Where the Student

McCallion
Quest

I see terror in the eyes of hundreds of animals, crammed in tiny cages. They are screaming for help, although all I can hear is the sound of their yelps. An overpowering stench, of rotting creatures and of wasted feces, lingers through the air in the room. There is not much to smile about in this room, with the exception of the bundles of fur that are collected there, for I am inside a puppy mill.

What exactly happens inside this dreadful place? Puppies are being bred. You would imagine a much more pleasant environment for these animals to live, but that is not the case.

The number one enemy of the OSPCA (Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), they’re being investigated to the core. Dogs and puppies in puppy mills are being cramped into small cages, and many, because of the unsanitary conditions, are suffering from a variety of serious medical problems.

Dr. Laurie Parsons, who has seen dogs like this before, is stunned to see the covered in thick mats. “Open sores, amogland ruptures, and evidence of arthritis building up already in a 2 or 3 year old dog” she said. Besides the sickness and life threatening diseases that can occur years later, the dogs basic concern is living through each day. Despite the insistence of owners who claimed they were treating the puppies well, the dogs are not properly groomed and many were hardly being fed by their owners.

In August 2002, one such puppy mill was raided and the owner was arrested. A few months after the dogs were rescued from the puppy mill, their owner pleaded innocence, but was only charged a fine of five hundred dollars, and was prohibited to own pets for 2 years. For the pain and agony he caused for the dogs, along with a huge bill of $2400 for medical care and veterinarian boarding fees, he only received a five hundred dollars fine! He endangered the lives of so many dogs but a measly fine of $500 is not something that will deter him from doing it again. Owners like this should be sent a message and should be given a harsher punishment for their cruel and inhumane actions.

But that’s not the only case the OSPCA has investigated. Another puppy mill was inspected by agent Jennifer Bloom, where over 130 dogs were found crammed in tiny cages, suffering from rotting teeth, worms, and other severe health problems. They were taken to a veterinarian headquarters in Newmarket, where most were treated and cared for.

With these cases and more, the OSPCA set up a unit to shut down as many puppy mills as they could. Their actions were very successful, and they removed over 750 dogs from approximately 400 puppy mills in Ontario.

After the dogs are taken custody, what happens to them? Most dogs and puppies are sold to pet stores, who sell them to the public. OSPCA director, Craig Daniel, says, “Certainly there are [pet] stores that are purchasing their dogs and we believe that they don’t know the conditions that the dogs are being bred in”. This is extremely unfair to the pet store managers and customers, who don’t have a clue that the animals came from puppy mills and were treated carelessly by their owners.

Employees from the pet store “Doogan’s” have seen and received endless complaints from customers about how the dogs are brought into the pet store. “Numerous times they came in, they were covered with fleas, their nails would be really long and sometimes curled under, a lot of the times there would be vomit all over the dogs”. The worse part is, the owners of puppy mills are denying that they even sell their animals to pet stores! There is plenty of proof, so why would the owners even think of lying about the subject?

Even though the puppy mill investigation has accomplished a lot, the whole problem of cruelty to animals has not been cured.As an average citizen, you can contribute to the OSPCA’s goal to save animals in danger, by adopting a pet however it is our justice system that needs to take a more serious look at eliminating puppy mills and inhumanity. Enforcing harsher punishment on the people guilty of causing pain towards animals is the first step.