Amish Puppy Mills
I just watched the Nightline clip on Amish Puppy Mills. Brief, but to the point. They didn't just group them in the "breeder" category, but described them as a Commerical Breeder, the other name for Puppy Mill. The one Mennonite fellow with the 200 dogs in rabbit hutches inside a barn drinking from water bottles and running around in hampster wheels stated he didn't believe in animal rights, but he believed in animal welfare and wanted animals to be treated like he would want to be treated. He should go sit inside one of the hampster wheels on a mesh floor 24/7 and see if he thinks that's humane. It's amazing how mechanized/organized they had everything, enough so that the man and his wife were supposedly able to care for all 200 dogs (which is impossible). He felt it was inhumane to let them outside of course.
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There was recently a court case where three commercial breeders were to be shut down in East Earl, PA, for violating USDA regulations (which are loose at best), 45% of the town agreed, 55% and town officials did not, claiming in economic downturns putting these farmers out of business was the inhumane act.
The numbers: Farmer 1 got to keep 251 dogs. Farmer 2 got to keep 150 dogs. Farmer 3 got to keep 51 dogs.
Think about those numbers. Unreal.
Here is a story that occurred about 4 miles from my house
http://readingeagle.com/blog.aspx?bid=17&id=17144&t=Zimmerman-doesnt-like-talking-to-a-woma
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=102256
I have very limited exposure to their world... other than pulling chihuahuas in high school and pulling Tsuki a year and a half ago. Its shocking, but I thought it was more because my cultural understanding is to treat a dog like a companion and not livestock.
Truly, educating the masses about where their petstore/nextdaypets.com/puppyfind.com/puppydogweb.com/lancasterpuppies.com comes from is one of, if not the, only way to shut down these commercial operations. Because they are farmers, and dogs are livestock, they will always be allowed to keep some or all and stay in business if the money is there.
someone needs to make a law about that. trouble is it's hard to justify animal rights for dogs and cats and such, but not for cows, etc. I tried going almost vegan when I was younger, but I ended up getting sick and malnourished, so now I try to get organic food as much as possible...
but i don't see the justification for murdering so many animals. maybe it is just a cultural difference. but i mean...how can you just shoot down animals - especially ones that show love and affection?
I encounter similar problems with my family in south ga. Not as much with dogs, since they love their dogs (but just feed them table scraps and let them breed openly) but they hunt for fun - killing sparrows and such and deer and things. I wouldn't mind as much if they always ate the food, but usually they just shoot it for fun and i guess i just can't understand that.
sorry I missed that episode...that would have been interesting...disturbing, but definately insightful.
Yes, that is exactly it. They see animals as beasts of burden and easily replaceable if they get sick or die. They do not (generalization here) seem to develop a connection with their animals, at least not like most of us. Their horses are their cars and their dogs are there to just make $$ or as farm dogs. No dogs are neutered - ever. Vaccines are not given. They are incredibly frugal (ie, cheap) especially the mennonites around where I live. Down in Lancaster, the farms are better kept and nicer (both Amish and Mennonite), although they still treat the animals with no respect (per our "modern" ideals). And I really mean that it is all about the money and that they try to maximize profits while at all times trying to minimize the amount of $$ they have to spend.
That is why they like small dogs, can breed them more easily and keep them in small cages, they eat less, and thus are less expensive and take up less space so they can have more of them.
hopefully the cruelty will be eradicated in the future
I have seen some farms small scale (not involving dogs) where their beasts/animals are not too horribly kept. However, what they have they do consider livestock and dispensable at the end of the road when it no longer is productive for their means. The disposal methods are what is cheapest and easiest for them. They are at the pre-turn of the century in methods, and that goes for husbandry and care for the majority for their community.
It is obvious once you get into a huge operation the means of care has to change to fit into the industrial method of farming. However, they insist on essentially still on plowing with a spoon so to speak. Their technology and mind set is too primitive for a humane operation. However, they refuse to view it that way because it would mean having a modern thought and owning up to the fact that whether they want to believe it or not they are just as greedy as the rest of the non Amish mill operators and in many cases the rest of society no matter how far apart they try to remain as community/group from mainstream society.
Anyway that is my take on it.
Snf
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7187712&page=1
Also, a pretty awesome blog post:
http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2009/03/30/good-pets-dont-come-from-factory-farms-however-clean/
Bottom line the industry would not be making 8 mil a year unless consumers buy the product of these mills. For every new purchase obviously there is some discard/deaths on the consumers side of the previous purchases (as the slelters can attest to). Each time that I am in Petsmart I see brand new puppies from a season and I always wonder how long the owners are going to keep them. As a wild guess maybe 1 in 30, if that, will remain in a household for its entire full life expectancy.
Snf
A colleague had me read "Edgar Sawtelle", because she thought as a 'dog lover', I would like it. The family of the story breeds "Sawtelle Dogs", who they do not sell until closer to 2 years old, already trained. This way, they eliminate the 'omigoshpuppy' purchasers. That idea struck me as, well, intelligent. I wish all breeders were as ecologically conscious. Too bad it was fiction.
The thing that I noticed was, the main farmer they interviewed, he spent a lot of time justifying and rationalizing to the TV audience... this made me wonder if HE was truly ok with how he was keeping those animals. He had a justification for everything, it was insane.
The hamster wheel thing was just too much.
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When I told him which one i wanted he said, "now that one never misses a feeding! I have to pull her away from the bowl so the other puppies can eat" hahaha
This is the first picture of me meeting Zoe. I told them I wanted a female so they brought them into this garage to jump around. Zoe was the only one stupid enough to climb under the lawnmower and come out with grease all over her fur haha. we cleaned her off before we left.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/dog-whisperer/3736/Overview01#tab-Videos/06654_00
Cesar is excellent at handling dogs himself (in this case). His descriptions and info are getting better so that's great to see. He now is also using food now to lure too when needed. So again it's great to see trainers expand over time too.
Snf
Those two Akitas were absolutly beautiful...what broke my heart was to see these two incredible dogs so broken in spirit....my daughters, who also watched, both wrote and drew pictures for their senators yesterday...aksing them to ban these type of puppy mill operations.