Puppy Mill Essay

Puppy mills, according to the ASPCA, are high-volume establishments that commercially breed puppies on an intensive basis and in typically depraved conditions that effects the overall health and welfare of the animals (ASPCA). Animal abuse is the infliction of harm of suffering by humans upon any non-human animal. Animal abuse is almost always found in puppy mills which is a problem that many people unfortunately overlook. Although puppy mill operators often believe that dogs are livestock and can be treated with disrespect, puppy mills should be abolished because they promote animal abuse, they contribute to pet overpopulation, and they cause physical and mental harm to the dogs and their offspring.

Dog breeders who sell puppies in large

quantity to pet stores are licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the standards of care are at an all time low and this does nothing to protect the dogs and nothing to ensure responsibility for the abuse. In puppy mills, the dogs are confined for years at a time in dirty, stacked, wire bottomed cages that are not large enough for the dogs. They get little to no opportunities to exercise or to receive basic grooming or care. By law, there is no requirement that the dogs need to be let out of their cage to be played with or walked. The females are bred constantly with no time to recover in between pregnancies and after a couple years when they are no longer able to produce, they are normally killed or left on the street to fend for herself. Customers who buy puppies from pet stores are not informed of the backgrounds of these animals, or the conditions under which they were bred. There are frequent cases where customers report that their puppy is having hereditary or infectious diseases. As soon as expenses become to high for the owners to afford they surrender the dog to an overpopulated shelter. According to Krysten Kenny, there are almost 10,000 licensed and unlicensed puppy mills in the U.S., mostly in the Midwest that together produce a number of 4 million puppies per year (Kenny).
Puppy mills promote animal abuse because they don’t take care of the dogs’ needs and wants causing them to suffer which is the definition of animal abuse. Inside a puppy mill, it consists of small wood and wire mesh made cages that stack on top of one another and then are put into a small building. The number of dogs in a puppy mill can range from 10 to 1,000 dogs but since some mills aren’t licensed and inspected, we can never know the true average. Puppy mills have no cleanup control meaning that the dogs are constantly living in their own feces for large amounts of time which makes them sick but since puppy mills don’t have veterinary care the dogs become sick and sometimes die. It’s also very common to find that the collars have been fastened so tightly that it has been imbedded into their necks and have to be cut out which can be very painful for the dog. What offense constitutes the harm done to an animal; whether the harm committed when squishing a spider has done the same amount of harm as abandoning puppies in a box on the side of the road. In Sue Cote Escobar’s article, she explains the concepts of ‘crime’, ‘harm’, ‘criminal’ and ‘victim’ (Escobar). The term victim suggests that the victim is human so acts such as stalking, rape, assault, etc., are actions that make one a victim, but this term does not define if animals can be victims as well. The definition includes (a) a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action, (b) a living creature killed as a religious sacrifice. Dogs are victims of puppy mills and are abused by humans because of the conditions that they are forced to live in.
Puppy mills cause an overpopulation in dogs throughout the U.S. because of the amount of litters that the females produce each year. 6 to 8 million animals are brought to shelters each year, an estimated 3 to 4 million are then euthanized and 2.7 million are considered healthy and adoptable. Stray animals are also a cause of pet overpopulation. Over the course of six years, one female dog can be the source of 67,000 puppies, while in seven years one female cat and her young can produce 420,000 kittens. The statistics below are taken from the scholarly article “Dog Population & Dog Sheltering Trends in the United States of America” written by Andrew Rowan and Tamara Kartal (Rowan).
Pet overpopulation is caused by puppy mills because of the rate at which people abandoned dogs which they had purchased from a puppy mill but got sick.

The Puppy Mill Project is a none-profit organization whose goal is to raise awareness and educate the public about puppy mills and their connection to puppies sold in pet stores, on the Internet, and through other outlets. They educate, facilitate rescue, and advocate for change. Their main goal is to end puppy mills. Puppy mill operators keep breeding in excess of over 2 million puppies per year, this is causing the overpopulation of dogs and an estimated 1.2 million former puppy mill dogs are euthanized in shelters. These dogs were either sick or aggressive which forced the owners that bought them to give the dog up to a shelter or abandon them (thepuppymillproject). Pet overpopulation is a problem not only for animals but for humans as well because of the increased rabies exposure risk but also because it puts a strain on animal control

agencies.
Puppy mills can cause an immense amount of health problems for the dogs that live in one but unfortunately are very common.

This is because of the unhealthy living conditions that the dogs have to live in. One of the biggest problems being hereditary because the females aren’t healthy when they become pregnant which passes any diseases that she has down to her litter, but this doesn’t matter to puppy mill operators. Most of the time, puppies die shortly after birth because of the health issues it has been given. If the puppy dies a few weeks after it’s purchased or ends up having health problems throughout its life costing the family expensive vet bills, that’s of no consequence to the puppy mill operator. Some puppies can even be sold with diseases or parasites, that they received from the puppy mill, that can be transferred to humans or other pets. This can cause anyone will a low immune system to become extremely sick if they come in contact with a puppy with such diseases. Puppy mills want to spend the least amount of money they can, so they have no veterinary care in puppy mills because that costs the operators money to bring someone out and check on the animals. Often, the dogs that are adopted or rescued from puppy mills are either too sick to recover or so physically damaged that they need to be put down. Some of the diseases that dogs can get are kidney and heart disease, joint disorders such as hip dysplasia, endocrine disorders, blood disorders, eye problems such

as cataracts or glaucoma, shortened or missing limbs, respiratory disorders, mites, gum disease, nail overgrowth or growth into the paw or intestinal parasites. All of these diseases are cause by the puppy mill operators inability to care for the animals. The dogs in puppy mills have no human contact or socialization with other dogs outside of cages that it causes them to become afraid and possibly aggressive. Human contact is crucial to creating a human-dog bond that can cause the dog to be less like an animal and more of a companion. These behaviors are often difficult to break. The puppies are normally taken from their mother too quickly which can cause malnutrition, separation anxiety, and the mother never got to teach the puppies how to be dogs.
Solving this problem can be an easy thing if done correctly and efficiently. Over the years we have made a progress in the fight to shut down puppy mills, but puppies are still being mass produced. The solution is simple: If we come together and stop buying puppies from puppy mills, the operators won’t have any reason to continue producing. Even though buying a puppy from a pet store is not normally a bad thing, if the puppies come from puppy mills then we are supporting the mills. Since our society supports the decisions to buy puppies from puppy mills and pet stores that are supported by mills, this is why the puppy mills stay in business. The government needs to start looking for the negative behavior that puppy mills are causing and work harder to either monitor them so that all the puppies are taken care for or shut them down completely. The ASPCA is trying to abolish puppy mills, animal cruelty and is taking in any animal in need to give it a loving, caring home. This is a non-profit organization that relies solely on donations. Their mission is: “to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.” (ASPCA).