At a property in Illinois buzzing with hundreds of flies, a water bucket stood empty in an enclosure where three puppies were living. When the bucket was finally refilled, a federal inspector observed the puppies as they desperately “climbed on top of each other trying to get water.” At another breeder’s property in Iowa, state inspectors found dogs who were limping and dogs with matted fur living in a “nearly overwhelming” odor of waste.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again and again: Puppy mills treat mother and father dogs as nothing more than breeding machines, and their young as little more than commodities. Federal inspections of massive commercial breeding facilities are already scant; these conditions are allowed to persist at puppy mills across the country. Now, reported cuts in staffing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is the federal agency charged with enforcing the federal Animal Welfare Act at facilities such as puppy mills, could strain the system even further, which could mean more dogs at puppy mills will suffer undetected as a matter of merely doing business.
As difficult as it is to hear about these disturbing conditions, it is even more disturbing to think that this suffering goes undetected, often only surfacing when families bring their new puppies home. We must continue to expose the cruel puppy mill pipeline, where dogs from massive breeding facilities are often “laundered” by selling them through attractive storefronts or professional-looking websites.
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