NEWSPUPPY MILLS

This is a guest blog post written by Pam Sordyl, founder of Puppy Mill Awareness Meetup of Southeast Michigan, a volunteer group working to end the mass production of dogs in puppy mills.

While a puppy under the tree might seem festive this time of year, the industry that stocks stores like Petland is full of Scrooges.

Pet store puppies are mass-produced by commercial breeders (a.k.a. "puppy mills") who keep hundreds of dogs in cramped, unsanitary conditions, breeding the females over and over. Due to poor veterinary care and little to no socialization, that pet store puppy with the bow around its neck likely has a bunch of health and behavioral problems to unwrap after the holidays.

This cruelty isn't what people want for pets. More than 130,000 people have signed the petition on Change.org asking Petland — the largest puppy-selling pet store chain in the U.S. — to stop supporting puppy mills and choose to offer pet adoptions instead.

This is a guest blog post written by Mary Haight, who owns the Dancing Dog Blog and launched the campaign on Change.org calling on Petland USA to stop selling pets.

Stocking more than 150 stores across the US with puppies of all breeds is a model responsible for causing pain, suffering and death. Breeding females are locked in cages until they can no longer breed, around 5 years, and are then killed. Even if a change from the top in a franchise-structured company affects only corporate stores, the intent to do no harm is a clarion call that every company should want to take up, especially one that deals directly with living things.

Sadly, Petland is not interested.

After more than 45,000 people joined my campaign on Change.org calling on Petland USA to stop supporting puppy mills, I sent questions to the company’s headquarters, and the answers received do not recognize the pain and suffering factory farming of family pets inflicts.

Sometimes pictures can be more effective than words. Since they have the power to help stop this, remind Petland USA what breeder puppy mill dogs look like.  Estimates report there are more than a million of them trapped in hopeless lives.

We need your help THIS WEEKEND with this simple action. It should only take 10 minutes of your time:

Animal advocates celebrated Petland Canada's announcement last month that it would team up with pet adoption agencies instead of puppy mills and phase out pet sales in all fifty of its stores.

But what about the Petland stores in the U.S.?

Because of the company's franchise structure, Petland USA is free to ignore their northern cousin's compassionate choice. And, so far, that's exactly what they've been doing. Mary Haight, who runs the Dancing Dog Blog, tried calling Petland headquarters to get their response to the announcement. She was shuffled to a voicemail box, where she got a recording about "the true agenda of animal rights groups," but never got a call back.

Refusing to be ignored, Mary started a petition on Change.org, which has been gathering hundreds of signatures. She's not stopping there. As a member of the amazing team of online animal activists at Be the Change for Animals, she put out a call for fellow animal lovers and bloggers to post about the campaign. Here's how you can get involved: 

Several years ago, eBay considered the creation of a live animals auction category. Following protests from pet lovers, eBay decided to maintain its policy against live animal listings. But only when it came to auctions. While you won't see a bidding war over a puppy on the site, unethical breeders and puppy mills still have a marketplace with pet listings on eBay Classifieds.

In April, eBay amended its policy to prohibit the sale of pets on its Korean website, Auction.co.kr, stating that “eBay is committed to being socially responsible and we take the concerns of our global user community seriously.”

Now that more than 100,000 people have signed onto a grassroots campaign on Change.org calling for the end of live animal listings in eBay Classifieds, will the company once again listen to its user community?

Last month, Animal Rescue Corps was in Texas, rescuing animals from a hoarding situation, when they received word from the Houston County Sheriff's Office about a tip that there was a possible puppy mill in the area.

Working with the sheriff's office, they investigated the scene and found dogs of a variety of breeds, soaked in urine, with matted fur and living in small pens. They also found ducks, sick kittens, and rabbit trapped with his foot caught in his wire cage. All the animals on site lacked the necessities: clean water, fresh food and basic care.

Between the two cases, about 150 animals were rescued, including dogs, cats, horses, mules, rabbits and ducks. The animals went to Animal Rescue Corps' temporary shelter set up in Fort Worth, where they got the care and attention they desperately needed. ARC coordinated a series of five different transports to get these animals on their way to their new homes in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Utah.

