This just my opinion and what I've seen.
Back in 98 or 99, my husband and I called checking on a Mini Schnazer that we'd seen in a newspaper. We drove for about an hour, ended up at this farm, the "breeder" wasn't home yet when we arrived, we rode on down a little dirt rode and found a barn full of animals, dozens of pens with the most pitiful dogs and pups. We turned around to leave and ran into the breeder...she insisted that we look at her "breeders", they were kept in small windowless buildings, she had about 25 Yorkies on her back porch. I'm guessing that she had at least 250 dogs not counting the pups, Yorkies, Poms, Chihuahuas, Scotties, Schnauzers, Westies and she also had horses. We left and my husband stopped by the police station in that town and told them about how these animals were kept. A few years later she was arrested and all the animals were removed. Puppy Mill!
Another breeder, which some may consider a puppy mill but I didn't, she breeds several different breeds and she has a lot of dogs, probably 30. I went to this womans house, and she loves her dogs, the dogs are kept in a kennel but she has monitors set up in each. The kennels were spotless, one for males, one for females, and one for the pregnant dogs. Not a puppy mill.
Another example, I emailed a Pom breeder here in Kentucky...her website states that all her dogs are her pets and kept in the house with her. She had pictures of her dogs on her website...I stopped counting after 60 dogs there were lots more! I just can't imagine that she keeps all those dogs in her home. So, in my opinion she was a fancy AKC puppy mill
