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The one thing pet store customers want to know
more than anything is "Did my puppy come from a puppy mill?"
Unfortunately, this is a question that only you can answer.
What is a puppy mill? Is it illegal; is it filthy; is it
hidden in the backwoods of country; are dogs starved and abused?
For a moment, let us assume that the answer to all of these
questions is "yes," but let's also look at the commercial dog
industry and its practices, and then you can be the judge as to
whether your puppy has originated at a puppy mill.
In 1966 Congress passed the federal Animal
Welfare Act. The Act, as we will refer to it, was passed
after public outrage at a growing business of stealing dogs and
selling them for research. The original Act only regulated
animals being sold to research, but four years later in 1970, the
increasing wholesale business of selling puppies to pet stores
left a gaping hole in the oversight of these wholesale kennels
that were hidden from the public eye.
Normally, dog breeders were self-regulated
-- if a breeder had sick puppies and filthy living conditions for
the breeding dogs, the consumer would take one look at the kennel
and head the other way. But by the early 70's times had
changed and puppies were being shipped in vegetable crates --
packed full of puppies with the hope that some survived the trip,
via airlines and even cargo trains. As the media began to
focus on the way dogs were treated in wholesale kennels and the
way puppies were shipped from coast to coast, the public again
asked Congress to address the situation. The 1970 amendments
to the Act began the licensing and inspection process of anyone
wholesaling puppies. The "wholesale" term is applied to
anyone breeding puppies that is not selling to the final consumer
-- the family that will make that puppy a part of their family.
USDA licensed breeders mass-produce puppies,
often by the hundreds or even thousands, and then wholesale them
to brokers (middle-man) or pet stores. Most of us know that
USDA is responsible for making sure the food we place on our
tables is safe and wholesome, but few people know that they are
also responsible for ensuring that the puppies we bring into our
home from pet stores are coming from a healthy environment where
the adult dogs are housed and cared for in a kennel that meets
"minimum standards."
Minimum Standards. What are minimum
standards? PetShopPuppies has obtained several undercover
videos that show you exactly what it is like for a dog living
under "minimum standards." We could take the time to explain
many of the regulations and standards that make up a USDA licensed
kennel, but as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand
words -- and a video is worth a million words. To see for
yourself the standards that the mothers and fathers of pet shop
puppies live in, view our
YouTube
videos. |
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