Puppy Mills

Normally I would avoid heavy issues on here but this one really got to me.  I started to foster for Lab Rescue this past weekend.  I went to their adoption day to figure out which dog would be a good fit for my current lab.  I immediately found one but as I was looking over the list to see what dogs really needed the most help I came across something really sick.  One of the dogs they rescued came from an Amish puppy mill in PA.  The owners were done with her and were going to shoot her.  Yes-shoot her because she had no more value to them.  So, I went to the web and did some research on this and was sickened even more.  I've always known that puppy mills were horrible but the Amish take it to a whole new level.  Here are some excerpts of the articles I found:

"I visited one commercial kennel in Ronks that had over 20 breeds housed in an old dilapidated barn. The puppy I saw as a potential buyer was filthy, had evidence of eye infection at only eight weeks of age and lacked any puppy animation whatsoever. The breeding dog, namely the bitches, are bred twice a year and all breeding and sales stock are forced to spend day in and day out on wire cage bottoms with little or no water."

"I saw evidence at two Amish run kennels where I could see the breeding stock as well as the puppies on a 95 degree day that none of the dogs had water and two that did had about one inch of dirty water in a green slime plastic container."

"There is little or no ventilation, exercise, medical or grooming attention. Long haired breeds such as Shih Tzus, Maltese, Lahsa Apso and Pekingese are never groomed and their hair coats become matted with feces and urine and they are subject to terrible eye infections."

WTAE in Pittsburgh, PA, broadcasted an investigative report on puppy mills on 2006-MAY-04. 3 Reporter Sheldon Ingram wrote, in part:

"For those who have never heard of a puppy mill, it's equivalent to solitary confinement for young dogs, with substandard conditions. As a result, some of the dogs that emerge from puppy mills look either malnourished or in overall bad health. Channel 4 Action News went undercover to investigate dogs pulled from puppy mills.

Fed and bred. That's it. No walks. No interaction with humans. That means the dogs eat and relieve themselves in the same 2-by-2-foot cage for about eight years until their breeding days are done. ...

Here's my new little buddy