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Puppy mills have become an area of great concern for those who legitimately breed puppies and for animal rights activists all over the United States and beyond. Puppy mills basically seek to “mass-produce” puppies from relatively few purebred studs and mothers. This is wrong for a number of reasons. First of all, mothers themselves are “overbred” to the point of exhaustion, and then often put down because they can’t produce any more. The puppies produced in these places are often kept in deplorable conditions, with overcrowded cages, and too little food or water, as well as inadequate access to veterinary care and grooming.

In addition, puppies are social creatures, and human contact is almost nonexistent with these puppy mills. Because conditions are so deplorable and because overcrowding and disease are rampant, many puppies don’t survive. While it may be true that puppies that do actually get to leave the puppy mill environment (through their sale to owners) have only to put up with these conditions temporarily, the mothers and studs, of course, are continually living in these conditions to the detriment of their very survival. When mothers and studs can no longer produce as necessary, they are put down or passed on to another factory.

Any animal lover would think these conditions are horrible, of course, and most people buy puppies from puppy mills because they aren’t aware of the horrid conditions therein. Nonetheless, it happens far more often than you might think, and prospective owners looking for a “good deal” may look the other way and purchase a puppy from a puppy mill, thus keeping these deplorable facilities in business. Literally hundreds of thousands of puppies are “manufactured” in this way, and sold at generally lower prices than legitimate breeders can charge (with their humane and therefore more expensive practices); this means that puppy mills are unfairly competitive with legitimate breeders simply based on price. Depending on where you purchase your dog, you may actually have a “puppy mill” puppy in your own house, too.

Puppy mill puppies unfortunately are sold to the public through a number of different avenues, so you may actually buy a puppy from a puppy mill without knowing it. Chances are, if you buy your dog from a pet store, you may be buying a puppy mill puppy, so avoid buying your dog from a pet store. Be careful, too, if you think about buying a dog via a classified ad on the Internet or through specialized breeder websites online unless it’s been checked out and found to be credible. Many unscrupulous “puppy mill” breeders will sell their puppies this way, too.

Be careful, though, because a lot of times, these ads don’t say that puppies are from puppy mills. Instead, they’ll say that the dogs themselves were raised on farms or with a family. Oftentimes, you can’t prove that a puppy has been raised from a puppy mill, and many of these ads do very well at fooling families who wish to do everything to avoid purchasing a puppy from a puppy mill.

Simply put, you can’t prove that many of these websites or ads actually are based on puppy mills (or not), but you can still do your part to stop this.

What can you do to stop puppy mills? There is legislation going around that is trying to put laws in place to end puppy mills, but it’s unfortunate that there’s a fine and blurred line between legitimate breeding operations that have a lot of dogs and something that could actually be called a puppy mill. What this means (unfortunately) is that legitimate breeders with a large number of dogs are often wrongly accused of being puppy mills, and puppy mills simply slip through the cracks by posing as legitimate breeders.

However, if you want to, you can do your part in stopping puppy mills’ operation. How? First of all, don’t buy your next pet from a pet store. If you want a precious puppy or a cute kitten, there are many legitimate shelters and rescue agencies with pets for adoption, and these pets really need homes. (Yes, you can even get a puppy or kitten if you want to bring a tiny baby home.) In addition, you’ll pay a fraction of the cost you would from a puppy mill, and you will legitimately be giving an animal that might otherwise be euthanized a very good home and a chance at life. And don’t buy dogs or cats online or through newspaper ads, because these are often avenues for puppy mills, too.

Simply, puppy mills are a nightmare for anybody who loves animals. No precious animal deserves to live in such deplorable conditions, but things will never improve if businesses continue to make a profit from these most despicable practices.