Puppy Mills

The public has seen the pictures on T.V. as cameras panned back and forth over trash, piles of animal waste, dogs with runny noses and oozing sores, dogs crammed into shopping carts and tiny coops with ants, roaches and rats sharing dirty food bowls and dry dishes. They've seen the sad, desperate, pleading but resigned looks on the poor animals' faces. And they've also seen the puppy mill owner captured on tape, completely ignorant of basic, humane dog care and canine temperament, genetics, health needs and proper nutrition. Amazingly, he's also even belligerent while demanding to be left alone to earn his livelihood! But is the television crew simply seeking the sensational and applying these appalling conditions to the entire dog producing industry?

Puppy mill conditions were a major impetus in the passage of the national Animal Welfare Act (AWA). However, as often happens, the appellation of puppy mill has been bastardized to mean any breeder who breeds lots of dogs, no matter what the conditions of the kennel or the health of the puppies. The AWA is administered by the US Department of Agriculture and lists several categories of businesses which handle dogs:

Pet wholesalers are those who import, buy, sell, or trade pets in wholesale channels and must be licensed by the USDA to conduct business;

Pet breeders are those who breed for profit, selling animals to other breeders or selling to brokers or directly to pet stores or laboratories. They must also be licensed by the USDA to conduct business.

Hobby breeders are those who sell directly to pet stores and are exempt from licensing if they gross less than $500 per year and if they own no more than three breeding females.

Laboratory animal dealers, breeders, and bunchers must also be licensed, as must auction operators and promoters of contests in which animals are given as prizes.

The Animal Welfare Act and The AKC

The Animal Welfare Act does not list a definition of either "commercial kennel" or "puppy mill." The American Kennel Club also avoids defining "puppy mill" but does label a commercial breeder as one who "breeds dogs as a business, for profit" and a hobby breeder as "one who breeds purebred dogs occasionally to justifiably improve the breed, not for purposes of primary income." Notice the difference between the AWA and the AKC definitions of hobby breeder.

The AKC does not license breeders but the USDA issues licenses under the Animal Welfare Act after inspecting kennels to determine whether or not minimum standards for housing and care are being met. They require a minimum amount of space for each dog as well as shelter, a feeding and veterinary care program, fresh water every 24 hours, proper drainage of the kennel and appropriate sanitary procedures to assure cleanliness.

The USDA has licensed more than 4600 animal dealers, more than 3000 of them dealing solely in wholesale distribution of dogs and cats. Animal welfare proponents claim that there are many dealers who have avoided the system and that the USDA does not have enough inspectors to seek them out and enforce the law.

It's easy to say that John Jones or Mary Smith runs a puppy mill or that pet store puppies come from puppy mills but the label is tossed about so frequently and with so little regard for accuracy that each prospective dog owner should ascertain for himself whether or not he wishes to buy a dog from John Jones, Mary Smith, a pet store or a hobby breeder. Here are our definitions to help you decide:

Broker: One who buys puppies from commercial kennels and sells to retail outlets. They ship puppies by the crate-load on airlines or by truckload throughout the country. Brokers must be licensed by USDA and must abide by the shipping regulations in the Animal Welfare Act.

Buncher: One who collects dogs of unknown origin for sale to laboratories or other bunchers or brokers. Bunchers are considered lower on the evolutionary scale than puppy mill operators because they are suspected in many cases of buying stolen pets, collecting pets advertised as "Free to a good home" and adopting unwanted pets from animal shelters for research at veterinary colleges or industrial research laboratories.

Puppy mill: A breeder who produces puppies hand over fist with no breeding program, little attention to puppy placement and probably little or no health care or socialization practices. A puppy mill may or may not be dirty but it is usually overcrowded and the dogs may be neglected and/or abused because the breeder can't properly handle as many dogs as he has. Puppy mills are breeding facilities which produce "purebred" puppies in large numbers. The puppies are sold either directly to the public via the internet, magazine or newspaper ads, at the mill itself or are sold to brokers and pet shops across the country.

The documented problems of puppy mills include over-breeding, inbreeding, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of socialization with humans, overcrowded cages and the killing of unwanted animals. There are more than 4,000 puppy mills in the United States producing more than half a million puppies each year. To the unwitting consumer, this situation frequently means they are buying a puppy facing an array of immediate or future veterinary problems or a puppy which harbors genetically borne diseases and/or defects which do not appear until years later.

Puppy mill operators often denigrate hobby breeders (See “hobby breeder” below) and their dogs by saying that they are “snobs“ and are "over-priced", "have no better quality" than his or her puppies “or are just afraid of a little competition” in an attempt to make a sale. The puppy mills' sales strategy is to make it difficult for prospective customers to go home empty-handed, and, as modern consumers, we often equate a large inventory and broad selection with a satisfactory shopping experience. But with puppies and other pets, just the opposite should be true. They are living beings who feel pain and neglect and, as such, deserve compassionate treatment and a good life.

So, before you inadvertently add to a puppy mill’s coffers, do some research. When drawn to a pet store window by a bin of wriggling puppies, the furthest thing from your mind may the origin of these cute bundles of fur. But by buying a puppy, you may unknowingly be supporting a cycle of abuse which begins at a puppy mill.

