Animal Abuse In America

Imagine a puppy that’s hungry, scared, thirsty, and overcrowded. This may be what it was like where your puppy came from. Think about going to the pet store, seeing the cute little puppies in the glass, looking back at you in excitement. Some jump with joy; some sleep their little hearts away, tired from meeting so many new people, and others fight over the toy with the puppy next to them. You would never think for a second that where they had been born and spent roughly the first 12 weeks of their lives was in a dreadful environment. These places are Puppy Mills. They are large-scale dog breeding facilities that are usually unsanitary and very overcrowded. They don’t make sure the dogs have adequate food, water, socialization; nor do they ensure

“Puppy mills create misery for dogs and pain for the unwitting purchasers of the animal, and they indirectly deny suitable homes for animals in need.”- Wayne Pacelle (President of the Humane Society of the United States)

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) describes puppy mills situation to be overcrowded, unsanitary, without adequate food, water, and veterinary health care. Female dogs are even bred at every opportunity without a rest to maximize profit (“Puppy Mills”). Dogs are kept locked up in wired cages, stacked on top one another and sometimes their excrements are not properly monitored. Thus, this leads to unknown genetic disorders and poor genetic quality which makes it difficult for the dogs to live for a long time. In the end, it will cause a lot of stress and problems for the family down the road due to the dogs’ health. Many people who are unaware of these living conditions often tend to overlook their puppies neglect and suffering. When purchasing a new pet from a pet store, many people do not wonder where their pet may have come from, instead, they are more engulf in their excitement to bring home a new family

Do you ever look and all the puppies in a pet store and think, where did all these puppies come from? Well, the answer is: puppy mills. Puppy mills may sound like a cute, fun, happy place, but if you think that, you are wrong; it’s the opposite. Puppy mills should be made illegal because puppies and dogs are overbred, underfed, and tortured under the horrible conditions they are in. If you don’t know what a puppy mill is, it is an establishment that overbreeds, tortures, and underfeeds dogs and puppies. Puppy mills overbreed dogs, but that’s not all. Multiple dogs are put into tiny cages they hardly fit in and the dogs are underfed and starved. These puppies and dogs are “raised” in horrible conditions, and then are “shipped” to pet stores that may be near you.

In these mills, animals are treated with extremely poor conditions. Female dogs are often bred over and over again till they cannot reproduce; when the animal is unable to do so the breeder often kill or auction them off. Baby animals that have been born are then separated from their mother, so they can reproduce again. These animals typically live in small-wired cages; most of the time there living conditions do not matter to the breeders since their only goal is to make a profit. Many organizations have done investigations in these puppy mills and it is concluded “dogs often had no bedding or protection from the cold or heat and no regular veterinary care even when they were ill. Health conditions such as crusty, oozing eyes, raging ear infections, mange that turned their skin into a mass of red scabs, and abscessed feet from the unforgiving wire floors all were ignored or inadequately treated.” Though Canada has laws that

In the United States, 2,000 to 3,000 puppies and kittens are born every hour, yet only one out of ten of these animals will find a permanent home. The remaining animals will be left to fend for themselves on the streets, abandoned and lonely, with only about one year to live. Even with the rate of animals who will not find a home already, people are still determined to run puppy mills which increases that number, even if it is breaking the law. Puppy mills are bad because they keep the puppies under bad conditions, many of the dogs they breed get diseases and defects, and it can lead to animal abandonment and neglect.

To begin let’s look at the problem: puppy mills, they produce mass amounts of puppies in poor conditions, the only concern being quantity of life, not quality of life. The life of a mill dog is one of intense suffering, “The Federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) passed in 1966 does not see these dogs as pets, but as livestock. Under the AWA, it is legal to keep a dog in a cage only 6 inches longer than the dog in each direction, with a wire floor, stacked on top of another cage” (A Closer Look). Forced to live in the squalor of their own feces their lives are bleak and hopeless. Most of us would never leave our animals out in the cold, snow, rain or the sweltering heat we have. These poor animals live caged in these harsh elements with little to no shelter. This type of

There are an estimated 10,000 puppy mills in the United States alone (HSUS), and a single puppy mill can house anywhere from ten to one thousand breeding dogs (ASPCA). Puppy mills are unethical by design - they are designed to produce puppies as fast as possible without concern for either the pups or the mother. The conditions in puppy mills are often deplorable. In the case of the puppy mill that was raided, pups were separated from their mothers at incredibly young ages, the rooms were filthy, and the breeding dogs and pups alike suffered from diseases and malformations (Solotaroff). As stated in both Solotaroff and the ASPCA’s articles, in many puppy mills, dogs are housed in tiny, cheap cages, are unable to interact with anyone, and are generally neglected. Female dogs can be bred indefinitely,

