Puppy mills are no bueno

Didn't know I was a bilingual pug, did ya?

I don't remember much about my life before my human rescued me. She was told that I was probably used as a breeding dog before I was thrown out into the country to fend for myself. Apparently I have the maternal look about me. Just think, there could be dozens of mini Emmys running around. It's too adorable to think about, really.

As you can probably tell by now, my human is big on animal advocacy and helping needy dogs in any way she can. If money were no object she run her own animal rescue. She would be out in the world saving as many animal lives as she could. I told her that she has a perfectly good animal at home that needs all her undivided attention. Not sure if she listens to me, but I try.

Hey human, you listening to me?

The idea that I might have been used as a breeding pup got me thinking about puppy mills. My human let me borrow her thumbs and I did some digging and "googling" around. It didn't take me long to find a lot of information on puppy mills. I sort of wish I had just turned off the computer and taken a long nap. Nasty stuff.

According to the article C.D. Watson wrote for www.petadvisor.com, puppy mills are beyond horrible and unimaginable. In his article a “puppy mill” is defined as “a dog breeding operation in which the health of the dogs is disregarded in order to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits.” And in 2012 there was an estimated 4,000 places that churn out puppies for profit like this. The environments these breeding dogs are forced to live in are disgusting. They are kept in dirty cages 24/7 with no love, vet care or human interaction.  Needless to say many of the puppies born in these conditions are sick. And instead of getting the health care they so desperately need, they are shipped to pet stores and sold to humans who may not be aware of the conditions they lived in. Many of these doggies die soon after going home to their new humans. It's just really sad. And unnecessary!

So, what’s the moral of the story? Do not buy puppies from pet stores! Adopt a dog from your local animal rescue or shelter. You could wind up with a cool blogging dog like me! And how cool would that be? (Pretty darn cool, I say.)