08/08/2020
From Lone Star Dog Ranch & Dog Ranch Rescue:
Pardon me while a rage a little bit.
This article I’m going to share with you is something that is happening all the time. This isn’t an unusual case its the constant battle with mills on the horrible 100 lists that comes out annually.
When you read this article it will make you mad, you will have rage at the lack of something getting done for decades while dogs suffered.
I hear the same thing over and over again from the public about stores like this about dogs in mills, suffering and the questions look like this:
# 1 Why are these places legal?
# 2 Why aren’t these places shut down?
# 3 This is animal abuse and why don’t these people go to jail?
Let me just give the quick answers to these very common statements that are made over and over again while nothing changes for the dogs that are suffering.
Answer to # 1
The commercial breeding industry is 100% legal, there is absolutely no crime being committed by these people for breeding dogs, they can be cited for poor animal husbandry but there is no crime in breeding dogs even if it’s hundreds of dogs at a time.
You must understand that this is a multi billion dollar industry and where there is money there is power. Just read the article and understand how even though the people in charge know what is happening, nothing gets done, a slap of a fine, a citation, another slap of a fine, but for decades it changes nothing.. These places end up on a horrible 100 list every single year, and what changes? Nothing…
Answer to # 2
Commercial breeding aka puppy mills are licensed under the USDA, the same umbrella where farmers are. The licensing and requirements for the care of these dogs is minimal at best. The dogs are never required by law to come out of their cage, they are never required by law to be touched and socialized, they are only required by law to be fed, watered and have shelter and a cage big enough to stand up and turn around. What you see as cruel they see as their business and it is 100% legal.
Many times when legislation is written to try and change this industry they are protected by farmers, because if they are all licensed by the USDA and you attack the breeding of animals for “pets” you are also attacking the breeders of “food” When you go up against the money and power of the farming association to try and combat commercial breeding of dogs you will be slapped down.
Answer to # 3
Our nations prison system is overloaded with murderers, rapists, child molesters etc. etc. People who abuse animals are not going to go to prison. Have a few people gone to jail for a few months for lighting a dog on fire, or hanging it or mutilating it?
Yes….but its rare.
Commercial breeders who neglect the care of their dogs are never going to go to prison. While I’m talking about the aspect of animal abuse being a felony I would like to add some information that so many people misunderstood about the bill that was recently signed by the President making animal cruelty a felony.
People read that and assume that with one swift signing of a bill that animal cruelty is now a felony.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I will include the paragraph that everybody needs to read to discern what it actually means:
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President Trump on Monday signed a bipartisan bill that, for the first time, makes acts of animal cruelty a federal crime punishable with fines and up to seven years in prison.
The bill, called the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, was introduced in the House this year by two Florida lawmakers — Representative Vern Buchanan, a Republican, and Representative Ted Deutch, a Democrat. It expands a 2010 law signed by President Barack Obama that banned videos that show animals being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or subjected to other forms of torture.
Now, intentional acts of cruelty shown in the videos are also felony offenses.
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Now read that very carefully it states that in 2010 Obama signed a bill banning videos that show animals being “crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, or impaled or other forms of torture. Trump signed the bill that now intentional acts of cruelty shown in the videos are also felony offenses.
So we now have a bill that makes it a felony to make videos of torturing animals, but in addition it is now a felony to actually torture animals in such severe ways. Crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling and other various horrific ways to kill an animal.
So let’s look at the big picture, neglect is not torture, starvation is not torture, serious neglect that results in death is not torture. Keeping dogs in a cage their whole life, never touching them, never letting them out to run on the ground, never allowing them to have any quality to their life in any way whatsoever is not a crime.
Dogs in the commercial breeding industry will not be helped by a bill that makes torture a felony. To think that we even have to write a bill making a it a felony is mind blowing to me, but I digress.
There is only one way to end this business fast and effectively and the answer to that is.
DON’T BUY THEIR PRODUCT.
They are a business, they make money from breeding these dogs and selling them to Petland, and selling them to online brokers.
If you cannot see the mother of the puppy you are wanting to buy…you are buying from a puppy mill, if they tell you in the pet store they don’t buy puppies from puppy mills they are LYING.
If you remove the money from this industry by not buying their puppies it will end..poof just gone just like that.
We don’t need legislation, we don’t need the law to go and write them up for neglect that gets ignored.
Just stop buying their merchandise.
It’s easy, you don’t buy them and they find another way to make a living. You keep on buying them, and the suffering and abuse continues. It’s as simple as that…it’s in the hands of the consumer.
Please read the article, please understand, and please use your voice to educate all who will listen. These dogs lives are in our hands, because we are the only one who care and have the absolute power to change it.
Missouri has finally moved to close down a puppy mill owner who’s been on the radar of federal and state inspectors for more than two decades for serious neglect of animals in her facility. Marilyn