A group of Michigan citizens are fighting puppy mill cruelty in their own backyard by protesting at local puppy retailers and educating the public about the suffering behind pet store puppies. Led by Pam Sordyl, the group's founder, Puppy Mill Awareness Meetup has helped shut down several puppy-peddling pet stores in southeast Michigan.

Now they're taking on The Family Puppy (a.k.a. Family of Pets), Michigan's largest puppy retailer, urging the company to stop selling puppies and start supporting adoption. So far, owner John Stottele has failed to address the growing list of animal welfare and consumer protection concerns raised by the group. Instead, Sordyl says, his responses sound like advertisements for the store. "Since we believe puppies are not products, the fact that he markets them like a product is very disturbing."

In addition to staging weekly protests outside The Family Puppy stores every weekend, Puppy Mill Awareness Meetup recently released an investigation revealing that the breeders who supply puppies to the store aren't exactly the Mom-n-Pop shops the company wants you to believe they are.

Puppy mill reform has been in the spotlight in the news and on the ballots lately, and Minnesota could be the next state to pass laws protecting animals in commercial breeding facilities.

Puppy and kitten mills in Minnesota currently operate without fear of inspection, oversight or regulation. Animal Ark and the Minnesota Purebred Dog Breeder's Association, along with other animal welfare groups, have been working for several years to place a proposal in the hands of state representatives that would finally regulate puppy mills. Their hard work has put H.F. 388/S.F. 384 on the table for voting this legislative season.

The law is great news for animals in puppy and kitten mills, and responsible breeders and animal welfare groups both support the new legislation. Animals in mills are treated as money-making breeding machines and are typically kept in small and dirty crates or cages. Many suffer from disease and are euthanized once they are no longer needed or become incapable of producing more litters. Rarely are they given adequate exercise and the proper attention or socialization.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals just announced a victory for companion animals in Korea — eBay has agreed to shut down pet sales on its Korean site, Auction.co.kr.

WSPA member organization, Korea Animal Rights Advocates, has been campaigning against online pet sales, citing that 70 percent of pets in the country are bought online. "Selling animals online is a disastrous situation and only exacerbates such problems as puppy mills," KARA writes. "Animals are displayed, sold and delivered like disposable goods and at very low prices."

Also among the complaints were that very young puppies were being sold, that the identity of buyers and sellers can't be fully monitored, and that sellers weren't complying with basic animal welfare laws. Sound familiar? These are the same concerns that the pet blogging community and more than 96,000 Change.org community members have raised about eBay Classifieds' pet listings in the U.S.

The legislative process saw the passage of Oklahoma SB 1712 last spring. This bill, commonly known as the Oklahoma Commercial Pet Breeders Act, gave more regulations for dog and cat breeders in an effort to curb the deplorable conditions that are standard operating procedure in puppy mills across the nation.

A public comment period was held in the fall before new rules were finalized, a story I brought to you here on Change.org in November. A Board of Commercial Pet Breeders was set up to determine the regulations. The final rules (pdf) were adopted December 22, 2010.

Now that the rules are final and set to go in effect on July 1st, there is another bill that has made its way through the Senate, and is now before the House, that would negate the Oklahoma Commercial Pet Breeders Act before the law even begins.

In December, around 1,200 dogs were killed after an outbreak of distemper at a Kansas puppy mill. The disease was discovered after sick puppies had been shipped to pet stores in Wyoming. When puppy mill owner, Jeff Fortin, had to quarantine his kennel instead of continuing to sell dogs, he said he could no longer afford to feed them, and euthanized them instead.

This is a prime example of the USDA's failure to regulate commercial breeders. The list of violations against Fortin's kennel over the past several years include: failure to keep adequate records, failure to provide adequate vet care, allowing trash to accumulate near dog enclosures, and denying access to inspectors. Yet he was still allowed to stay in business.

But that's only half the story. Fortin didn't just operate at the back end of the puppy mill business. He's also on the front lines of puppy peddling with an Adams County, Colo., pet shop. As you'd expect, he's been caught selling sick puppies. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of alleged cruelty and deception at North Washington Street Kennels.