SHUT DOWN PUPPY MILLS

Dear Ms Gillard

The smell of a puppy factory is unforgettable, an overwhelming stench of urine and faeces. The simultaneous barking of hundreds of dogs creates a wall of sound that makes it hard to think, let alone converse.

Factory farmed dogs get no veterinary intervention when they need respite from their pain and suffering. They live in filth, sometimes without adequate food or water. Their coats are often matted with faeces and stained with urine. Ear infections and ear mite infestations are common as is painful dental and gum disease.

Many dogs slowly go insane. They spin in circles or pace back and forth in their cells, some never see daylight, and the outside world is a foreign place to them. Should any dogs be lucky enough to be rescued once outside in the open they still circle and pace as if they are still incarcerated. They shy away from human hands as they have never known kindness. The dogs are deprived of even their basic needs as the current law is only concerned with food shelter and water. The dog’s psychological and social needs are ignored on factory farms.

Breeding dogs are kept in large dirt pens surrounded by electric fencing wire to stop them escaping, the same way farmers keep cattle. Some factory farms keep their dogs hidden away in large tin sheds with rows and rows of concrete stalls, the same way farmers keep pigs. Whilst other dogs are kept inside sheds in rows of raised wire floor cages just like egg producers keep battery hens. Puppy factories and backyard breeders can have 30-40 dogs and some have up to up to 700 animals on one property. The dogs are kept in these horrific conditions for their entire lives and are constantly bred to supply pet shops and internet sites with cute fluffy puppies. Once the breeding dogs are no longer profitable, and after years of confinement and continual pregnancy they are taken out of their cages, pens and sheds and they are killed. Our best friends forgotten.

This large scale extreme cruelty that takes place day after miserable day in the name of commerce. Puppy factory farmers, pet shops, puppy brokers, veterinarians, advertisers and even the Government all take their blood money from this horrendous cruelty.

The puppy buying public are misled at every turn and picture the tiny pup they have just purchased has come from a loving environment — when nothing could be further from the truth.

There are hundreds of puppy factories in Australia confining thousands of dogs right now.

Please end the suffering.