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Thanks Karlin

Claire

Claire

Well-known member
For putting the puppy items on the system - it is so disgusting the she is getting away with that, I hope your rescue person goes in there and gets them and teaches her a lesson.
 
She was shut down due to the actions of that person. :) It is a matter now of making sure she doesn't start up again.

Because these people do things we simply cannot imagine, I think we underestimate the horrors of this system and also, the reasons why it is so important to be very cautious about where we get our dogs from. Supporting good breeders is important. Yopu can see why some cavalier puppies costs o much less than others -- they come from these backgrounds where no one ever put a cent into the health or care of the dogs.

What is truly sad is that a farmer could never keep livestock in such conditions without hefty fines and prosecutions. But people get away with breeding dogs (and cats) like this all over the world. :x
 
Thanks for making us all aware of this. What a horrible person.

I've noticed another problem in our area, and don't know if it exists elsewhere in the US. In the pets section of the classified ads of our Cleveland newspaper, there are often ads for Cavalier puppies at lower prices with a note to leave a message at a phone number. When you call the number it is usually a business, like a furniture store out in the farm country.

My husband called, and his message was relayed to an Amish man who raises Cavaliers and other small breed dogs. Amish people do not have telephones at their homes, that's why you have to leave a message at the store. We drove out there to look, and found the Amish guy was keeping the Cavs and other small dogs (Shih Tzu, etc.) in an out building, and selling the pups. These young pups were being handled and played with by his small children, not well supervised, which made me cringe! He had some, but not all, registration papers and pedigrees for the parent Cavs - we noticed that they came from Ireland. The dogs did not live in the house with these people, they lived in a small out building, we did not see the conditions, but could hear the barking.

We did not buy anything from him, just went to look. I see these types of ads in the paper almost every week, and they are from the same phone number area code (out in the farm country) as the one we checked on. I wonder if they are supplying the pet stores and the puppy auctions that are popping up around Cleveland OH. I have not looked at those, don't know if I could bear it!

What can we do to help stop this?
 
I have heard that there is quite a bit of that kind of "activity" in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. The woman that was mentioned in the other article in the puppy mill post was from Indiana and was working (a similiar set up to the one that Cathy mentioned) with a man from Ohio. I was a victim of hers. My sweet Beatrice came from her as "the pick of the litter" from champions. After a crazy, long, and remarkably complicated series of events, I did finally get my puppy. Fortunately, she was very healthy. Of course, I never received any registration papers. The law eventually did catch up with her but by the time of her conviction she had disappeared. I recently heard she had set up shop in Missouri but had to flee again leaving behind 40-50 Cavaliers. I haven't heard what has happened to them but am pretty sure the case is still pending. Thank goodness I found this board and learned what NOT to do! I thought I had done my research - not even close. I wish we could stop all of these millers down. It is such a crime to continue to breed defective dogs. Thank you, Karlin, for keeping us abreast of their activities.

JaneB
 
One of the best avenues is to look into assisting with your state legislature regarding your state's puppy mill laws. We have some very tireless and heroic ladies who are always advocating in our state to keep the mills and their owners accountable for actions and conditions. Of course, none of them consider themselves to be "mill owners" just every day caring breeders. Yea, right. But labeling themselves in this manner gives them more leverage when contacting pet shops, etc.

Sheri
Nebraska USA (midwest)
 
The Amish, sadly, are amongst the WORST of the puppy farmers. It can be very hard to get in to raid their premises as well. There was a long article I think I posted here a while ago -- several interviews with various Amish puppy mills; many basically view dogs as livestock to be farmed in small cages like battery hens.
 
Do the puppies that are sold in pet shops come from puppy farms? We was driving down a London street a few months ago and went past quite a few pet shops that were advertising puppies and kittens for sale :(
 
A lot of them do. A lot are brought in from Ireland or Wales (the RSPCA has been very frustrated with the numbers of puppies brought over in vans from Ireland). A lot advertised in windows are backyard-bred dogs as well.
 
Hi, I just returned from out of town. Thanks for the information.

