I was curious how did puppy mills ever get started. So I have been online reading & thought some of you might like to also know the history of puppy mills. I found several links, I have copied below the one I thought was the most detailed.
It is really eye-opening
these are the words of Libby Williams of NJ Consumers Against Pet Shop Abuse:
Puppy mills began sprouting and dotting the landscape of the Midwest shortly after World War II, thanks in part to the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA). This was during the time of the Great Depression and the US Government was attempting to help poor farmers supplement their income.
Unfortunately, many dog farmers had no experience in canine breeding and little money to invest in this newfound career. Therefore, dogs were housed in long unused, dilapidated chicken coops or rabbit hutches. Since these dog farmers lacked knowledge of canine health and had very little extra money to spend on them, dogs were provided little socialization and scant or non-existent veterinary care. These farmers soon realized the boon in selling dogs to pet shops.
Major department store chains, like Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, sold puppies and birds in the 1950’s. It wasn’t long after that “mom & pop” pet shops began selling puppies, followed by the emergence of larger stores that went on to become mega-franchises, like Docktor Pets (now defunct) and Petland.
Enter the brokers and their agents, the middleman, who set out to save the farmers, stuck in the heartland, the hassle of getting their dogs to market – the pet stores on both coasts.
Since most of the puppies bred in the Midwest were headed to points west, brokers were looking for an easy means of supplying puppies to pet stores along the eastern seaboard. I’m sure a high-voltage light bulb went off in the heads of major brokers as they realized there was an untapped resource ripe for the picking in central PA – Amish farmers!
According to Bob Baker, former chief investigator for HSUS, brokers, along with reps from the AKC (who coveted thousands of new dog registrations!), descended on PA in the early to mid-seventies, recruiting farmers and holding seminars to teach them a thing or two about raising dogs. If they could raise hogs, they could easily raise dogs. After all, both are considered livestock and fall under the auspices of the powerful PA Department of Agriculture. And so began the journey that led PA farmers into the exploitative world of large-scale commercial dog dealing and elevating Pennsylvania, some 15-20 years later in 1992, to being declared the Puppy Mill Capital of the East.