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Some time ago, I was speaking with the neighbor of a family friend. She told me that her family recently added a furry friend to their home and that they were having great difficulty with the puppy. She described how the dog displayed the kind of aggression that was well outside the norm for a 3-month-old pup—lunging at children, snapping at other dogs, and cowering in fear of strangers. She mentioned medical problems and the costs she had incurred on vaccinations the dog should have already had.
“Do you mind me asking where the puppy came from?” I asked.
“We bought her on a website from a breeder in Missouri,” she told me. I inquired if she had traveled there to meet the breeder, the puppy, and the puppy’s mother.
“No,” she said. “On top of the thousands of dollars we paid for the dog, we paid about a thousand dollars to have her flown here.”
The woman told me she had reached out—multiple times, even—to let the breeder know of the issues. He seemed unfazed and would not take the dog back.
This family had good intentions of finding a specific breed of dog to grow up with their children, but without knowing, they were supporting what seemed to be the telltale signs of a puppy mill. They are among the many Americans who have never even heard of puppy mills.
Puppy mills are commercial breeding facilities that put profits before puppies. The young dogs are kept in small, filthy wire cages and deprived of socialization at a critical stage in their lives. To maximize their profits, mill owners provide very little—if any—veterinary care. The mothers are forced to breed litter after litter (without regard to inbreeding or hereditary defects) and kept in equally substandard conditions.
Mills have long sold puppies (as young as 8 weeks old) to pet store owners, who in turn sell the puppies to the unsuspecting public. In recent years, puppy mills have begun selling dogs directly to the public on the Internet. In total, the ASPCA estimates that there are up to 10,000 puppy mills in the United States. Best Friends Animal Society believes that roughly 2 million puppies are bred in these mills each year.
Meanwhile, shelters around the country are virtually bursting with adoptable puppies. Lucky Dog worked with their largest shelter partner in Florence, South Carolina, to rescue 60 pups in the month of August alone, provided them with medical care, and found them loving homes.
Puppies in other shelters are not so lucky. In some parts of the country, particularly areas where spaying and neutering is not a common practice, puppies are euthanized for lack of shelter space and adopters.
And yet, here was a family willing to pay thousands of dollars for a puppy. For a mere fraction of the cost, a small adoption fee could have gotten them a healthy, happy dog. And they could have saved the life of a deserving shelter dog.
September 17 marks National Puppy Mill Awareness Day. As states and cities pass legislation in an attempt to put puppy mills out of business, we can all do our part by educating our friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors about these mills and to urge them to adopt, not shop.
The following resources provide additional information about puppy mills:
Puppy Mills by Best Friends Animal Society
Puppy Mills by The Humane Society of the United States
Kim is a Lucky Dog volunteer. She is an editor and writer at a nonprofit education association by day and a crazy dog lady by night. Kim and her husband share their home with a black fluffy mutt named Missy.