My Pet World: Many drawing attention for National Puppy Mill Awareness Day
"Do not listen to blatant lies from pet stores selling puppies," said Victoria Stilwell, former host of Animal Planet's "It's Me or the Dog," and spokesperson for National Puppy Mill Awareness Day, which is Sept. 27. "Obviously people are unaware that pet stores, flea markets and many websites sell puppies from puppy mills, as no self-respecting breeder will ever sell to a pet store."
Cari Meyers co-founded The National Puppy Mill Project last year after she established a similar local nonprofit in Chicago. "Clearly, there is a need," she said.
"Obviously, with as much press as we think we've done, people are mostly oblivious as they still don't know about the realities of where puppy mills sell dogs," Meyers said. "National Puppy Mill Awareness Day is also a way to honor the mother and father dogs used for breeding until they are no longer able to (breed)."
"In a way the puppies are the lucky ones," Stilwell said. "Those puppies who make it out and aren't too sick or are treated, and who don't have behavior problems may survive and live in a loving home. I've been on a puppy mill raid, I saw for myself a massive pit out back used to deposit the dead breeding dogs after their usefulness is over; these breeding dogs at the puppy mills are usually drown or clubbed to death or shot."
It's a reality that's so hard to believe goes on in a dog-loving country -- many people simply choose not to believe the truth.
"I ask myself all the time, why we allow this," Meyers said. "It's complicated. First, so many dog-lovers are uninformed."
Many informed people feel that by "rescuing" a dog from a pet store, they're doing the right thing. "Oh the puppy mills love you for that," Stilwell said. "Playing on emotions makes them richer."
And it is ultimately all about the dollar. "It's big business really," Stilwell adds.
Overseeing these large-scale, pet-breeding facilities is the job of the State Departments of Agriculture, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the local farm bureaus.
"Dogs, and also cats and rabbits, aren't farm animals," Meyers said.
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