Dog Blessed: Puppy Mill Survivor Stories

By Kyla Duffy

Dog Blessed is an indispensable read for dog-lovers and a very helpful book for those who have adopted distressed dogs. Through the stories of 22 puppy mill survivors, Dog Blessed draws attention to the cruelty perpetuated by the multi-billion dollar dog-breeding industry. Additionally, author Fischer provides great tips for rehabilitating distressed dogs at the end of the book.

At this very moment, countless breeding dogs are trapped in small, chicken wire cages exposed to freezing temperatures and extreme heat deep within the folds of myriad pristine-looking farms blanketing America s countryside. The puppy mill industry is booming, with breeding dogs being treated like crops: abundant seeds maintained at the lowest possible cost, sprouting profitable puppies whose health and well-being is completely neglected.

Many puppy mill breeding dogs have been silenced in unimaginable ways, so with this book author Lisa Fischer has voiced their plea for help. Along with other volunteers and adopters from Main Line Animal Rescue s Over the Mill support group, Lisa shares the stories of 32 dogs rescued from dire puppy mill situations. Each tear-jerking story about these dogs miraculous transformations into wonderful family pets is bursting with indispensable information that EVERYONE should know.

Help stop the suffering and ensure you won t be swindled by the unscrupulous people who created those sick doggies in the window. Read this book, and arm yourself with the information you need to make the right choice about the next pet you bring into your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kyla Duffy
• Release date: Apr 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9780983312635

Kyla Duffy

Happy Tails Books is driven by a passion to help needy animals by raising awareness about adoption and the proper care of domestic dogs and cats. We are grateful to our volunteer photographers and editors who help us make these books come to life. Happy Tails Books donates up to 25% of gross profits back to rescue organizations. Any rescue enrolled in our rescue partner program is eligible for a donation from each sale made through this website. You can indicate your favorite rescue on the check-out form when you make a purchase. Since 2009, Happy Tails Books has published more than 1,000 stories from people who have fostered and/or adopted dogs and cats! Co-editors Kyla Duffy and Lowrey Mumford are dog lovers who have been publishing the Lost Souls: FOUND! series since 2009. Lowrey knows journalism, and Kyla has experience in entrepreneurship; this has created the perfect synergy for the Happy Tails Books project. Lowrey and Kyla have two adopted dogs each, and they continue to support the rescues in their communities.

Book preview

Praise for Dog Blessed: "WARNING: if you are a true pet lover, you can’t help shedding tears of joy or tears of sorrow, or repressing a smile or a big laugh when you read the stories in Dog Blessed: Puppy Mill Survivor Stories. Through these very well-written stories, you will realize the horror puppy mill dogs endure in order to supply American pet shops, as well as the love they discover once they are adopted." -Phil Zeltzman, traveling board-certified pet surgeon and author of Dr. Phil Zeltzman’s Newsletter, an international pet publication

Main Line Animal Rescue’s

Dog Blessed

Puppy Mill Survivor Stories

By Lisa Fischer

Published by Happy Tails Books™, LLC

Smashwords Edition

Happy Tails Books™ uses the power of storytelling to affect positive changes in the lives of animals in need. Reading for Rescue with Happy Tails Books not only brings further awareness to animal advocacy efforts and breed characteristics, but each sale also results in a financial contribution to dog rescue groups nationwide.

Dedication

"In the shade of the of this willow tree,

We weep for the eighty.

Forever in our hearts you shall be,

Alas, now free, from worldly tragedy."

This tree was planted by the MLAR Over the Mill support group for the 80 Dogs senselessly shot by their breeder on August 13, 2008. May they rest in peace.

Introduction

This book shares the journeys of more than 30 dogs rescued from puppy mills where they were used to produce the puppies sold in pet stores throughout our country. Although these dogs physically survived the deplorable conditions found in these mills, they did not emerge totally unscathed. They carried with them the results of years of abuse, confinement, and depravation. Thankfully, these stories have happy endings as all of the dogs have been adopted, rehabilitated, and are living peacefully in homes filled with love and encouragement, but the sad truth is they are exceptions to the norm.

People often ask what the term puppy mill means. Puppy mills are large-scale breeding facilities where commercial breeders (aka millers) keep scores of dogs for the purpose of producing puppies to stock pet stores. Today, 99 percent of the dogs in pet stores come from commercial breeders. The puppy mill business is very lucrative, especially because careful time consuming attention to the wellbeing of the breeding dogs and their pups is replaced by mass production methods that produce a larger puppy inventory at a lower cost. Puppy mills exist on farms across the country, with hundreds of dogs crowded together, living in unsanitary conditions, subject to extraordinary suffering, and bred season after season.

Most of the first puppy mills were located in the Midwestern states. While smaller mills were often located on individual farms, there were also very large mills, corporations housing unknown numbers of dogs in structures as large as airplane hangars. As the dog breeding business found increased profitability, these corporations began serving as managers and consultants for the smaller breeders, teaching them how to set up their puppy businesses and to sell their puppies to pet stores nationwide. In order to get their crop to market, the farmers shipped their puppies by truck to stores as far as a week away. Many of the puppies did not survive the trips.

