Say GoodBye to Pet Stores Within The Next Ten Years....

Awareness is on the rise
Many animal-welfare groups have in recent years embarked on campaigns to warn the public away from buying puppies from pet stores or their suppliers – usually puppy mills, where, experts say, breeding stock is kept in cramped, often filthy pens or crates, with little or no socialization, medical care or time outside pens; and females are bred repeatedly to ensure as many litters as possible. Puppies are often sickly and frequently have genetic faults that don't show up for months.
Various groups have been involved in puppy-mill rescues and transports, mill dog rehabilitation, and campaigns to strengthen laws that would improve the lives of dogs at such operations and protect consumers when they get a sick or dying puppy. It has been slow going, however, because most such operations are established in rural areas with little chance of discovery. Busts are increasing in number, but they generally take place only after "the dogs have lived awful lives" in conditions so severe they violate a state's anti-cruelty laws, says HSUS's Jon Lovvorn.
HSUS has significantly ramped up its anti-puppy-mill efforts. In June, the organization formed a puppy-mill task force to work full time investigating reports of puppy-mill activities, engage in public education and help local communities prosecute cases by instructing them how to document evidence properly, use laws to the full extent and provide transport and shelter for the animals they seize.
"Much of this we can do on the telephone, but if they need someone on the ground, we go there," Shain says.
The task force has been involved in eight raids since June. HSUS was doing puppy-mill rescues even before formation of the task force and has helped seize more than 3,000 animals in the past year.
Tougher laws, greater oversight
This year, nine states have strengthened laws and oversight of large commercial breeders within their own borders. But, Pacelle says, new regulations in Missouri, which are being pushed forward by the Humane Society of Missouri and several other groups, would have an enormous influence on the number of dogs that "live in isolation, confinement and hardship."
Missouri has nearly 1,400 federally licensed commercial breeders, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's at least twice as many as what animal-welfare groups say are the next-biggest puppy-mill states: Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and Arkansas. Shain estimates Missouri has at least 2,000 additional puppy breeders who are not federally licensed because their direct-to-public sales don't require them to be.
Anti-puppy-mill campaigns across the country have been slow but sure. More of the public is aware of puppy mills and more people are avoiding buying puppies from them, and large numbers of animals are being saved, Shain says, but the busts and rescues represent "only a small drop in a very big bucket."
Still, Pacelle is optimistic. "Breeding dogs under these inhumane conditions will be legally untenable and socially unacceptable within the next 10 years."