I found out recently that I am an adopted child. No wonder I look so different and don’t stand on two legs! Mother says all dogs are adopted – adopted from their furry mums, usually when we are mere pups.

Mother says I was born in Melbourne, Australia and that she doesn’t know who my real parents are. She tried to find out from the pet store where she saw me, sitting behind the glass, looking all cute and forlorn, but to no avail. The pet store has been, to date, extremely unhelpful. The only clue Mother has is on the vaccination card that she was given the day she took me home.

The vaccination card named a man, with a Chinese surname and had the name and address of a veterinary practice in Sunshine, Victoria in Aussieland. After numerous calls to the pet store, Mother managed to get out from a stupid employee that this named man is an agent from whom the pet store buys dogs, and specifically most of their shelties. Mother has since done a company search of the pet store and has the home address of the owner. She’s not sure whether she should write to the owner formally (bypassing his idiot staff) to request that he assist her in finding my parents or hunt down the agent herself. A quick search of the “yellow pages” of Australia produced only a handful of people with the same surname as the named man in the Sunshine and surrounding Ardeer area in Victoria, Australia. Mother thinks that the agent must live near the vet and that he must go to the same vet all the time to vaccinate the pups he buys for the pet stores. I’m not sure, but I think when Mother goes to Australia, she will make a trip to Sunshine/Ardeer and visit the vet and try to find the agent. She’s worried about where I might have come from having seen a video on puppy mills.

Puppy mills are factories producing pups. They are either unregulated or escape/evade being regulated, depending on where these mills are located.  In comparison to slave quarters of yore, puppy mills look alot worse. They are probably more comparable to medieval dungeons. What could you expect from people who don’t treat the dogs as living breathing creatures but as objects that can bring them economic gain? Why should they care that the dogs, my fellow brethren, can feel pain and sadness so long as they can be sold and profit can be earned?

Well, they don’t. Dogs are kept as breeding machines in filthy and deplorable conditions. Living in tight cramped cages (some having developed mental disorders from being in a tiny cage with no stimulation throughout their lives), with their waste as their bedding and bugs as their constant companions, these dogs have one purpose only – to breed – to manufacture pups. If they are ill, injured or have a broken leg, it doesn’t matter, they aren’t taken to the vet – it’s too costly! why add to the overheads! – so long as they can hump or receive humping, that’s all that matters. It’s ok if they are scabby and covered with mites and matted hair if they can still breed! If they are dying, in severe pain, again, euthanize? Why? It’s expensive! Plus, what if the unresponsive dog survives? It can still be sold! Don’t throw away a product if it’s faults can be hidden! That makes no commercial sense!

Money is all that matters to the owners and operators of puppy mills. The consequences of such an operation doesn’t just affect the dogs, the MACHINES, that spend their life in the factory. The pups suffer too, having little contact with their parents and growing up without the necessary learning it should have gotten from the mother, or getting diseases and other genetic defects that could plague them for the rest of their lives begotten from such ill considered breeding. Even if you don’t care about the dogs (shame on you), the people who end up with such pups also suffer along with the poor animal. Vet bills, supplements, extra training, behavioural issues that need to be dealt with (if the pup survives that long). Not to mention the feeling of loss when your pup dies days after you get it.

Puppy mill people try to mitigate their losses by auctioning off dogs/pups that can’t serve their purpose any longer or don’t look like they’ll make it much longer or if they have “overruns” and “surplus” or if they want more breeding stock. There are videos on the internet of such auctions. The dogs are treated like things, like an armoire or table. It’s horrible. AGENTS buy from such auctions. Mother wonders if I came from an auction or a puppy mill.

A lot of people don’t know where their dogs come from. Even pet stores don’t always know. We could be indirectly funding the abuse and torture of the poor doggies in puppy mills.

Mother says if she discovers that I came from one, she will expose it and she will rescue my parents and find good homes for them (or convince Father to let her keep them). Mother says she feels incredibly guilty for having probably funded this horrible industry but she will do what she can to bring it to light if she discovers I’m from one. She actually wanted to give up the search for my parents at one point, but then she thought ignoring the niggling feeling I’m from a puppy mill would be as good as shoving a poor dog into a tiny cage herself. She told me she might hire a private investigator to find out more but the PI must be an animal lover too.

Mother wanted me to tell everyone that puppy mills aren’t just found in the US. There are puppy mills in Europe and Australia too, where most dogs in Singapore pet stores are from. Heck, I think some of the dogs in those farms we drive by when we go to the dog run at Pasir Ris probably have the same deplorable standards for their dogs. They aren’t afterall regulated by the same regulations that apply to pet stores because they are classified as farms. They probably aren’t as large scale as the ones overseas, but in their own way, they are like puppy mills right in our own backyard.