Puppy Breeding Conditions

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The Puppy Mill Plague The breeding and living conditions in puppy mills are ethically wrong, and stronger legislation is needed to ensure the protection of dogs that are being bred and raised for human companionship. Dogs are bred at a greater frequency than they naturally should be, which creates health problems for both the mothers and their offspring. Housing conditions at puppy mills are almost unilaterally overcrowded, and dogs may live outdoors entirely exposed to the elements. Dogs that come from puppy mills often experience social problems. Because of the cruelty that prevails at puppy mills across the country, animal rights groups work diligently to promote new legislation the ban inhumane practices at puppy mills. The phrase “puppy…show more content…
Female dogs naturally require some period of time between the delivery of litters for their bodies to recuperate, but puppy mill conditions are often such that females are bred in every viable heat cycle. This “creates a state of overproduction in the females' bodies and creates health problems for both the mother and her puppies”. (Miles) Issues that can arise from overactive breeding are decreasing litter sizes, skeletal issues for the mothers (such as problems with their hips and spines), malnourishment in both the puppies and mothers, low puppy birthweight, and a host of other birth defects. Puppies are often also weaned from their mothers considerably sooner than they ought to be, which creates further issues with malnourishment as well as problems with social adjustment because they never get to bond appropriately with their mothers. Once taken from their mothers, puppies are packed and shipped all over the country, a process during which many die.…show more content…
Dogs are often kept in cages, which may be stacked from floor to ceiling with multiple animals living in each one. The cages in which these dogs are kept generally have wire flooring, which allows the dog's waste to slick through the a collection tray underneath. This allows the operators of the puppy mills to save time by never walking the dogs or giving them the necessary space to naturally eliminate. In addition to being employed for deplorable purposes, these cages can also injure the dogs' legs and paws, and the conditions that they promote lead to disease. Mill dogs may live exclusively outside, where they are exposed to environmental conditions which harm them, or conversely live entirely indoors in cages. Because dogs at puppy mills are racked with health problems, their healthy lives and breeding years tend to be significantly shorter than those of other dogs. (ASPCA) This problem, coupled with the limited space at puppy mills commonly results in mass euthanasia once the dogs move past the age where they can sustain the rate of overactive production at which they are expected to

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