By Gianna Bonanno
As a kid, going into a pet store brought me an infinite amount of excitement. While my mom was finding pet food for our fish, I always wandered around the store and ended up at the puppy section. Looking through the glass windows, my childlike eyes widened with memorization of the adorable pups. What I saw was the cute puppies, but little did I know was the horrible past that they had endured.
Puppy mills are deeply disturbing devices to mass produce dogs in order to make a profit; they need to come to a stop immediately. The cruel breeders that run them completely neglect the needs of the pups and their mothers. They are left in filthy and cramped cages with little to no food and water. The breeders keep the older dogs especially in cramped living conditions so that they can keep reproducing, but once they no longer can, they get killed.
The puppies that do survive the horrendous unsanitary conditions of the puppy mills still have a long-awaited journey ahead of them. They get sold to brokers, who pack them into tight crates for transportation to pet stores, according to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Puppies that get shipped from mills to pet stores by brokers can travel hundreds of miles without sufficient food, water, ventilation, or shelter.
Secondly, PETA also says, “Constant confinement and a lack of adequate veterinary care and socialization often result in unhealthy animals who are difficult to socialize. Consequently, many puppies are abandoned within weeks or months of their adoption by frustrated buyers.” This demonstrates that even once puppies are bought from pet stores they aren’t saved, their life is still difficult, and their past at the puppy mills haunts them.
Even with people being aware of this horrible treatment that dogs are enduring, there are still active puppy mills. The Humane Society of the United States reports that 10,000 puppy mills are still active in the U.S, and 2.6 million puppies are sold each year that came from puppy mills. Meaning, there are puppy mills still operating even though about 300 U.S. cities and counties have passed retail pet sales ban legislation, as stated by ASPCA.
To make a real difference people can start adopting and buying dogs from responsible breeders and do not buy them from pet stores. Without pet stores making an income from puppies being sold, the puppy mills will start to disappear, and the suffering of innocent dogs will have to come to an end.
Looking through a glass window full of cute pups means nothing if we are not able to put an end to puppy mills, and save dogs from abuse.
Editor's note: Gianna Bonanno is a senior at Branford High School, class of 2023. She is the proud owner of a labradoodle named Milo. The views expressed in this editorial are her own and do not reflect those of The Branford Buzz or Branford High School.
