That means that - no matter HOW cute and appealing they may be, and no matter HOW much you want to “rescue” them from that cage - NO buying of puppies from pet shops. Because ALL pet shop puppies come from commercial puppy producers, plain and simple.

Buyers need to know where their puppies come from. They should know the breeder - preferably via person-to-person conversations, and ideally via face-to-face meetings. In the best of all possible worlds, buyers should see where the puppy was raised (and that it was not in a bank of wire-bottomed boxes in a dark drafty barn, or some variant thereof).

Seeing where the puppy was raised is not always possible, and this is why buying a puppy over the Internet carries an especially heavy charge for the puppy buyer to do his or her homework. For while not every breeder you might meet over the Internet is a commercial puppy producer, the Internet certainly has made it much easier for such puppy dealers to peddle their wares to an unsuspecting public. So puppy buyers who are using the Internet to find and buy their puppies need to remain especially aware of what to look out for in a breeder so that they don’t end up supporting one who treats their animals as nothing more than a cash crop.

A lot of it is about education and awareness. Oprah worked to accomplish some of that on her show (and she certainly has the exposure to do it!). Every one of us can carry on our own piece of that work by being ready to talk to anyone we know of that is looking for a dog or puppy about the things they should look out for in order to avoid buying their next dog or puppy from a commercial breeder.

Bring new meaning to USDA “animal husbandry!”

I would far rather have my tax dollars spent on the one rather than the other.

My apologies to the titty bar industry.

I have a good friend who once worked as a bouncer at a titty bar.

This has never make me think less of him, just enhances his general aura of “colorful.”

Had he worked as a corpse compost technician at a puppymill, our friendship would be in serious jeopardy.

I will happily throw my support behind rural development grants and loans for new titty bars.

My brother worked his way through college (Old Dominion) as a bouncer. I think it was a good preparation for a career as an urban high school teacher.

So yeah … I’d much rather be related to the owner of a strip joint than a puppy mill.

I think you may be unfairly degrading titty bars by comparing the two.

You won’t find me associating with either, but titty bars and their owners are higher on the food chain than puppymills.

Don’t take as gospel, as I may be misremembering which agency it is; but there have definitely been gubbmint loans for puppymill startups. All those wire-bottomed cages take a lot of capital.

It’s a legal business, is the justification.

So are titty bars.

But I so know that state ag agencies have pushed puppies as “alternative livestock.”

Another thought…I was reading today about puppy mills (can’t remember the magazine & left it at work) and it included a pretty detailed history of the industry. The author briefly mentioned some point in history when private farmers were suffering from loss of business to commercial factory farming of food animals —-and that it was the USDA itself —- who originally urged farmers to begin “farming” dogs to supplement their incomes. Does anyone know, is this true?