Why is the USDA Bending Over Backwards to Accommodate Our Nation’s Puppy Mills?

Posted By Dawn Kairns, Author of MAGGIE: the dog who changed my life

(Article by Main Line Animal Rescue)

Main Line Animal Rescue (MLAR) continues to educate the public to the terrible plight of dogs confined to our country's large-scale commercial dog breeding facilities -- puppy mills. This is why I continue to donate portions of my book's proceeds to their cause. The following information comes from their anti-puppy mill campaign:

 

"In 2010, the Office of the Inspector General released the results of their audit on the USDA. What they found will shock and disgust you. 

While the USDA (APHIS) is charged with protecting dogs in commercial breeding kennels and broker facilities, in case after case, the federal agency has failed to enforce our laws and has allowed untold dogs to suffer while protecting the very people who abuse them. 

We urge you to read the report, look at the photographs, then contact your representatives in Congress and demand that they take action to ensure the USDA is enforcing our laws to the fullest extent."

Please go to the site below to read MLAR's full story and be sure to click on their bus photo that MLAR wrapped in order to "raise public awareness and to cast a light on the inability of some APHIS employees to properly protect these dogs":

Breeding Contempt | Why is the USDA Bending Over Backwards to Accommodate Our Nation’s Puppy Mills?

Fighting Puppy Mills Successfully: Main Line Animal Rescue

Main Line Animal Rescue has been a big voice for exposing puppy mills in Pennsylvania and nationwide. When you read their following accomplishments, you will know why I donate 10% of my book royalties to MLAR: 

From the Main Line Animal Rescue Spring 2010 brochure:

"When commercial dog breeders in Pennsylvania sent 385 frightened breeding dogs to auction in Ohio last fall (to be sold to puppy mills in other states), Main Line Animal Rescue was there with a vet and cruelty officers. "Wanted" posters of MLAR founder Bill Smith are now routinely handed out to all of the Amish puppy miller's who attend the Holmes County dog auctions and MLAR is blamed/credited by auction organizers with ruining dog breeding as they know it in the United States. But most important, since MLAR volunteers attended and were a presence at the October 2009 auction, not a single dog from Pennsylvania has been sent to auction in Ohio...

After Main Line Animal Rescue drove a reporter for Newsweek to puppy Mills located on farms also operating organic dairies, two articles exposing one of those dairies appeared in the popular weekly. As a result of the article, that, Amish farmer ultimately surrendered his state kennel license and gave up his breeding dogs. Then, at our request, organic food titan Whole Foods agreed to send a letter to all their suppliers "requesting that they not supply any products to their stores that have been sourced from farmers or other vendors who breed or raise dogs inhumanely." We will soon urge other companies to do the same...

Main Line Animal Rescue will launch its own anti-tethering campaign this year, to help dogs who spend their lives chained outside - braving extreme weather conditions and enduring years of solitude in frustration. We will also urge legislators to pass laws outlawing gas chambers in rural shelters in Pennsylvania. Often six or seven frightened animals are placed in the chambers at the same time - aggressive dogs attacking older or smaller dogs minutes before they die...

Main Line Animal Rescue takes issue with people who hurt animals and is drawn to issues which involve their safety and welfare. We will do whatever it takes to fight for their right to be treated humanely. We've driven many a campaign, traveling down the advocacy road many times - not stopping until we've successfully reached our destination. And when we've truly made a difference in the lives of these animals, by pointing out injustices and demanding and necessitating, then and only then do we stop..."

Thank you, MLAR, for all you do for the animals, especially for your outstanding work with puppy mill legislation and exposure.

To learn more about Main Line Animal Rescue, please visit their website at: http://www.mainlinerescue.com/

Posted By:

Dawn Kairns  
Author of MAGGIE the dog who changed my life

Website: www.dawnkairns.com

Blog: Dawn Kairns and Maggie the Dog  
Twitter: www.twitter.com/themaggiebook

Become a fan on Facebook of MAGGIE: the dog who changed my life
 

2009 Indie Book Awards Finalist
DWAA 2008 Merial Human-Animal Bond Award Finalist

LA Times Puppy Mill Article

Puppy Love With a Vengeance: Activists, Officials Take On Pennsylvania's Abusive Kennels
from the LA Times

"Over the past four years, Anderson — who works for Main Line Animal Rescue, a shelter outside of Philadelphia — has managed to coax some of Pennsylvania's largest commercial breeding kennels to part with their unwanted canines, usually females past their reproductive prime or young males they couldn't sell..."

Read full LA Times article here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-puppy-mill-pushback,0,6632235.story

If you wish to donate to Main Line Animal Rescue to support puppy mill awareness and rescue, you can do so here:

http://www.mainlinerescue.com/donate

Posted By:

Dawn Kairns
Author of MAGGIE the dog who changed my life A Story of Love

Website: www.dawnkairns.com
Blog: Dawn Kairns and Maggie the Dog
Twitter: www.twitter.com/themaggiebook

Become a fan on Facebook of MAGGIE: the dog who changed my life

2009 Indie Book Awards Finalist
DWAA 2008 Merial Human-Animal Bond Award Finalist

Honoring Main Line Animal Rescue During Puppy Mill Action Week

In honor of Puppy Mill Action week, I'd like to place Mainline Animal Rescue (MLAR) in Pennsylvania in the spotlight. Both puppy mill awareness/rescue and Mainline Animal Rescue are near and dear to my heart. I donate 10% of my book royalties to MLAR. Why to MLAR? It was MLAR who posted a billboard where Oprah Winfrey and her producers couldn't miss it. It said, "Oprah, please do a show on puppy mills; the dogs need you!" And Oprah did! (Thank you, Oprah!)

