11.21.2008

corporate policy # 2

As I've mentioned, this is Puppy Mill Awareness Week, a project of the Humane Society International Canada and the Humane Society of the United States.
After an eight-month investigation, the Humane Society of the United States accused Petland, the national pet store chain, of selling dogs bred under appalling conditions at puppy mills around the country.

Many Petland stores are being supplied by large-scale puppy mills, although customers are routinely informed that the dogs come only from regulated breeders, the Humane Society said Thursday.

They are buying from puppy mills where these dogs are not treated like pets," Michael Markarian, an executive vice president with the Humane Society, told a news conference. "They're treated like a cash crop, where mother dogs live in wire cages, sometimes stacked on top of each other in filthy, dirty, cramped conditions, where they receive little socialization or human interaction or exercise."

Dogs from puppy mills are sold at Petland stores for as much as $3,500 each, according to the Humane Society.

Humane Society investigators visited 21 Petland sites and 35 breeders and brokers who sold puppies to Petland stores, according to a release on the group's Web site. Investigators reviewed interstate import records of an additional 322 breeders, U.S. Department of Agriculture reports and more than 17,000 individual puppies linked to Petland stores.

Please don't shop at Petland! And let Petland know why you're making that choice.

For more on the horrors of puppy mills, see Stop Puppy Mills and HSI Canada's Puppy Mills page.

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