I will do some research about what is legal in Ohio - don't know if this guy or others like him are licensed to breed dogs, or maybe the Amish are exempt.

I wonder if there would be a way to scan the parent dogs of the Amish puppies for microchips, to find out if they were stolen. I had read that Cavaliers are often stolen in the UK and Ireland. If there were small portable hand held scanners, it might be possible to find stolen dogs! Does anyone know anything about this, or what kind of microchips are used in UK and Ireland?
 
I've just spent the last 90 minutes reading up on the amish way of life etc. What a revelation- I can't believe that people still live like that in 2006!

It would appear that many cases of child abuse (both physical and sexual) occur in Amish communities, so why would these people want to look after their animals properly?

I wonder why the State(s) authorities cannot go in and check on these communities and the way they keep their animals. Do they not have regular checks like they do here in UK?

Saying that, puppy 'farmers' here are usually forewarned of visits :roll: and magically clean up their premises and 'dispose of' sick dogs before hand :x

Cathy, it would be wonderful if you could find out more about their licences etc - do you think that the officials would then go in and inspect their premises?

It angers me that even organisations like the RSPCA in this country are limited as to what they can do.

I'd like to make these evil people live like they make their dogs live whilst feeding the doggies steak and chicken outside the cages containing the 'humans' :x
 
Maxxs_Mummy said:
I've just spent the last 90 minutes reading up on the amish way of life etc. What a revelation- I can't believe that people still live like that in 2006!

It would appear that many cases of child abuse (both physical and sexual) occur in Amish communities, so why would these people want to look after their animals properly? :x
Click to expand...

Beyond that, they do not understand genetics and genetic diseases, so they are unaware of what they are doing as 'dog breeders'. They choose to end their education at 8th grade (age 14 or so, if not younger.) It used to be that they were self-sufficient within their own community.

I wonder who sold this guy the imported Cavaliers?
 
Cathy Moon said:
I wonder if there would be a way to scan the parent dogs of the Amish puppies for microchips, to find out if they were stolen. I had read that Cavaliers are often stolen in the UK and Ireland. If there were small portable hand held scanners, it might be possible to find stolen dogs! Does anyone know anything about this, or what kind of microchips are used in UK and Ireland?
Click to expand...

Yes there is; we have a scanner. It's about 3" x 8" x 3/4" in size. For the life of me, I can't remember what it cost, but I want to say it was around $200. We use it to double check puppies on the day they go to their forever home.
 
Cathy Moon said:
Beyond that, they do not understand genetics and genetic diseases, so they are unaware of what they are doing as 'dog breeders'. They choose to end their education at 8th grade (age 14 or so, if not younger.) It used to be that they were self-sufficient within their own community.

I wonder who sold this guy the imported Cavaliers?
Click to expand...
Yes, I read all of that Cathy. Apparently, because they don't like their kids educated beyond 8th grade, they sometimes make the kids repeat 8th grade over and over until the State they live in gives in and lets them leave :roll: :x They DO have many genetic diseases from all of their inbreeding too. One surprising thing though, seeing as they don't like technology is that loads of them now have mobile or cell phones :yikes :roll: - seems to be whatever suits them, they'll adapt to it!




Bruce H said:
Yes there is; we have a scanner. It's about 3" x 8" x 3/4" in size. For the life of me, I can't remember what it cost, but I want to say it was around $200. We use it to double check puppies on the day they go to their forever home.
Click to expand...

This must be the same type that my Vet has in the surgery. It's quite small and will send all of the info directly to the computer there via a chip (? sorry I'm technologically retarded). It's a wonderful piece of kit :D

The only thing that worries me is that it is possible for Vets to change the ownership information via their computers. If it's possible for Vets to do it then i'm sure that there are some unscrupulous ones out there :(
 
Our chips are supplied to the vets by Identichip and all the details are stored on their database, our vet cannot change a thing.
 
