On November 20th, during a news conference, The Humane Society of the United States revealed the results of an 8-month investigation into Petland Inc., the country's largest chain of puppy-selling pet stores. The results reveal that many Petland stores across the country are supporting cruel puppy mills, even while telling unsuspecting customers that the dogs come only from good breeders.
There are approximately 140 Petland stores in the U.S., selling tens of thousands of puppies each year. In the largest-ever puppy mill investigation, HSUS investigators visited 21 Petland stores and 35 breeders and brokers who sold puppies to Petland stores. Investigators also reviewed interstate import records of an additional 322 breeders, USDA reports and more than 17,000 individual puppies linked to Petland stores.
According to Stephanie Shain, director of The HSUS Stop Puppy Mills Campaign, "Petland stores investigated by The Humane Society of the United States are perpetuating the abusive puppy mill industry, where dogs are treated not like pets, but like a cash crop. They know that consumers won't stand for the cruelty inherent in mass-breeding facilities, so they make outrageous claims to hide the reality that the dogs came from puppy mills. People have a right to know exactly what they are buying, but the real victims are the breeding dogs who are confined to life in a cage for as long as people are duped into buying their puppies."
This is the latest in a series of HSUS investigations exposing abuses at puppy mills, dog auctions and pet stores around the country. The new Petland investigation revealed:
- Despite assurances by Petland staff and on their corporate website that the company knows its breeders and deals only with those who have "the highest standards of pet care," many Petland puppies come from massive commercial breeders in Missouri and other Midwestern states, where hundreds of breeding dogs are packed into cramped, barren cages
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