Most people assume that puppy mills too, are innocent places and that nothing bad would ever take place in one. The fact is out of the two words the one to be focused on should be mill, not puppy. Mills produce product in large quantities with the sole purpose of profit. This is in fact just what a puppy mill does too, “puppy mills are large scale commercial dog breeding facilities where profit is given priority over the well-being of the dogs (Puppy Mills).” “The females

We have all been there- strolling through the local pet store, staring into the eyes of the sweetest, most cute, puppy you have ever seen, a thin sheet of glass being the only barrier keeping you from a brand new snuggly pet. It is not easy to look past those sweet eyes and little paws- especially in today’s society. American consumers have made the production of these attractive looking puppies unfortunately a normal part of the addition of a new furry friend to their family. Actually, so “normal” that almost 90% of dogs in pet stores are from puppy mills (Buyer Beware: The Problem with Puppy Mills and Backyard Breeders, Paws 2017). Society overlooks the conditions these puppies have come from.

Dogs in puppy mills are brutally abused and killed and they have no ability to defend themselves. In a report filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) it says that female dogs are bred twice a year and when they can no longer produce puppies they are left to die or to be killed (PETA 1). Also, puppy mill workers don 't care about the animals as described in an article written by the Animal Rescue Corps (ARC) where it says that collars are put on so tight that after a couple months they become embedded in the animal 's fur so badly that they have to cut around the fur simply to unlatch the collars from the dogs (ARC 1). Workers at puppy mills have argued about how people say that they are mean and abuse the animals they say that puppy mills believe in euthanizing (a way to kill a animal or human painlessly and quickly) the dogs. They also

Berek, a professional author that has a master’s degree in teaching, this informative article discusses the issue of puppy mills. Puppy mills are the horrid breeding homes of dogs. Often times, the dogs are sick and unhealthy because they are raised in unsanitary conditions, given an improper nutrition, and removed from their mothers too early. According to the HSUS, there were about ten thousand puppy mills within the United States in year 2015 alone. Because this article is found in the Salem Press Encyclopedia, it is credible.

A puppy mill is a large-scale commercial dog breeding facility where profit matters more than the well-being of the dogs. They disregard the dogs’ health both physical and emotional just to make as much profit as possible. Puppy mills contain hundreds to thousands of dogs in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions without adequate veterinary care, food, water or socialization. These animals are stacked in small cages with wire flooring to make waste easier to clean up. Due to the poor living conditions, these poor innocent animals often injure their paws and legs, lose limbs, contract diseases and parasites which cause deafness, blindness, respiratory disorders, skin diseases like mange caused by parasitic mites which causes severe itching,

In fact, the behavioral issues in puppy mill dogs may not “emerge for months or even years after adoption” (“Model Laws” sec. commentary). Because of these deceiving tendencies, puppy mill dogs appear to be a better deal at first glance. However, ironically, animals that are initially adopted from puppy mills have a high probability of being given to an animal shelter due to their behavioral problems, which make up 10% of all animals brought into shelters (Pet Statistics sec. 2). This means that not only are puppy mills taking up the opportunities for life that shelter puppies should have first dibs at, but they are also taking up a significant amount of the limited space in shelters. As a result of the constant supply that puppy mills churn out, 2.7 million animals that cannot be adopted from shelters in a timely manner are euthanized (Pet Statistics sec. 1). 2.7 million animals will enter a shelter one day, and never be able to leave cradled in the loving arms of a new family. Instead, they meet their end by the prick of a needle, lying on a sterile metal tabletop in the dark back room of a shelter. In perspective, 2.7 million animals a year boils down to more than 5 animals per minute. In the time taken to read this paper, more than 50 unwanted animals across America will be euthanized, regardless of their state of health. This

We all have heard the saying, a dog is a man’s best friend, and most of us believe it. If that is true, however, why are there still around ten thousand puppy mills in the United States alone? A puppy mill is a facility that focuses on profit, while the breeding dogs spend their entire lives in tiny cages. Is this the way to treat a creature that is a best friend to man? It is well-known that nearly all puppies sold in pet stores come from puppy mills and, by the same token, why the mothers of those puppies may never see the light of day, run in the grass, be petted, or experience any kind of love whatsoever. They are purely breeding dogs. These dogs are unhealthy, and what they go through mentally is nothing compared to the abuse they experience physically. This form of inhumane treatment is a true definition of torture. The sad part is that there are other options to get a dog, with animal shelters being the most logical. Clearly, puppy mills not only need shut down, but it should also be considered a crime to run one.