There are so many worthwhile and wonderful organizations dedicated to puppy mill awareness, and I want to thank each and every one of you for your incredible labor of love. I am particularly grateful to Mainline Animal Rescue for creatively making sure that what happens to dogs in puppy mills was brought to millions of us in our living rooms on the Oprah show, making more people aware, including myself, of the deplorable conditions and treatment of puppy mill dogs. It was the most watched Oprah show ever!

The following is taken & re-arranged from the Main Line Animal Rescue website

Who is MLAR?

"We are leading the fight to improve conditions for thousands of dogs in Pennsylvania's Puppy Mills by educating the public to the horrors of our state's puppy factories. Our Anti-Puppy Mill Billboards are now educating drivers along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and we also placed one outside St. Louis in Missouri, a state that harbors more Puppy Mills than any other state in the country. By raising public awareness to the plight of Puppy Mill dogs, we hope to inspire the changes needed to end their suffering.

It is also true that MLAR rescues and places many dogs from some of the worst Puppy Mills in Pennsylvania. We also accept pets from private surrenders and re-home strays. But the majority of our animals come to us from other Rescues or SPCA’s. We take them when other shelters become too overcrowded or if they have a dog or cat that requires special veterinary care and cannot afford their treatment.

... Every year, our organization rescues and finds homes for hundreds of unwanted companion animals. All of our dogs and cats are spayed or neutered prior to placement and receive any and all necessary medical care. MLAR is also proud to be able to help so many animals with special needs. And once an animal passes through our adoption programs, we are responsible for them for life. In fact, we insist that if for any reason the adoptive family cannot keep their pet, he or she must be returned to us for re-homing."

As Main Line Animal Rescue approaches its twelve year anniversary, we look back with warm remembrances of the thousands of animals we have been able to help, both in our shelters and ones whose lives we have touched through advocacy. And we look ahead with excitement to the many opportunities offered to our volunteers. The work is difficult but MLAR can't help but renew it's commitment to our four-legged (and some three-legged) friends every time we look into their eyes."

Links on MLAR site to learn more about puppy mills:

Puppy Mills: http://www.mainlinerescue.com/puppy-mills/factory-farming-dogs

Have You Met Your Puppies Parents? http://www.mainlinerescue.com/puppy-mills/puppys_parents

How To Spot a Puppy Mill ... Buyer Beware: http://www.mainlinerescue.com/puppy-mills/how_to_spot_a_puppy_mill

Anti-Puppy Mill Billboards: http://www.mainlinerescue.com/our_billboards

Please take a moment to visit the Main Line Animal Rescue site to discover more about who they are, what they do, and see how you might become involved during Puppy Mill Action Week.

Posted By:

Dawn Kairns
Author of MAGGIE: the dog who changed my life A Story of Love
www.dawnkairns.com
www.maggiethedogwhochangedmylife.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com/themaggiebook

Nightline Features Puppy Mill Investigation

On Friday, March 27, 2009, ABC's Nightline featured a segment on the investigation of puppy mills. According to the report, which this post is a synopsis of, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is said by some to be the "Puppy Mill Capitol of the World," where many Amish farms sacrifice animal welfare in the name of business. Main Line Animal Rescue went into some of these puppy mills and videotaped under cover.

Some of these facilities contain hundreds of dogs who never get to experience the joys of running outdoors or breathing fresh air during their lives in a puppy mill. Due to the sheer numbers of dogs in puppy mills, the farmers deal with the problem of barking by de-barking the dogs. This is done by shoving sharp instruments down their throats to destroy their vocal cords. The adult dogs kept for breeding often suffer through wounds and infections, untreated. Sadly, it's legal to euthanize or shoot a dog in PA that puppy mill owners deem are no longer useful to them, such as a female who is too old to produce more puppies. Main Line Animal Rescue often gets called by puppy mill owners one hour before they are going to kill a dog. One such Golden Retriever rescued by Main Line was found to have several C-section scars. It's thought that many female dogs like her often have C-sections performed by the farmers, who then stitch them back together with twine -- all of this done without anesthesia.

Bill Smith of Main Line Animal Rescue says that most of these dogs, when rescued, don't know how to walk on solid ground. They move like a crab, because it's so foreign to them. Having lived their entire lives with their paws on chicken wire, they just don't know how to walk on a solid surface. Cages are often stacked on top of each other, and the waste from one page falls into the cage below. The dogs' paws are offered inflamed from living on chicken wire.

For these farmers/commercial puppy mill facilities, the dogs are merely an income, nothing more than a cash crop. The puppies themselves are often sold by the puppy mills to pet stores that sell them to the public. Many unsuspecting and uninformed people walk into these pet stores and see the precious little puppy faces, and purchase them. They have no idea of the "industry of secrecy" these puppies came from, or the horrendous conditions that they are supporting.

Main Line Animal Rescue has been instrumental in getting new legislation for puppy mill dogs to have access to a solid floor and outdoor exercise. A great step, yet so far to go to create basic rights and humane treatment for such gentle souls. Main Line Animal Rescue has been very instrumental in raising public awareness of the deplorable conditions in puppy mills. When featured on Oprah last year, it was one of the most watched Oprah episodes ever. I donate 10% of my publisher royalties for my book to Main Line Animal Rescue. Please help spread the truth about puppy mills, and when you decide to get a dog, please consider rescuing from a shelter or breed rescue group.

Based on ABC's March 27, 2009 Nightline feature on Puppy Mills

posted by:

Dawn Kairns
Author of MAGGIE: the dog who changed my life
www.dawnkairns.com
www.maggiethedogwhochangedmylife.blogspot.com