Puppy mill

The Kennel Club and the American Kennel Club both state that responsible breeders should raise their animals with the intent to produce healthy dogs and to ensure that all animals are provided with responsible homes and socialization. However, there is no way to enforce these wishes or records being kept to prove this is the case.[10][11] The socialization period in a puppy occurs between the ages of 4 weeks and up to 14 weeks of age.[12] This period is crucial for adult development as almost all adult abilities are learned during this stage. With puppy mills essentially skipping the process of socialization, the result is often social problems when the puppy matures to adulthood.[12]

Females in puppy mills are sometimes bred every time they are in heat,[13] regardless of whether they have physically recovered from the last litter. Once a breeding female can no longer be bred, whether from pure exhaustion or from age, the female is usually killed.[14] Puppies are also often weaned from their mothers well before the recommended 8–10 weeks of age.[15]

The ASPCA states that some puppy mills can have up to 1,000 dogs under one roof. Because of the high volume of animals, the mill runner will often resort to housing them in wire cages. This results in the animals having poor locomotion.[16] Keeping dogs in wire kennels can lead to injury and damage to the dogs' paws and legs. It's also fairly common for these kennels to be stacked on top of each other in columns.[14] The conditions in these mills are so unsanitary that the animals are often coated in their own urine and feces, causing mats in their fur. Due to unsanitary conditions, puppies from mills will often have internal parasites, affecting their health.[17] Puppy mills are often unheated and this increases the number of deaths due to cold among the dogs used for breeding.[16] Conversely, the mills can also be too hot in warmer weather leading to hyperthermia.[18]

Other common conditions in mills include malnutrition and untreated injuries.[18]

Due to the frequently poor breeding conditions in puppy mills,[19] puppies bred there often suffer from health and/or social problems. Puppy mill dogs are usually housed in a small, wire cages similar to rabbit hutches and chicken coops.[20][3] Puppies raised in these cramped environments shared by many other dogs become poorly socialized to other dogs and to humans. Dogs are then transported over long distances in poor conditions, sometimes resulting in animal stress and death. As the surviving mill dogs grow older, they are more prone to developing respiratory ailments and pneumonia, as well as hereditary defects such as hip dysplasia.[21] In addition, mill dogs are more prone to having problems with their temperament due to lack of socialization, enrichment, and positive human contact. Puppies from mills are usually sold as purebred dogs in an attempt to attract the higher prices associated with purebreds. However, due to the indiscriminate breeding practices of puppy mills, the dog may not actually be a purebred puppy.[22] A high population of puppies from mills are inbred due to uncontrolled breeding.[23] The vast majority of puppy mill animals are sold to pet stores by "dealers" or "brokers". Some puppies are sold by dealers masquerading as authentic breeders.

Puppy mills in the US often start with hundreds of female dogs which serve their entire lives in the establishment. The females are bred until they can no longer conceive puppies, and are often euthanized after that.[24] The estimated number of puppies per breeding female per year is 9.4.[25] In most puppy mills, the dogs live in cages that are only 15 centimetres (6 inches) larger than the dog on all sides, which is the minimum legal size allowed.[26] Two million puppies are bred in mills each year and almost 1.2 million dogs are euthanized in shelters every year.[27] The conditions in puppy mills are considered inhumane because all of the dogs are in a small, dirty area which is confined with disease and bacteria. Because of the poor living conditions, dogs are often sick and malnourished. Food is often found crawling with bugs and feces is almost everywhere. Health issues that are prevalent in puppy mills consist of giardia, mange, heartworm, respiratory infections, and much more.[28]

Puppy mills originated in the post-World War II era.[29] Midwestern farmers, suffering crop failures,[30] turned to puppy farming as an alternative crop.[4] An increasing demand for household pets resulted in the development of the "commercial puppy business".[4][3]

Conditions in puppy mills were well known to be poor.[3][31] As a result, organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States began to investigate breeding kennels, leading to the passage of the Animal Welfare Act of August 24, 1966.[4][32]

Miniature breeds at a US puppy mill

The term "puppy mill" has been widely used by animal rights groups in protests against breeders who have substandard breeding conditions. Critics in the breeder community claim that emotional rhetoric, sensationalism and pictures of dirty kennels are used to justify additional legislation or additional restrictive licensing that travels well beyond the initial goal of removing dogs from truly deplorable conditions,[4] or that attempts to legislate puppy mills would put them out of business. They argue the laws requiring additional costs in updating and maintaining their facility and licensing would be detrimental to the dogs in their care. They cite existing lemon laws for puppies as sufficient protection for both dogs and prospective buyers.[33]

Chelsea Vancleve v. Chien Et Chat, Inc. stated, "In 2014, the Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit against Barkworks, a Southern California pet store chain with six locations." Barkworks tricked many puppy buyers into purchasing sick puppies. They were also making illegal breeder licenses, "fabricating breeding certificates and lying about providing veterinary care" The Animal Defense Fund made a complaint in 2015 that could have turned into a class action. The court prevented the case from going any further as a class action but in 2018, the parties agreed on a settlement. "Barkworks had taken down the misleading in-store signs and closed four of its six retail stores, and the California legislature had passed a law banning the sale of dogs from commercial breeders."[56]

The Humane Society of the United States sued the USDA on March 21, 2018, "for failing to release information in the Animal Welfare Act records we requested under the Freedom of Information. The following day, Congress urged the USDA to restore the records as part of a report accompanying the agency's 2018 spending bill. As of April 20, 2018, USDA had still not restored the records."[57]

• Factory farming
• Overpopulation in domestic animals
• Texas puppy mill bill