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Natalie Wong
Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 39C
12 August 2015
Puppy Mills: Business of Exploitation
Every year in the United States, puppy mills contribute to the overpopulation of pets with
the admission of eight million animals and the euthanization of 17 million animals according to
Joshua Frank, an executive director of the Foundation for Interdisciplinary Research and
Education Promoting Animal Welfare (108). The initiation of this pet supplying industry dates
back to World War II, where various schemes were used to trick consumers into buying inbred
dogs. During this time, the hard economic times led to the failure of conventional crops, so
farmers were desperate for alternatives and saw dogs as substitutes for farming, according to
Kailey Burger, a writer for the Washington University Journal of Law (265). As a result, the
moral responsibilities are disregarded and dogs are included as commodities to breeders, who
began to take advantage of producing dogs with certain physical characteristics. However, Kathy
Rudy, an Associate Professor of Ethics at Duke University, addresses in her book Loving
Animals the short lives puppies have from inbreeding because of the physical birth defects from
damaged gene pools (52). In order to sell the puppies to consumers, pet stores will use innocent
names such as Rainbow Ranch or Heavens Blessing Kennel (HSUS). The most information
about the puppies, employees and owners of pet stores often times know is about the breed
which comes from a short pamphlet (Fumarola 263). Furthermore, they attempt to fool
consumers by putting up a faade of placing the healthy puppies behind the windows, while the
sick disregarded puppies are in the back in order to maintain their public credibility.

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As pet stores receive dogs for puppy mills, the unpurchased puppies are sent to shelters,
however they are not normal but rather afflicted puppies. As a veterinarian, Franklin D.
McMillans study of The Harmful Effects of Puppy Mills on Breeding Dogs and Their Puppies
in 2011 demonstrated the increase of health problems and exhibition of fear and nervousness in
dogs from puppy mills, illustrated in Figure 1. It does not get any better for the puppies when
they are placed in animal shelters, because they are limited human interaction, resulting in a
behavior of more reclusiveness and timidity.

Figure 1. Factors with >30% difference between former puppy mill breeding dogs and pet dogs
(McMillan).

Furthermore, Alexandra Protopopova, an Applied Animal Behavior Professor at the University of

Florida, and Clive D.L. Wynne, a Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University found in
their study of In-Kennel Behavior Predicts Length of Stay in Shelter Dogs that the change in
behavior of seclusion only keeps them in the shelter longer. As a result, a going of affected mill

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dogs are sent into animal shelters, and they end up being euthanized because their behavioral and
mental conditions only worsen declining any chance of adoption. According to Protopopova and
Wynne, 60% of admitted animals to shelters euthanized annually because animal shelters need to
kill the unadoptable dogs immediately in order to save space adoptable ones.
Although, there are laws to regulate problematic puppy mills in the United States,
displayed in Figure 2, the state and federal law prevent them from being enforced, because some
are not easy to support or enforce while some states with lemon laws protect consumers
through the signing of contracts that guarantee the health of the puppies. Even though the Animal

Figure 2. A graphic of states with puppy mill laws and the extent they are defined to. (HSUS)

Welfare Act was signed in 1966, breeders are often times free of conviction because the some of
the standards only strictly apply to animal dealers. According to HSUS, only 96 inspectors from
the United States Department of Agriculture are expected to oversee the thousands of puppy
mills nationwide as a result of the lacking of funding for the program that oversees puppy mills.
Since the federal level has deficiencies in overseeing puppy mills, breeders take advantage in
moving to the states that implement their own relaxed laws. As the Puppy Mill Capital in the
United States, Missouri provides up to 40 percent of the nations mill-bred dogs (Burger 265).

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Despite the various laws implemented through the federal or state, many are not properly
enforced resulting in breeders freely doing business and gaining monetary value.
Works Cited
Burger, Kailey A. "Solving the Problem of Puppy Mills: Why the Animal Welfare Movement's
Bark is Stronger than its Bite." Wash. UJL & Pol'y 43 (2013): 265.
Frank, Joshua. "An interactive model of human and companion animal dynamics: the ecology
and economics of dog overpopulation and the human costs of addressing the problem."
Human Ecology 32.1 (2004): 107-130. Print.
Fumarola, Adam J. "With Best Friends Like Us Who Needs Enemies--The Phenomenon of the
Puppy Mill, the Failure of Legal Regimes to Manage It, and the Positive Prospects of
Animal Rights." Buff. Envtl. LJ 6 (1998): 262-263.
McMillan, Franklin D. The Harmful Effects of Puppy Mills on Breeding Dogs and Their Puppies
(2011). Web. 10 Aug. 2015.
<http://www.animalsheltering.org/training-events/expo/expo-2012-archive/expo-2012speaker-portal/form-uploads/Harm-of-Puppy-Mills-Animal-Care-Expo-2012.pdf>
Protopopova, Alexandra, and Clive D.L. Wynne. "In-Kennel Behavior Predicts Length of Stay in
Shelter Dogs." Plos One 31 Dec. 2014. Web. 10 Aug. 2015.
Rudy, Kathy. "The Love of a Dog." Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2011. 29-71. Print.
The Humane Society of the United States. State Puppy Mill Laws. Digital image. The Humane
Society of the United States. Web. 10 Aug. 2015.
<http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/pets/puppy_mills/state_map_puppy_mill_law
s.JPG?credit=web_id359552774>.

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The Humane Society of the United States. "A Horrible Hundred Selected Puppy Mills in the
United States." (2013): n. pag. May 2013. Web. 10 Aug. 2015.
<http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/pets/puppy_mills/100-puppy-mills-list.pdf>.
The Humane Society of the United States. "Get the Facts on Puppy Mills." Web. 10 Aug. 2015.
<http://animalrightscoalition.com/doc/puppy_mills_factsheet.pdf>.