A few comments:

1) vets can't change the information, generally, as the chip companies usually control the info on their own databases (whihc is not necessarily a good thing,as you can see from my article linked below). That said there are projects that let YOU change the info but as far as I know all the data associated with the chip is retained on record. For example in Ireland the wonderful vet Finbar Heslin has helped set up fidonet, which allows you, the pet owner, to update your contact details. Anyone anywhere in the world can use this system.

More on microchips -- a piece I wrote for the Guardian in the UK:

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1710249,00.html

2) Amish -- many are wonderful people living an old way of life. There are Amish in the UK and in Ireland as well, I believe! Unfortunately some see dog breeding as a way to make money easily, and view dogs as creatures over which they have dominion and which are just another form of livestock, and they run operations much like the many other unscrupulous backyard breeders and puppy mills around ther world, where dogs are bred in stacked cages. Others have better establishments with kennels and runs but still, mass production of dogs is not a very good way to breed a social animal with narrowed gene pools, that are intended to live with people. The thing about the Amish is that unscrupulous people can hide behind the squeaky clean image they have. Authorities have as much right to raid these establishments as any others but it can be harder to get reports on them. But then, it is hard to get reports on many that are, as the article that started this thread indicates, *right next door to you in a city or town*. Some Amish are registered breeders and subject to USDA inspection but I have been told there are only about 40 inspectors for the entire US and they likely concentrate on the bigger mills scattered in the midwest (Oklahoma and Missouri being two particularly bad states for puppy mills).

Here's an article I've posted here somewhere before:

Sorry don't have link as this was a crosspost, but full attribution is at end.

> Amish Puppy Industry Draws Charges of Cruelty

> Two optional trims to 1,600 words - With 3 photos, of Marvin Stoltzfus
(NNS2), boxers in a pen (NNS3) and a puppy (NNS4)

