Puppy mill | Be a Seed for Change

Call on Petland USA to stop supporting cruel puppy mills.

While the puppies in Petland USA stores may look cute in their cages, chances are the puppies have led miserable lives that threaten their health from the day they’re born.

Petland USA is the country’s largest chain of stores that sell puppies. Most of Petland’s animals come from puppy mills, where thousands of dogs are bred again and again to supply the pet trade. Dogs are kept in cramped, unsanitary conditions, and they often lack adequate vet care.

There’s hope to stop puppy mill sales at Petland stores. Last month Petland Canada ordered its stores to stop selling puppies, in part due to continuous pressure from animal protection advocates. So Mary Haight, a Change.org member from Chicago, wants Petland USA to do the same. She started a petition on Change.org asking Petland USA to end puppy mill sales in its stores. Click here to sign her petition.

Walk into any major pet store like Petco or PetSmart, and you won’t find puppies for sale. Those stores work with local animal shelters to find homes for the countless animals waiting to be adopted across the country. Yet Petland stores prioritize profit by selling animals from puppy mills, propping up this cruel business.

Puppies bred in puppy mills are often plagued with poor health. Kept in cramped conditions and often housed outside in all types of weather, animals in puppy mills lead a pitiful existence. Puppy mill operators are also known to in-breed puppies, leading to other health and behavior problems.

Each Petland store in the US is an individually-owned franchise, meaning Petland USA’s corporate headquarters can’t ban puppy sales in stores on its own. But Petland USA can stop any new stores from selling puppies, and a strong statement from the corporation would go a long way to putting a stop to its existing stores that buy animals from puppy mills.

Please join Mary Haight in calling on Petland USA to support adoption and speak out against its stores doing business with puppy mills. Sign the petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/petland-usa-stop-selling-pets-fire-puppy-mills-petland-canada-has

Thanks for being a change-maker,

– Cristina and the Change.org team

Tell eBay to shut down its sales of cruelly treated puppies and all live animals

“Puppy mills” are large-scale commercial operations where dozens of dogs are kept in small cages for their entire lives, forced to give birth to litter after litter until they’re no longer fertile, at which point they’re usually killed. Puppy mills are unsafe, inhumane, and produce thousands of puppies with serious health problems every year.

Now, puppy mills have found a national vendor: eBay. www.change.org

A few years ago, eBay had plans to sell animals via online auction. Responsible breeders would never sell dogs via online auction, so this would ha ve resulted in the site becoming a haven for puppy mills. eBay users and anti-cruelty activists spearheaded — and won — the fight to prevent eBay from selling live animals.

But now all that’s changed.

Despite eBay’s claims that it “do[es] not condone unethical treatment of animals,” eBay now allows puppy mills to sell dogs in its classified section.

This practice enables flagrant cruelty to dogs, and it has to stop. Tell eBay to shut down its sales of cruelly treated puppies and all live animals.

Puppy mill dogs spend their entire lives in small wire cages, without companionship, and often without vet care, exercise or shelter from the elements. As far as puppy mill owners are concerned, the dogs have one purpose: to supply the pet trade.

The USDA recently admitted that they’ve failed to effectively monitor commercial breeders and puppy mills. When it comes to sites like eBay Classifieds, it’s even worse: Breeders who sell directly to customers online aren’t subject to any USDA regulations.

The best chance we have to shut down puppy mills is to hold vendors accountable.

Click here to tell eBay to shut down all live animal sales immediately: www.change.org

Thanks for taking action,

Judith and the Change.org Team