What is a puppymill? A puppymill is exactly what it sounds like. A mill (or any facility) that is responsible for churning out puppies. Usually this is done for a huge profit and at the expense of the breeding dogs health and wellbeing.
Unscrupulous people who care more for the green in their pocket than the breath of their pet, set up kennels or small spaces with the intention of getting their dogs to breed in mass quantities. The more they birth, the “better”. While many of these kennels may be indoors, sometimes they are outdoors, providing little or no shelter to the parents or pups born there.
The mother is often matted, and rarely petted. Her sole mission in life is to give birth. Sometimes the owners may hug her or congratulate her on a job well done – but turn right around and ignore her for days after the last few pups are sold. The cages are not clean. Filth, dirt, fleas, and waste lie on the bottom of the concrete, grass, or messy torn carpet floor. Water bowls only have a few licks of green algea infested water in them. There is no comfortable place to sleep anywhere.
The pups born in these conditions are usually sold within the first 5-6 weeks (even though 8+ weeks is the recommended selling time!). They may have serious defects such as genetic disorders, personality problems, health problems, kennel cough, fleas, ticks, heartworms, intestinal worms, and other nasty parasites. Because of limited interaction with humans who care about them, they are rarely started on house training and they may be abnormally shy.
Sometimes the humans who run these may have 2… 3… or more litters available at once. Those litters are then sold in the paper, in flea markets, or (for larger scale operations) to pet stores. Because their parents weren’t being bred to a preferred standard, the beautiful collie.. labradore retriever.. or yorkshire terrier you purchased for $2000 at the store may not even be show quality. In fact, genetic disorders that affect some of these illbred pups could end up costing you thousands of dollars and more in heartache.
For your sake – and the sake of all of these puppies being born each day into infathomable conditions – do not purchase from those who do not have the breeds best interests at hand. If you are going to get a purebred dog, be sure to research the breeder thoroughly. Better yet, why not support rescue missions and adopt a homeless dog instead?
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2 Responses to Puppymills: Avoid at all costs!
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Although I agree with just about everything you have said about the puppy mills, there are those of us out there that are willing to take the time, patience, and yes spend the money required to get these dogs healthy and happy. I rescued a puppy mill rough coat collie male pup at 4 mos. He spent his first 3 weeks with me at the hospital with parvo, the next 2 months battling the massive worm infestation he came to me with as well as kennel cough and the severe malnutrition that all the illnesses resulted in. He is now a healthy 11month old pup and learning to be a therapy companion for one of my disabled sons. Echo is up to a hefty 90lbs of loving fur. I just think you could have said something more about how loving and worthy rescue dogs can be in your post.
Thanks for your post, Marylou!
You are the kind of person we all salute… Echo is one lucky dog! You are correct, rescue dogs can be a very wonderful companion if taken care of properly. Working with them can be one of the most rewarding experiences an animal lover can find. To take a helpless dog, who has been abused, neglected, afraid of humans, or just simply previously ignored by all is amazing. In fact, my 2 rescue collies (who I do not know the history of) were the inspiration for this site.
While this article was aimed at those who have a tendancy to pick a puppy up at a petstore for thousands of dollars or order them over the internet, I certainly agree that there are places for many of those puppies in the heart of a wonderful caring person such as yourself! You’re a rare find!
For those of you out there wanting more info on rescue collies, please visit our rescue section at
http://colliedogowners.com/articles/index.php/category/collie-rescue/