked on top of
each other, with waste dropping from one cage to the next, females bred
perpetually, and no socialization whatsoever.”
Mill pups, who are removed from their mothers as young as six weeks old, are
transported by truck and plane and may later reveal symptoms of deadly canine
diseases like parvovirus, which affects the intestines, or often congenital
defects like hip dysplasia, a degenerative condition that causes lameness.
No Attempt to Breed Social Dogs
“There’s no attempt to breed dogs who are social and friendly,” said Dr. Stephen
Zawistowski, an ASPCA animal behaviorist. “And since the dogs aren’t exposed to
people at a critical period in their development, you’ve got the potential for
aggression.”
Rex, a two-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi born in a Midwestern puppy mill and
purchased at a Los Angeles pet store, arrived at Meredith Brittain’s rescue
shelter last year surly and aloof. His frustrated owners had turned him over to
her after months of failed attempts to make him part of the family.
“I eventually had to put him in a crate, and he attacked me and nearly took my
face off,” recalled Brittain, a rescuer from San Bernardino, Calif. “So I called
the vet, who sedated him, and I held him and kissed him on the nose. And then we
euthanized him.”
Pet-store owner Marc Morrone, who appears on the pet segments of “Martha Stewart
Living” and has been vilified by animal rights groups for selling puppies in his
Long Island shop, maintains there’s another side to the story.
“Nobody talks about the people who bought dogs from a pet shop 13 years ago and
have loving, wonderful pets,” he said. “The truth is, the demand for puppies is
insatiable, and it’s not illegal to sell them. It’s pointless to tell people to
stay out of pet stores when it’s the only real avenue open to them.”
Humane Groups Offer Other Options
Humane groups insist there are other options. They urge dog lovers to consider
adopting from local shelters, contacting rescue groups for purebreds, or buying
from small-scale breeders.
“We try to educate people, but after all these years, people are still buying
dogs from pet shops,” said Zawistowski, asserting that 90% of all dogs sold in
retail stores come from the mills.
The term “puppy mill” was coined after World War II, when the federal
Agriculture Department (USDA) encouraged struggling farmers to raise puppies as
an alternative “crop.” Retail pet stores opened across the country in response
to the growing supply of pups, paving the way for mass puppy production. Novice
puppy farmers, however, often launched their ventures with little money and even
less knowledge of canine husbandry.
Outraged humane groups pressured the federal government into adopting the Animal
Welfare Act in 1971, which gave the USDA the authority to punish substandard
facilities with penalties or license revocation.
Inspections Are Spotty
Advocates argue, though, that unscrupulous breeders conduct business with
relative impunity, since inspections are spotty. Currently, there are 65 USDA
inspectors nationwide charged with overseeing 11,263 sites, including roughly
4,100 licensed breeding facilities.
Other advocates argue that enforcement of the law poses a direct conflict of
interest for the agency. “There’s an inherent problem when you look at dogs as
‘the product’ and you’ve got an economic interest on the other side,” said Holly
Hazard, executive director of the Doris Day Animal League, a nonprofit lobbying
group. In May, the League sued the USDA in federal district court in Washington,
D.C., for “failing to halt cruel and inhumane practices in puppy mills
throughout the United States.”
Jim Rogers, a USDA spokesman, declined to comment on the pending litigation but
added, “People see conditions that maybe aren’t the best in the world, but the
law allows for that. We try to stay neutral and simply enforce the law,” he
said, adding there are good ones and bad ones.
The “bad ones” caught the attention of Congress in 1995, when 149 members
blasted the industry for “overcrowding, inadequate shelter, improper veterinary
care, lack of sanitation and incessant breeding.” Regulations were adopted
requiring plastic-coated wire for cages and banning animal tethering. But other
recommendations - including increasing cage size, requiring constant access to
water, and limiting the number of times a dam could be bred - were not.
Puppy 'Lemon Laws'
Some states, like California and New York, have puppy “lemon laws” on the books,
which enable consumers to get a portion of the purchase price back. New York
also passed a pet dealer licensing bill on June 13.
But Brittain and others insist more needs to be done to protect not only the
animals, but the integrity of the breed.
“I had a mill dog named Tommy come to me, and he was one of the oddest-looking
corgis I’d ever seen,” Brittain said. “He looked like a corgi on stilts, with
big, long legs. He was so weird-looking, my heart sank. Apparently, no care was
taken to breed to the standard.”
At Highland II, investigators found “overall filth,” recalled Cathy Cloutier,
executive director of the SPCA for upstate New York. The operators “knew we were
on to them so the animals had been removed, but there was urine in the water
bowls and moldy poop on the floor,” she said. “An old plastic bag was filled
with hypodermic needles.”
Of the little black lab’s four littermates, two were euthanized in shelters and
another was sold - while suffering mange - to an Albany woman. The fourth pup
was never found.
The roadside puppy’s tale, though, had a happy ending: He was dubbed “Mungie” by
Cloutier and other SPCA staffers, and is now a healthy, happy pooch.
“He’s small because he was so malnourished, but he’s wonderful,” Cloutier
gushed. “He was the last puppy to make it out of there. He’s one lucky dog.”