What a pet store consumer can't see is the puppy's mother, imprisoned miles away and pregnant again because her body is used solely to produce more money-making puppies. Starting at six months instead of the more humane 18 to 24 months, she is bred every estrus cycle. She is often weak, malnourished, and dehydrated. Rarely, if ever, is she provided with veterinary care. When she cannot maintain her productivity past her fourth or fifth year, she becomes nothing more than a drain on the mill's operation and is disposed of. If she's lucky, she'll be humanely euthanized. More often than not, she will be shot or bludgeoned to death. Discarded, her wasted body will lie forgotten in a local landfill or garbage dump. This is the picture the pet stores will never show.

Commercial breeder: One who usually has several breeds of dogs with profit as the primary motive for existence. The dogs may be healthy or not and the kennel may be clean or not. The dogs are probably not screened for genetic diseases and the breeding stock is probably not selected for adherence to the breed standard or for good temperament. Most commercial breeders sell their puppies to pet stores or to brokers who sell to pet stores.

Commercial breeders won't call themselves that but that's what they are. They produce many puppies each year with little thought or regard for the puppies' quality or welfare. Their "breeding stock" are kept in locked cages and constantly breeding and then are killed when they can no longer produce. Improving the breed is the farthest thing from their minds and absolutely no thought is given to the health, longevity, temperament or conformation of the unfortunate puppies….or to the owners who will inherit these problems. They often use "Kennels" or "Farms" in their business names which is an insult to responsible breeders for which these titles should be reserved.

They may have something in common though: Breeding unhealthy, uncertified, poorly kept animals who want nothing more out of life than to be loved. Many live in cramped cages, with little attention, no socializing and, at times, going without food and/or water, not to mention the unsanitary conditions in which they may be forced to live or the health care they may not be receiving.

Many go without human companionship and with little hope of ever becoming part of a family and never see the inside of a house. They freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer. They never get out of their prisons and their lives are miserable. Then, to reward them after their fertility wanes, breeding animals are commonly killed, abandoned or sold to another mill. To protect the mill's profit margins, dogs' and puppies' squalid, sordid living conditions are kept off-limits to the public.

Commercial breeders may sound great to an unsuspecting buyer because they will have puppies continuously with no waiting time. But, by selling puppies continuously, how can they possibly oversee proper a puppy's care and socialization much less cater to the specific needs or desires of a buyer seeking a puppy who will be everything they want? They are creating a "product for profit" and, in their eyes, not a living, loving creature each with its own personality, energy level, aggression level and genetic tendancies, strengths and weaknesses.

These establishments often have glitzy brochures and flashy ads in magazines which appear very classy. This is easy to do when they are annually selling hundreds of puppies for profit. But behind the friendly façade of these pet shops, web sites, and magazine and newspaper ads, there often lies an uncaring commercial breeder or puppy mill. The annual result of all this breeding is hundreds of thousands of puppies, many with behavior and/or health problems.

Warning signs which may indicate a commercial breeding program are slogans such as "World Wide Shipping!", "Puppies Available Year Round" and "All major credit cards accepted!". These are usually very clear signs that the breeder cares little about where the puppy ends up, the type of care it will receive or the treatment it will be given or has been given. They are motivated by money and nothing else which insures a "sell'em and forget'em" philosophy. As such, puppies are often sold with contracts which are very favorable to the "breeder" and offer little real protection to the buyer or for the puppy.

Backyard breeder: A dog owner whose pet is bred either by accident or which is bred purposely for a variety of reasons. This breeder is usually ignorant of the breed standard, genetics, behavior, and good health care practices. A backyard breeder can very easily become a commercial breeder or a puppy mill. All backyard breeders do not necessarily have filthy environments with cramped cages. Some have fairly decent surroundings and some are quite immaculate but the end result is the same: Corners are cut, puppies are not socialized and the parents are not screened properly. The bottom line is that they are in it for the profit they try to make from these animals.

Hobby or Reputable breeder: A breed fancier who usually has only one breed but may have two, follows a breeding plan in an effort to preserve and protect the breed, produces from zero to five litters per year, breeds only when a litter will enhance the breed and the breeding program, raises the puppies with plenty of environmental and human contact, has a contract which protects breeder, dog and buyer; runs a small, clean kennel, screens breeding stock to eliminate hereditary defects from the breed and cares that each puppy is placed in the best home possible.

This is an individual who breeds for "quality of the breed" ("quality" means breeding to breed standards, which, in the United States, most often means AKC standards). Puppies are either sold as "pet quality" or "show quality" (which is a relatively infrequent occurrence because a puppy with show quality characteristics generally isn't discernable to the breeder or buyer until the puppy is several months to a year old).

A reputable breeder sells puppies directly to the individual consumer and never to pet shops or brokers. Buyers are most often invited (or even required) to visit the breeder's premises to see where the puppies were born and how they're being raised. Buyers are likely to see the mother and, sometimes, the sire, living on the premises where they're treated as beloved family pets. You wouldn't buy a vehicle unseen, so why would you buy a living, breathing animal which should bring you ten to fifteen years of wonderful companionship without seeing its parents?

As opposed to a reputable kennel, most people, not just those interested in animal protection, are shocked when confronted with the bleak images of dogs housed and bred in puppy mills. Unfortunately, some people who are well-ensconced in your local dog scene could be categorized as operating puppy mills. Prospective buyers should be careful to question anyone they are considering as a source for a puppy. Here are some questions to which you would be wise to know the answers before buying a puppy: