Cruel Puppy Farms Made Illegal In US City

A city in Alabama has now passed a pet shop ordinance which will make ‘puppy mills and kitten mills’ illegal within its city limits.

As per this new ordinance, passed during a recent Madison City Council meeting on December 28, requires that dogs and cats sold in retail stores must come from rescue organizations or shelters. The animals for sale must also be at least eight weeks old.

Going forward, pet stores in Madison will have to keep detailed records for the cats and dogs they are selling, which must include the name and address of the organization they obtained them from. This information should also be displayed for each animal kept in a cage.

Madison is now the eleventh city in the state of Alabama to adopt an ordinance which protects puppies and kittens, joining Anniston, Albertville, Athens, Boaz, Florence, Guntersville, Huntsville, Jasper, Muscle Shoals and Tuscaloosa.

Puppy mills are dog breeding operations which place profit over the well-being of the animals involved. Many of these dogs will live in unsanitary conditions, receive little veterinary care if any at all.

Breeding dogs will live out their lives in 24-hour confinement to cages, often in stacked wire cages without protection from hot or cold weather. Female dogs are bred every heat cycle and will usually be slaughtered when they can no longer able to produce puppies, often in inhumane ways.

In the US, such facilities may be unlicensed or licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In order to sell animals to a pet shop, the breeder will have to have a licence, although many will still sell animals without this documentation.

It’s estimated that there are 10,000 puppy mills in the US, including both licensed and unlicensed facilities, with more than two million puppies bred in mills every single year.

Puppies bred at such places are removed from their mothers when they are still too young, which can lead to severe health and behavioral issues.

Although puppy mills can be found throughout the US, there is a higher concentration in the Midwest, with Missouri having the largest number of puppy mills in the US.