Pet shop oys
Puppy mills are harrowing trauma factories with pipelines to pet stores. Odin made it out—and may his story steel our spines in the fight to Adopt, Don’t Shop.
We in the dogiverse know puppy mills are the absolute worst. The conditions the dogs are kept in are, to put it mildly, inhumane. They don’t get proper veterinary care, they have severe behavioral trauma and adult dogs who are no longer useful for breeding are “discarded.” The list goes on.
The millers that our contact, Grace, deals with are not the worst ones—at least they give the dogs to her when they’re no longer “of use,” rather than the unthinkable alternative.
A couple of weeks ago, Grace put out an SOS. An 8-week-old puppy at a mill in Pennsylvania had an eye injury that wasn’t responding to treatment and he needed an enucleation (removal of the eye). Grace asked if we could get him the next day. Kendra, ever the dynamo, said she would be there—at 7:30 a.m.
When she texted us after picking up the dog, she said she was shaking. The injury had happened five weeks before. The miller didn’t notice until the vet came and saw the condition of the eye. He gave her some eye drops, but the eye continued to protrude for FIVE MORE WEEKS!
Kendra said the woman was talking about what a lovely day it was as she was handing over this puppy in urgent need of medical care. Kendra said she had to keep her cool and not go off on this miller, for fear of pissing her off and preventing us from rescuing more needy pups in the future.
Unspeakable negligence
Grace said this miller had warnings from the Animal Control Officer, because she had released dogs before 8 weeks. Her response? Just let this little pup suffer until it was safe for her business to turn him over. The first photos Kendra sent were a knife in my heart. How could anyone let this happen?
He was immediately taken to the emergency ophthalmologist. They didn’t remove the eye because he was too young to undergo anesthesia; they wanted to wait until he was 12 weeks old. And since the eye wasn’t infected, they felt it would be fine to wait. They gave him drops to relieve the pain.
The puppy didn’t have a name so Kendra’s husband, Willy, came up with Odin after the one-eyed Norse god. Willy is famous around NEBTR for his naming skills—sometimes great, sometimes heavy on the cheese. He wanted to call one foster Frodo Waggins, which almost cost him all future naming privileges.
Wee Odin was unbearably cute and responding well to the drops. It’s amazing how a dog’s personality changes when they’re out of pain. He was now playful and adorable.
The Adopt, Don’t Shop mantra
It’s so hard to see a dog needlessly suffering. But this is what happens in puppy mills and why we never stop crowing “Adopt, Don’t Shop.” So often we speak to people who bought their dog at a pet store—those dogs all come from puppy mills—and the dog has serious, costly medical problems that no new owner should have to deal with, and no animal should have to suffer through.
About a week after Kendra had Odin she told us he was now able to close that eye when he slept. Suddenly, there was new possibility that Odin would be able to keep his eye (but then would we have to change his name?). Sure enough, at his next medical visit, the vet said it was so much better that it would be able to stay. Amazing news, but imagine if he’d been taken to a vet when it happened? He could have been spared all of that trauma and maybe retained his full sight. (They think he can see shadows now.)
It’s unbelievable to me that it’s still so hard to get mills outlawed. I know we live in a time when cruelty is so pervasive, but it doesn’t make it any less stunning. And at every turn it needs to be called out. Several states (including New York) have passed laws to shut down mills, but so much more is needed. If you’re interested, this is a state-by-state chart.
And please be the annoying friend who tells everyone not to shop at pet stores or any of the places puppy mill dogs filter to; that includes those massive puppy websites. Grace has been working to outlaw puppy mills in Pennsylvania; here’s how you can support her work to enact Victoria’s law.
And if you’re interested in Dog$piracy, the documentary that Grace worked on to expose the awful truths of puppy mills, it’s available to watch on AmazonUS, AmazonCA, Hoopla, GooglePlay and YouTube.
Now, look at how cute Odin is. He had a rough start, but he’s going to have the best life. And it appears he’s going to be adopted by a vet tech in the ophthalmologist office! A lifetime of free eye care. Yay, Odin!
oy to pet shops, supplied by puppy mills.
YAY ODIN! What an important story. FCK puppy mills. My rescue was the best thing to happen to me. And I'll do it again.