Beware: pet stores sell puppies from puppy mills
Beware: pet stores sell puppies from puppy mills
EDITOR:
Another pet store is about to open locally. It is part of a chain that not only sells pet supplies, but offers a large selection of puppies for sale. I can visualize many local people looking at those puppies and being told by the store's staff that the puppies are high quality, and that they "do not buy from puppy mills."
For those of you who did not see the "Dateline" feature on puppy mills, or the "20/20" program before that or the many articles that have been written denouncing this trade in cruelty, I hope you're reading this.
First, realize that there is no other regular source of puppies for the pet store industry other than puppy mills.
Second, when they say they "don't buy from puppy mills," they are not lying. They buy from brokers, the middlemen who buy from puppy mills
Third, even though they buy from USDA-inspected and approved facilities, even the most deplorable puppy mills are USDA inspected and approved!
Fourth, pet stores sell puppies because they realize a huge profit. Puppies like this wholesale for $50 to $100, and overnight become extremely expensive, AKC-registered silk purses.
Fifth, these puppies come from "breeders" who think that good "genes" are what you wear on Sunday. Their puppies' parents are often related, and the female is bred at every heat (twice a year), until she is no longer productive. She is then disposed of. Many of these breeding dogs never leave their rabbit hutch-style cages during their miserable lives.
Sixth, even with all the adverse publicity about puppy mills, virtually nothing has changed and they continue in the deplorable trade as they always have.
Seventh, there is no state in this country that has a shortage of dogs. Importing puppies from another state for sale here is ridiculous.
I want to applaud companies like PetSmart for providing areas in their stores for local humane agencies to display pets needing homes. PetSmart recently facilitated its one millionth adoption. If you want a puppy, check out the wonderful dogs that need homes at Angels for Animals and other humane organizations, as well as the Mahoning County Dog Pound. Some of the best, healthiest dogs I've ever owned were crossbreeds and pound dogs.
DONALD K. ALLEN, MS, DVM
Youngstown
Secret puppet-masters behind Traficant trial
EDITOR:
U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. should rightly and courageously persist in his case, push appeals, and if necessary, go down with all flags flying.
It is obvious to untold thousands across the nation that he was charged for relatively penny-ante crimes. Many wonder if he was intentionally targeted and marked for neutralization by some powerful, entrenched, devious and out-of-control elements of the federal government (as contrasted to the historical, heretofore admirable and only fully valid United States of American, the constitutional republic of limited form of government, that is being erased, line by line, law by law, statesman by statesman).
Jim Traficant dared to loudly expose the growing threats to our precious American freedoms, economy, morality and national security, actions often at odds with the liberal media, "republi-cat" political leadership and transitional/globalist plutocrats.
Although a sovereign citizen and a duly elected representative of the people, he was denied important witnesses to his defense, in a biased media-covered show trial, at a venue that intentionally was not before his peers, cut to the knees by rapid-fire legal objections and obfuscations, over a steeply slanted federal playing field, which one may perceive as inimical to and hardly propitious for true justice.
Today, one may wonder if it is prudent, let alone safe, to be a patriotic, informed, conscientious and outspoken U.S. congressman. Some secretive, manipulative puppet-masters behind the throne surely must have felt threatened by this man. God help our nation.
RONALD D. REID
Ravenna