HERE'S AN ARTICLE THAT I FOUND ON A LINK FROM
www.chiwantone.com/success.html . . . IT'S SOOO SAD WHAT MILLS PUT ANIMALS THROUGH . . .
Dying For Dollar$
Going to the mall?
You're in the mall, and you just have to stop and look at those
cute little doggies playing in the window of the pet shop. You go
in, almost in spite of yourself, and before you know it, you have
one of those cute little darlings in your arms, or you're sitting on
the floor in a puppy room with a little one to cuddle. “How
much?" you ask, finding the licks and tail wags impossible to
resist. “Only $600,” the salesperson says. “Special this week.
He was $950.” And the next thing you know, you're walking out
of the pet shop with a puppy all your own.
You probably have no idea that you are helping to finance one of
the biggest torture machines in the animal world. Puppy mills,
where the majority of pet shop puppies come from, are cesspits
of filth and disease, where dogs are kept confined in cages all
their lives -- till their feet are deformed and their fur falls away
from their bodies in mats.
The mother of the puppy you hold in your arms is probably
exhausted, starving, sick; has never run on the grass in a yard or
felt loving arms cuddle her. She has never known kind voices or
a full meal or a warm clean bed to sleep in. She has never been
brushed. She sleeps on wire. Her toenails will grow around until
they cut into her pads. She will pace back and forth
compulsively, if her cage is big enough for her to move. Feces
and urine may drop down on her from the other little dogs in
cages stacked above her. She shivers in winter and pants in
summer, with no shelter to protect her from freezing winds or
blazing sun. She may die this month, from any of a number of
ailments. If not, she might wish she did -- if she could wish.
She will die young -- whether from neglect and abuse or from
being shot when she no longer produces puppies for sale. She
will not be “adopted.” She will not be loved. She will die alone.
Your new puppy's litter mates may have died in the cage with
him in the truck on the way to the store. They were only five or
six weeks old, after all -- too young to eat dog food, too sick to
care, too lonesome for their mother. Your puppy is one of the
“lucky” ones. But another puppy you saw in there just last week
was not so lucky. He was sick. He died because it would have
cost the pet shop too much money to call a vet to have him
treated. So they let him die.
Yours may die too, if he has a congenital defect -- something
puppy mill breeders do not care about. Kidney failure, blindness,
hip dysplasia, deafness, behavioral problems ... the list goes on
and on. Will you be attached enough to your puppy to get it to a
doctor? Or will it die too? If it is sick or does die, the pet shop
will not give you back your money. They'll give you another
puppy instead. That's how they make their money. Puppies are
cheap.
To irresponsible pet shops and to puppy mills, puppies are not
lives. They are livestock and inventory -- something to be
thrown away if defective. They either don't believe or don't care
that dogs suffer pain, hunger, loneliness, fear. It doesn't fit into
the bottom line, and all they care about is their profit margin.
And how many people don't really think about what's involved
before they fork out the money for that little doggie in the
window? How many of those pets will end up dumped by the side
of the road, or in a shelter, only to be put to death when no one
comes in to adopt them? Far too many. Animals are dying for
want of homes, but the puppy mills don't care. They just keep
breeding more, and more, and more. And how many people
leave the pet shop with a puppy only to find that they really do
not have the personality to have a pet -- or that their pet's
personality doesn't mesh well with theirs?
If you want a dog, if you REALLY want a dog, please don't go to a
pet shop. Please go to a shelter and adopt a dog who otherwise
will die -- you'd be amazed and sickened to learn how many
purebreds end up this way -- Or go to a reputable breeder, who
cares about the dogs and who raises them in a home where they
are socialized and cared for and where they learn how to be
loving pets. And their prices and guarantees for pet quality
healthy purebreds are much better than the unknown quality
pups in a pet store.