> By BRIAN T. MURRAY
> c.2005 Newhouse News Service

> LANCASTER, Pa. - A few scattered pumpkins dot the muddy fields where
bearded men in wide-brimmed hats lead teams of shaggy plow horses tilling
the soil.
> It is autumn in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania's Amish country, and
the fields that sustain the simple lifestyle are mostly bare.
> But one crop - the most important crop to some - remains: Puppies.
> "They're more expensive now because of Christmas coming up," said a
bonneted young girl, barely 10, who cheerfully greeted visitors to her
picturesque dairy farm in Ronks last week. "You want a better price, you
come back in the summer when things are slower."
> She disappeared into a large red barn and emerged with three squirming
puppies, each a different breed. One spilled from her arms, tumbling over
her white apron to the edge of her long, gray skirt.
> "That's a Boston terrier. This one is a bichon," she said, motioning to
the pups still in her arms, "and this is a Yorkie. ... He's going to cost
the most. You can probably have him for $1,300."
> Bred for bulk and retail sale, puppies are a growing cash crop for
hundreds of farmers in and around Lancaster County, where Amish and
Mennonite settlers from Switzerland and Germany arrived in the early 1700s
in search of religious freedom.
> For farmers, a big crop of dogs can gross up to $500,000 annually, with
successful operations netting six figures.
> For critics, the men in the suspenders and bushy beards are masking a
cruel form of factory farming behind the quaint and pure image of the Amish
culture. They so badly want the kennels shut down, they have taken their
fight to Congress, where a Senate subcommittee heard testimony two weeks
ago.
> "Amish country is synonymous with puppy mills, and Lancaster County is
the capital of Pennsylvania puppy mills, with more than 200 kennels," said
Libby Williams, founder of New Jersey Consumers Against Pet Shop Abuse.
"Dogs ... should not be treated like chickens, penned up in coops for their
entire lives just to breed." Lancaster County sits just 70 miles from the
New Jersey border.
> "Pennsylvania is the main source (of dogs to New Jersey pet shops), and
farmers in Amish country are the major suppliers," said Stuart Rhodes,
president of the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals.
> At a Parkesburg pasture known to authorities as Betty's Boxers, the pups
last week were out of sight at what otherwise operates as a dairy farm.
> "They're only 4 weeks old," said Betty Stoltzfus, showing visitors
around her small operation. Her puppies, she explained, are still three
weeks shy of the age when they can legally be sold. But, she added,
"they'll be ready before Christmas."
> The little ones make this a downtime for her breeding stock - 10
yapping, growling female boxers in wire pens at the front of the property.
They now are the concern of Betty's 10-year-old son, Marvin.
> A few miles away, the little girl in the bonnet and her family have a
much larger operation.
> Activists contend more than 200,000 puppies are churned out annually in
and around Lancaster County. The farm where the little girl greets visitors
had hundreds of older dogs secluded behind the main barn last week.
> Perhaps 60 fluffy white dogs were tucked in rabbit hutches stacked a
story high and several dozen feet across.
> Scores of others filled dozens of pens stacked two-high on both sides of
an alleyway. The sight of human visitors ignited a fury of yelps, and the
dogs pawed their mesh cages.
> Some were bichons, others Malteses. All were the small, playful and
popular breeds that bring the farm - known as Clearview Kennel - a steady
income.
> The Pennsylvania Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement lists 243 kennels in
Lancaster County, and about 50 hold federal licenses to sell entire litters
to brokers. Hundreds more are scattered in surrounding farm counties.
> "The vast majority of kennels, and we have about 2,500 in Pennsylvania
... go through a year without receiving citations, but there are those
where we do find violations," said Mary Bender, director of the dog bureau.
> Puppy Love, a kennel at the southern end of Lancaster County that sells
more than 1,000 puppies a year, was labeled one of the most notorious by
the state Attorney General's Office earlier this year. In a lawsuit, the
state charged customers bought dogs that died within 48 hours of purchase.
> The case was settled in May, when owners Joyce and Raymond Stoltzfus (no
relation to Betty Stoltzfus) agreed to pay more than $75,000 in fines and
restitution. The money reimbursed 171 customers in seven states for
veterinary bills.
> Under the settlement, Puppy Love, now known as CC Pets, must have every
dog tested and treated by a veterinarian - a measure that exceeds existing
state law for other kennels. (Pennsylvania law requires only that kennels
be inspected once a year, and that the dogs be keep "healthy and free of
disease," Bender said.)
> The worst puppy mills, according to Williams and Humane Society
investigators, pen up young females and force them to mate from their first
day in heat. They then mate every time they're in heat until they grow too
old to produce litters.
> That means churning out litters twice a year, maybe for up to seven
years, and often with some unhealthy results, said Bob Reder, who conducted
undercover puppy mill probes for the Humane Society throughout the 1990s.
> "To breed a dog properly requires a medical checkup to see if the animal
is healthy enough to give birth to healthy litters. That is never done by
these breeders. They breed every dog, so you get sick offspring," said
Pamela Shot, a Morris County, N.J., veterinarian and activist.
> She cited congenital defects, such as bad hips and poor eyesight, and
allergies that develop years later. Temperament problems also occur.
