An Advocate's Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills
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An Advocate’s Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills An Advocate’s Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills 1 “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” —CORETTA SCOTT KING 2 An Advocate’s Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills CONTENTS INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................3 Why can’t we just ban all puppy mills? ....................................................................................................................3 PART ONE: BECOMING THEIR VOICE .............................................................................................5 Internet and media activism ......................................................................................................................................5 Creative outreach—Classified ads and the public ................................................................................................6 Be heard by lawmakers ...............................................................................................................................................7 Beginner projects ........................................................................................................................................................9 PART TWO: BOOTS ON THE GROUND .........................................................................................13 Puppy friendly pet stores program ...................................................................................................................... 13 Research puppy-selling pet stores ....................................................................................................................... 14 Organizing and leading a peaceful demonstration ........................................................................................... 16 Reporting a problem breeding operation ........................................................................................................... 18 PART THREE: PASSING AN ORDINANCE.......................................................................................23 Using local ordinances to combat puppy mills ................................................................................................... 23 2 An Advocate’s Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills Introduction This toolkit is really three guides in one. Part One is for advocates changes in the pet industry—such as laws requiring that all who want to educate themselves and others about puppy mills, commercial breeders be licensed or inspected—are incredibly speaking up for dogs and making connections to help spread the difficult to pass. This is due to many factors, including politicians word. Part Two is for advocates who want to tackle longer projects, who do not want to appear “anti-business,” intense lobbying by such as organizing a demonstration at a puppy retail store or work- industries that profit from puppy mills, the difficulty in getting ing with a store that might want to switch to offering rescued dogs decision-makers to agree on the definition of a puppy mill and a only. Part Three is for advocates who want to pass a local ordinance. fear of the “slippery slope” of regulation. Whether you have significant amounts of time to devote to help- Realistically, a problem as complex as puppy mills can’t be solved ing dogs, or just an hour or two a week, there are many ways to with one stroke of the pen. But incremental changes can help en- make a difference. This guide will help you launch projects both sure better care standards for breeding dogs, stronger oversight simple and complex. of the pet breeding industry and stronger penalties for those who mistreat man’s best friend. We must also rely on public edu- But first, the big question: cation and awareness to end the financial support of puppy mills by unwary consumers. “WHY CAN’T WE JUST BAN ALL PUPPY MILLS?” One of the first questions posed by new animal advocates is For a more in-depth discussion of puppy mills, why they exist, and why we can’t simply pass a law to ban all puppy mills. This is far what laws are in place to help stop them, please consider taking easier said than done. It’s difficult to define a puppy mill in a law our online course, Stopping Puppy Mills: Advocating for Change. COVER: MEREDITH LEE/THE HSUS; INSIDE COVER: MICHELLE RILEY/THE HSUS; OPPOSITE PAGE: JAMIE LINDER MEREDITH LEE/THECOVER: HSUS; OPPOSITE PAGE: MICHELLE RILEY/THE HSUS; INSIDE COVER: and to cover all the bases. And even laws that require moderate An Advocate’s Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills 3 4 An Advocate’s Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills PART ONE: Becoming their voice INTERNET AND MEDIA ACTIVISM season, for example, ask if you can blog about the importance of not buying puppies from pet stores as impulse gifts. Friend us and follow us! Be informed! Stay up to date with the ever-changing news about puppy mills by following and sharing the social media pages of the Keep an eye on websites where puppies are offered for sale. Not all HSUS’s Stop Puppy Mills campaign and similar groups. In addition of them will allow posts from the general public, but if you see such to “liking” the Facebook page, make sure it actually shows up in ads (for example, in a neighborhood forum or an online classified your newsfeed by selecting the pull-down list under the “Follow- service for your local newspaper), do what you can to help steer ing” button, selecting “In Your Newsfeed,” and selecting “See people in the right direction. Be polite and seek to inform, not First.” This ensures that you are immediately notified of news and accuse. A sample posting may read: updates related to puppy mills. A puppy is not a sweater! The Humane Society of the United States Find us on: recommends never buying a puppy over the Internet. Many puppies ɠ Facebook: facebook.com/hsuspuppymills sold online are from puppy mills and many are sick. To avoid puppy ɠ Twitter: twitter.com/HSUSPuppyMills mills, always visit your breeder in person—or better yet, adopt from ɠ Instagram: instagram.com/hsus_stoppuppymills a shelter. For more information, go to humanesociety.org/puppy. Be a resource online Have you checked the shelter? Before buying a puppy, please remem- The internet is a great tool to reach animal lovers and help educate ber there are many animals, including purebreds, waiting for homes them in a friendly way—before they make the mistake of buying a at your local animal shelter or breed rescue group. For more infor- puppy from a bad breeder. Get active in internet or social media mation, go to shelterpetproject.org or humanesociety.org/puppy. groups and use your knowledge to help educate others who are thinking about buying a dog. You can also get to know the people who manage sites for your local yard sale/classifieds groups and Letters to the editor and newspaper opinion columns are encourage them to make it a policy within the group not to allow a time-honored way of getting the word out to the public ads for pet sellers. about puppy mills. But increasingly, more and more peo- ple are getting their news online, and often commenting If people are interested in buying a dog, let them know where they and interacting with news topics in real time. Meanwhile, can find shelters or breed rescues. Share our video on three things puppy mills are increasingly relying on internet sales humanesociety.org/videos to know before purchasing a dog (see ), to hide the true nature of their business. Hundreds of or direct them to local shelters or to the HSUS’s Good Breeder thousands of puppies are sold each year through internet Checklist at humanesociety.org/breeders. classified ads or direct website sales. Pet lovers who are uninformed about puppy mills often think nothing of Just remember to keep the dialogue calm, factual and respectful; no one loses listeners faster than a person who resorts to rudeness buying a dog from a “breeder’s” website, having no idea or foul language to make a point. that the cute photos and misleading statements on a pro- fessional-looking website often have no basis in reality. Blogger outreach and classifieds You can help steer consumers away from puppy mills by Have friends who blog? See if they’d be willing to let you “guest” being a voice in online social and news communities. OPPOSITE PAGE: JJASON MICZEK/AP JJASON THE HSUS FOR IMAGES OPPOSITE PAGE: blog about an issue you are passionate about. If it’s the holiday An Advocate’s Guide to Stopping Puppy Mills 5 BECOMING THEIR VOICE Online media ɠ People who choose to get their dog from a breeder should Many online news sources allow visitors to comment on articles make sure to meet the breeder in person and see for them- on their websites or social media pages. If you see a story involving selves how the puppy and his or her parents are living. See dogs, puppy mills or pet stores that sell dogs, use comments to the Good Breeder Checklist at humanesociety.org/puppy. spread the word about alternatives such as breed rescue groups and animal shelters. Include a link to sites with further info, such as Join a local effort humanesociety.org/puppymills. ɠ Join the HSUS’s online community at humanesociety.org to receive notices and alerts about bills that are intro- Some suggested talking points are below: duced in your state. The HSUS also has many state-specif- ɠ Two million puppies are born in puppy mills each year in the U.S. ic Facebook groups to help you keep informed about local measures and events.