For many years I've consistently tried to educate the general public on where to look when they want a new puppy, and what they should check for to make sure the puppy does not come from a puppy mill. By now I'm sure most of you are aware that puppy mills churn out poor little creatures that have been designed to die early and painfully in life by "flesh peddlers" who don't care about the dogs or their new owners, they only care about the money that those dogs bring in. To a puppy mill owners, dogs and their puppies are nothing but a cash crop and they have no emotion in what they do to make sure their crop is producing the most money they can get, (including killing any dog that is damaged or that stops producing puppies in the quickest and most cost efficient manner they can, usually shooting them).
Can you imagine my feelings, almost 20 years ago now, in seeing a puppy mill puppy a small child was holding in his arms, and with his entire family's support, asking me to save the poor puppy? I could already tell that boy's puppy was so badly damaged genetically that there was no way that Mother Nature would let it live. It tore my heart apart when I had to deliver the bad news and I vowed then and there to do something about it, and so began my quest.
I contacted a local news channel in Los Angeles, ABC Channel 7 News with Paul Moyer, and got them to do a 5 night special series on the horror of puppy mills. From that series we were able to get laws passed in the state stating that a puppy had to be 8 weeks or older, with teeth, to be allowed to be shipped to California and pet shops who sold puppies would be held responsible for all health problems that puppy might have for a certain amount of time after it was sold.
In my practice I offered all new puppy owners a free health exam and if I found any problems I'd tell the puppy's owner and let them decide to do with the pet shop. But though my efforts did put a dent in the puppy mill's profits in California and made some pet shops more responsible for the puppies they sold, the problem is as bad today as it was when I first started my quest.
And there is another, more sinister side of puppies that come out of puppy mills. A large majority of these dogs are genetically damaged because of the breeding methods of the 'flesh peddlers'. Remember, they are in this only for the money and don't care if the animals that come from them are prone to cancer, allergies, seizures, and more. As long as the puppy is cute and as long as there is a pet store or owner willing to buy and pay them cash, they are in. And if you have a puppy mill dog, please have it fixed. I realize the pleasure afforded to your child with seeing the birthing is really so unimportant as to taking to the local Animal Shelter to look into all the faces of the innocent that will be put to sleep if no one adopts them.
I actually flew back to New York with some of my clients with genetically damaged pets, and did the Geraldo show. It still may be available. Geraldo had our side, the veterinarian and the owners of these damaged pups who they'd grown to love but were now suffering along with their dogs, and the puppy mill owners who, of course, protested all the way. And I had the opportunity to look into the eyes of these "Flesh Peddlers" and listen to how many "heads of dogs and cats' they sell. Dogs that wind up as part of a puppy mill operation are definitely Gods most unhappy animals.
The battle of the puppy mill continues. The governmental agency that oversees them is understaffed, underfunded and many times their staff just don't care. It is up to us to financially shut these people down (including our backyard, local puppy mills - breeders who, on a smaller scale, are breeding puppies for the same motive and under squalid conditions as the larger scale puppy mills).
Here is what you can do:
Never accept a puppy that does not have a 48 hour return policy after your veterinarian has examined the puppy. If the puppy is returned make sure in your original agreement that you will receive full compensation and not a replacement, also damaged puppy.
If you buy your puppy from a family, you not only need to have the same agreement as above but meet the parents of the puppy. This will give you an idea of what your puppy will be like in adulthood.
If we all pay attention to some of these facts, many of the "flesh peddlers" will find it less feasible financially to carry on. The only way to stop these people while waiting for the authorities to "get their act together" is to hit the "flesh peddlers" in the pocket-book so that they cannot make a living creating poor helpless creatures that mean so much the families who wind up losing them through an early prearranged death. Oprah had the right recommendation. Rather than buy a puppy from a pet store (she said 99% of all puppies in pet stores come from puppy mills), go to your local animal shelter to adopt. Once you have an animal, unless you are planning on breeding it, have it spayed or neutered so that you are not accidentally contributing to the overpopulation of pets that wind up in shelters having to be euthanized because of pet overpopulation.