Business continued to thrive, and these corporations figured out they could make even more money by opening more puppy mills closer to their markets. On the East Coast, they contacted small farmers, including many Amish and Mennonites in Pennsylvania, offering an irresistible business plan. Since traditional farming has always been subject to the whim of nature’s moods, market instabilities, disease, and other disasters, the farmers found growing a crop that had none of those variables and that sold for a hefty price a very appealing offer.

As with any good business plan, the idea was to make as much money as possible. Farmers could be reasonably sure they would make a good profit by working frugally and taking their products to market as quickly as possible. They used materials already on hand to quickly set up cages in their barns for their initial breeding stock. As breeding proved successful and demand increased, the farmers needed more cages. They saved on space and materials by building successive cages on top of existing ones, often three or four levels high. Sometimes they even used old dishwashers and bird cages to house the puppies and breeding dogs. As the puppies were born, the millers selected the best-looking ones to remain on the farm and become breeding dogs; the rest were shipped to pet stores. These businesses quickly became successful, and what may have started as a part-time endeavor for many farmers swiftly became a full-time enterprise that they approached with gusto.

The puppy mill system makes money, but not without some challenges for the farmers. The noise and odors of the breeding stock is a concern, so successful millers often move their dogs deeper onto their property in order to not disturb their family. In these new locations, the caged dogs may be left without shelter until the operation is lucrative enough to warrant building new structures. The result is many dogs freezing to death in the cold of winter and baking to death in the summer sun and heat. The millers consider the ones who don’t make it to be bad stock, like corn that can’t tolerate a drought. And even after farmers build new barns to shelter their growing stock, the dogs suffer in another way because they are now out of sight and out of mind. One farmer’s wife was heard saying, I don’t think he’s been down there for a couple of days. Her comment does not indicate an isolated incident. Irregular feeding and watering is a universal complaint about puppy mills.

The problem with the dogs’ physical environment doesn’t end with the heat and cold. Stacked cages lead to filthy conditions that promote disease and infection because their wire floors allow the top dogs’ waste material to fall onto the dogs in the cages below, causing irritating skin sores, oozing abscesses, and stinging eye infections over time. Left untreated, these infections result in severe scarring, blindness, and at times, life-threatening illnesses. Even so, veterinary treatment is rarely sought. The cost of such care is not part of the business plan. Instead, these infections are left to fester, causing irreparable harm. If a paw or leg gets caught in the wire flooring, rather than cutting the valuable flooring, farmers have been known to cut off the paw or leg with a farm tool. After all, at this point the dog is no longer valued for his or her looks; the capacity for breeding is all that counts. Millers are known to perform cesarean sections on dogs without anesthesia and to debark bothersome barking dogs by hammering a pipe down their throats, ripping their vocal cords. An inordinate number of dogs have had to have an eye removed when rescued because of infections and lack of medical care.

When a farmer finds a dog no longer useful (with diminished breeding capabilities and hence, not worth the cost of feed), he will dispose of it, either by putting it out to auction where he or she might be purchased by another breeder or just taking it out back with a gun. A farmer in Pennsylvania shot all 80 of his dogs in one afternoon rather than take them to a veterinarian when an inspector required they be treated for a severe flea and tick infestation. It’s painful to imagine how afraid these dogs must have been during the last minutes of their lives as the farmer came closer and closer to their individual cages with his gun.

Breeder dogs are rarely given exercise or let out of their cages, rendering some unable to walk when rescued. Many live in buildings with no windows and never see light, which damages their eyesight. There are no temperature controls in these buildings. The dogs are not washed or groomed, so breeds with growing hair quickly become the matted host to all sorts of critters, including mice. Their untrimmed nails often get ripped from their paws after catching on the wire floors.

Many dogs live in these conditions for years, and an unfathomable number of them do not survive to ever experience any sort of love or compassion. Those who do survive withdraw mentally from their horrible ordeal in order to cope. They comply with whatever they are asked to do—give birth and nurse puppies with their already nutritionally depleted bodies—but they do not react to or interact with people or other animals. Litter after litter, these dogs become weaker and weaker until they are finally disguarded like trash.

The puppy mill problem has been politicized as of late because animal rights organizations and rescue groups are successfully convincing legislators to regulate conditions in these mills. The farmers have pushed back by inventing reasons to delay compliance. Examples of new rules include no stacking of cages, no wire floors, adequately-sized cages, and routine veterinary care—why should it be so difficult to comply with such basic standards of care?

Rescue Groups have been successful in saving a percentage of these breeding dogs from the mills. They arrive at the rescues broken, sick, and frightened. They need both physical and mental rehabilitation; they have never before known human kindness or the soft touch of a friendly hand. The long road of rehabilitation is the inspired work of many volunteers in these rescue groups across the nation. But in the end, it is the work of those who have opened their hearts and homes by adopting these survivors that heals