> In response to problem breeders, New Jersey and Pennsylvania adopted
"Puppy Lemon Laws." The lawsuit against Puppy Love was based on such a law.
> The lemon law requires anyone who sells a sick dog to cover costs and
veterinary expenses of buyers, according to Nina Austenberg of the
Mid-Atlantic Regional Office of the Humane Society of the United States.
> But she said the laws do little to solve health problems that develop a
year or more after a purchase, and they do not address the proliferation of
unwanted pets caused by puppy mills.
> "The point is, we don't need more domestic pets; we don't need people
churning out hundreds and thousands of dogs," Austenberg said.
> Whether labeled kennels or puppy mills, the driving force behind dog
farms is money.
> "It's a good income. It's a great income, no doubt about that, and it
helps a lot," said John Stoltzfus, Betty's husband, as he leaned inside the
doorway of his barn.
> He offered no apologies for the reddish boxers that barked and darted
around his wire dog-runs. They turn out most of the 100 to 150 puppies he
and Betty sell annually, for $600 apiece.
> "But this is no puppy mill. You can't call this a puppy mill," John
Stoltzfus said. "These dogs have human contact, they are out in the open
air, they can run. They aren't penned up all the time in chicken coops, and
they have names."
> Of course, he added, not every kennel here is run this way.
> "Some places ... may have a little going on in a field, something
planted. Maybe a few dairy cows. But you go there, and you see those real
puppy mills - dogs in cages stacked up high. Hundreds of them," John
Stoltzfus said.
> Reder, the Humane Society investigator, called the dogs a "cash crop"
for farmers.
> "Why work from dawn to dusk plowing 50 acres every day when you can make
the same money just by setting up an old trailer on half an acre and
raising hundreds of dogs?" he asked.
> (FIRST OPTIONAL TRIM BEGINS)@
> More Amish breeders are treating it like a volume business and selling
entire litters to pet shops or brokers who act as middlemen. For the
biggest breeders, Williams and Reder said, a dog's average price can drop
to $50-$500, depending on breed and the broker's cut.
> John Stoltzfus, who prefers selling directly to the public, wouldn't
reveal his overhead costs. But he did say it wasn't much - just the price
of dog food and an occasional veterinarian visit when a dog gets sick.
> Most dog farms are tucked away on winding country roads. But the kennels
do advertise in newspapers and on the Internet.
> Yes, the farmers of Amish country are online - or at least working with
outside partners who advertise their puppy crops on Web sites.
> (FIRST OPTIONAL TRIM ENDS)@
> Daniel and Verna Esh, whose daughter greeted visitors at Clearview
Kennel last week in Ronks, declined to be interview for this story, but
photographs of their puppies grace several Web sites touting "cute
Yorkies," "cute bichons," "cute pugs" and "cute Maltese."
> Like the Eshes, most farmers didn't want to talk about their dogs,
particularly now that protests have forced their operations to be licensed
and inspected for health and abuse violations by county, state and federal
agencies.
> "Folks really don't like to talk about it much because there just
doesn't seem to be any point to it. Some of these animal people drive
through Lancaster County and call everything they see a puppy mill," said
John Stoltzfus.
> The pressure for additional reforms continues.
> Two weeks ago, during the U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on a bill
introduced by two Pennsylvania senators, animal rights advocates told
horror stories about breeding operations across the county.
> The legislation would add retail dog operations to the licensing and
inspection authority of the federal Department of Agriculture, which
already regulates wholesale dog sales.
> Nancy Perry, vice president of government affairs for the Humane Society
in Washington, D.C., said the "legislation has tremendous support on both
sides of the aisle." A new draft, which will incorporate modifications
recommended by activists and kennel operators during the hearings, is
expected to be presented soon to the Senate Agriculture Committee.
> (SECOND OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)@
> The commotion has sent most large kennel operations into their barns, or
behind them, and out of sight.
> Nathan Myer's farm in Lititz is no exception.
> His golden retrievers are tucked into stacks of rabbit hutches and
secluded in a two-story cement building at the end of his driveway.
> While out of sight, his operations are hardly out of mind.
> Just a mile down the winding road, a large lawn sign offers a protest:
"No More Puppymills."
> It is posted outside an upscale cul-de-sac of stone houses. It is the
work of a new local organization called unitedagainstpuppymills.com. It was
formed in March by new residents.
> To the farmers, it is one more intrusion into a world where dogs are
viewed no differently than cows, chickens or any other livestock.
> "They (the outsiders) see their animals like people, give them the run
of the house and let them jump on the bed at night - and that's fine," John
Stoltzfus said. "I've nothing against that. But out here, we're farmers,
and our animals are animals."

> PH END MURRAY
> (Brian T. Murray is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
He can be contacted at bmurray(at)starledger.com.)
> AP-NY-11-24-05 2358EST
Click to expand...
 
Wow, now I'm starting to see the BIG picture! This is a lot of information! Plus, I knew we had a microchip compatibility problem here in the US, but was not aware of it in Ireland. Thanks for all the info - I am in the process of digging a little deeper right now researching this.
Thanks again!
 
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