For those of you who don't know, I love animals, and especially dogs. I have always wanted one, although I have never owned one, and I hate seeing them mistreated or on the streets. For those of you who do have dogs, I hope you got them from a shelter, pet store, or breeder you know got the dogs from humane places, because if you don't know where many puppies are bred, take a closer look.
Many breeders and pets stores get their puppies from puppy mills. If you don’t know what a puppy mill is, puppy mills are establishments that breed dogs for pet stores and breeders to sell, often in an inhumane way that causes the dogs to have many health and behavioural problems later in life. These mills force the dogs to breed many times over again with other dogs to make many kinds of dogs, such as Labradoodles, Shepadoodles, and Dorkies. Ever wonder where they get all the cute puppies at the pet store? They are most likely from a puppy mill. Luckily, puppy mills are illegal in many places such as California and Maryland. However, Canada still hasn't made puppy mills illegal, although many people are putting pressure on them to do so. Puppy mills should be shut down because they hurt and kill many dogs, cause health and behavioural problems, and cause many strays because of the number of dogs being bred.
Puppy mills cause many deaths and injuries to dogs every year. Parent dogs often die young due to malnutrition(not having proper food), exhaustion, and during birth. They are forced to breed over and over again, and they are given food that is unhealthy, which is bad, especially for the mother dogs, as they need to feed their offspring. Often they are not able to produce enough milk for the puppies, which causes many of the puppies to die. Many of the puppies die as soon as they are born, either from lack of proper nutrition or from a sickness or disease, while others die later from long term health problems or during transport, as the transport is bad and they aren't taken well care of. The puppies are removed from their parents as soon as they are weaned, and then the female breeds all over again. When the breeding dogs outlive their usefulness and can't breed anymore, they are killed, often in horrible and brutal ways. Some of the ways they kill them are beating, drowning, shooting, starving, and even burying the dogs alive. If the breeders don't kill the dogs themselves, they also kick them out of the house or breeding building and let them survive on their own. If the dogs are ‘lucky’, they will get dumped on a shelter's front step and the shelter has to take them in. Dogs are being treated horribly in puppy mills, and this treatment can also cause health and behavioural problems for the dogs and puppies.
Puppy mills are causing health and behavioural problems for the dogs and puppies all over the world. The dogs can have genetic health problems such as heart and kidney disease, hormonal disorders, blood disorders such as anemia and Von Willebrand disease, and joint deformities. Some of the diseases will show while the dog is young, but others will show up later in life when you don't expect it. Most of the dogs and puppies live in crates of their feces, urine, and vomit, and dogs that have diseases and sickness are often allowed around healthy dogs, causing more dogs to become sick. Because of this many of the dogs have diseases such as viral, fungal, or bacterial infections. Many of the dogs aren't around many people, and the people they are around are cruel, so it causes them to have many behavioural problems as well. Some of the dogs can have obsessive-compulsive behaviours such as spinning, chewing, and barking, and more. Other problems they can have are crate training, which is understandable as many of them spend a lot of time in dirty and too-small crates. They can also have coprophagia, or eating their feces, and that is probably because their crates were often dirty and covered in feces, so they want to keep their crates clean. So many problems are being caused by puppy mills, and so many dogs are being created that there are strays everywhere.
So many dogs are being created in puppy mills that shelters are overflowing and many dogs are on the street. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 1,800 puppy mills are in operation in Quebec. About 400,000 puppies are born each year in those puppy mills. About 2 million puppies are bred each year in the US. Over 6 million dogs arrive in shelters every year, and because there are not enough people to take them in, almost half must be euthanized. If dogs don't make it to shelters, they usually end up on the streets, and they become malnourished, starving, and can even become roadkill. The ‘lucky’ ones are dumped at shelters, but the unlucky ones die at a young age or are kept at the puppy mills as breeding dogs. Only 1 out of every 10 dogs born will find a permanent home. That means that most dogs either end up on the streets, spend their whole lives in shelters or puppy mills, or are euthanized.
So you see, one of the main reasons there are so many strays on the streets is because of puppy mills. So many dogs have died there, and the ones that don't die are so scarred for the remainder of their lives. Many also end on up the streets because there aren't enough people to take them in. Most of these dogs are living most of their lives either on the streets or in puppy mills breeding more dogs. The lucky ones get homes, but do you know that the more dogs you buy from pet stores and breeders that got their dogs from puppy mills, the more money those puppy mills are making, and that just means that they have all the more reason to continue what they're doing. The puppy in the window of the pet store may look cute, but later in life, you may be paying thousands of dollars for surgeries or other health fixes because it has problems. You may be thinking, ‘oh, I’m helping the dog by buying it’, but you are only causing more dogs to be bred by puppy mills. Instead of buying dogs from puppy mills, buy them from shelters or breeders you know don't get the dogs from puppy mills. If you do buy a dog from a pet store or breeder, ask to meet the mother, or see where the dogs were bred. If they won't tell you, it is most likely a puppy mill. Instead of making the problem worse, let's make it better.
