Puppy Mills Effects

Puppy Mills are large scale commercial breeding facilities where profit is given priority over the well-being of the dogs. Dogs are housed in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions and are deprived of proper food, water, veterinary care, and socialization. Between litters, female dogs are given little to no recovery time in order to maximise profit, which is detrimental to the health of these dogs. There are numerous amounts of effects that cause these dogs to suffer for the rest of their lives, including but not limited to, behavioral and health problems such as deafness, blindness, many different diseases of the kidney and heart, and shortened or missing limbs, just to name a few. Fear, shyness, and sensitivity are a few behavioral effects

James Serpell and Deborah Duffy of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine shows the negative long-term effects Puppy Mills have on the animals breed in these environments.

The results showed a broad range of abnormal findings in the former breeding dogs, including: significantly elevated levels of fears and phobias, pronounced compulsive and repetitive behaviors such as spinning in tight circles and pacing, house soiling, and a heightened sensitivity to being touched and picked up. The most prominent difference was in the level of fear; compared to normal pet dogs, the chance of scoring in the highest ranges for fear was six to eight times higher in the recovered puppy mill dogs. (Best Friends 2)

The findings of this study go to show that something obviously needs to be done bring Puppy Mills to an end. We can try to spread awareness about the issue and educate people about the negative effects of Puppy Mills through platforms such as PETA and the Humane Society, but that alone will not bring this issue to an end. The only way to truly stop this issue is by implementing a law at the federal level that abolishes Puppy Mills and enacts harsher punishments on those who break the

By creating a law at the federal level, it decreases the likeliness of an accident or in the case of puppy mills, the ability of breeders to take advantage of and ruin the lives of these animals. An example of this would be making children under a certain age use car seats. “Car seat use reduces the risk of death to infants (aged <1 year) by 71%; and to toddlers (aged 1–4 years) by 54% in passenger vehicles” (Motor Vehicle Safety 4). This proves how enforcing a law at the federal level can save lives. Although Puppy Mills are obviously a very different issue than children using car seats, it shows how a law can positively affect the livelihood of an individual, which in this case happens to be dogs. By applying a law, like car seats for example, at the federal level that terminates the allowance of Puppy Mills, there will undoubtedly be a decrease in dogs born in these horrible conditions that suffer for the rest of their