Rated one of the top 10 states for puppy mills Texas has been a huge offender for decades. News of puppies being found running loose on roads, released by puppy mill owners, left to forage for themselves, or killed by traffic, made national news. Luckily, the Humane Society of North Texas stepped in and rescued all puppies that could be caught.
Texas now has new legislation in place, the Texas Puppy Mill Ban, that will force puppy mill operators to be prepared for licensing, surprise inspections, annual inspections, veterinary care provided, animal grooming and that the cages must be kept consistently clean. With the advent of proper legislation we can go forward with the hope that these mills, for all types of breeds and pets, will be forced out of business. Although, 305 Texas based AKC groups and 3 puppy mill owners sought to fight to have this legislation reversed in Austin, they failed; which created a big win for animal rights activists locally and around the US.
Animal mills are a sad sight for anyone to see. Of course, most people don’t see these mills, they see the mill produced pets in pet stores for sale! That is why animal rights activists are striving to shut down this connection as well. This commitment will help adoptable pets in shelters obtain homes as a person will only have the choice of “buying” a pet via an approved breeder or adopting.
And, shelters are not just full of mutts; there are lots of full breed pets in there as well.
The sad reality of puppy, and any other type of pet mills, is that the environment in which these animals are bred, and strive to survive in, is conducive to ailments we would wish on nobody much less a pet. Higher incident rates of cancer occurs in these mill pets as well as malformed hips, malocclusions, and higher incident rates for other diseases. These “imperfections” are not up to AKC standards; yet the AKC groups still fought this legislation with the belief that AKC breeders would be impacted as well by this legislation.
AKC standards use to be exceptionally high, as they should be, yet these 305 AKC groups, belonging to the Responsible Pet Owners Alliance, fought this legislation which makes no sense in the world of rescue. This alliance requests any rescue to become involved with their group; however many well known Texas rescues were not found on their list posted on their website.
Any breeder who has high and exacting standards, and truly loves animals, will not be impacted by this long awaited legislation. Thank you to Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) who authored this legislation which has already gone into effect.
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