This article does an excellent job of summarizing the work that animal rights organizations are doing in Pennsylvania, home to many of the U.S.’ puppy mills.
Meet Zoey's father, Corkie, who lived on wire at a puppy mill in MO
The focus is largely on Main Line Animal Rescue a group that is at the center of the effort to compel officials to better enforce the laws the state recently implemented to enact minimum standards of care at puppy mills, educate the public on what is going on and how to stop it, rescue as many dogs from the mills that aren’t complying, and rebut the claims many millers make about their loss of income.
As the story is told of one of the condition of a dog one of MLAR‘s employees rescues from a mill, it is hard for us not to think of what little Zoey must have been like when she was packed into a trailer for her fateful ride from Missouri to the boutique on the Upper East Side in NYC. One of the millers’ main complaints about Pennsylvania’s new laws and regulations is the mandate that they remove all wire flooring and replace it with more humane material; the owners of the mills state that doing so (as well as complying with other new regs, such as improved ventilation systems) is so costly that they would rather just go out of business. But as the article points out, dogs that are forced to walk on wire flooring end up with significant foot and potentially broader health issues as they age.
Pennsylvania has been at the vanguard in adopting and implementing new statewide regulations to rein in the worst practices of the puppy mill industry but as the article makes clear, these are not always enforced as they should be. We should all support organizations like MLAR that advocate for enforcement and the dogs who can’t speak for themselves. Bravo MLAR!
A Classic "Sun-Downer" at a Puppy Mill