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The Amish and puppy mills…Part 2
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It was about this time of year when a former resident of Southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was on the way to visit her brother in Kirkwood. She hadn’t lived there in 30 years, but grew up in this Amish Country and worked on her family’s dairy farm until leaving for college. As she turned on to a familiar road on the way to her destination, she noticed an Amish buggy
stopped alongside the road. The horse drawing it was on the ground obviously suffering.
The poor animal was bleeding from both its front and rear legs and from its mouth. And it was terrified, still being attached to the buggy in a painful position. A pre-teen Amish boy said the horse was just a “balker,” but it was clear that it was injured and in distress. For our traveler, this would turn out to be a most terrifying incident that appears to contradict everything the Amish profess to believe in.
The lady asked about the horse’s condition but the Amishman replied that it was just a “stubborn” horse. He then began to kick the animal viciously in the head. When finally removed from the buggy, the horse attempted to get up unsuccessfully, after which it was brutally kicked again in the head and hindquarters. It was then that the Amishman suggested the woman should be on her way, and having no choice, she left while still observing another round of blows to the horse’s head from her rearview mirror.
Now this true story has nothing to do with puppy mills, but it does point out eloquently how the act of cruelty resides in a group of people who supposedly live their lives protected by deeply religious beliefs. For those who refuse to believe the accounts of Amish cruelty toward animals, specifically in their puppy mills, this woman’s testament of an actual animal abuse she witnessed should make you think twice before going to a Phoenix pet store for your next puppy. Remember, 98 percent of their dogs come from puppy mills.
But Pennsylvania and Missouri aren’t the only states known for being so prolific in their abundance of 
puppy mills. Iowa has its share, and my wife, Barbara, fostered a cat from Des Moines that came from one of these kennels. When she traveled there to bring Apollo home, we had no inkling of the hostility he harbored, until he finally took it out on my wife. Later we found out the little guy had been raised with all kinds of animals, some even wild, including a monkey. Not until Barbara worked her miracles using the Tellington TTouch method did Apollo settle down into a normal life.
Phoenix does have its Amish community, mostly in Sunnyslope. And my sources tell me that they do not operate puppy mills; word is they are snowbirds. But this could change, and it already has for our Four-Corners neighbor to the northeast. The Amish have decided they want to get away from the crowds and high land prices of the East, and they are already settling in Southern Colorado. Arizona is just a stones-throw away, and, like Colorado, we have no puppy mill laws, according to Laura Petersen of Paws Across America.
Iowa, at least, is trying to pass a law to control puppy mills. That’s much too charitable. What we need is a grassroots movement to outlaw all puppy mills and backyard breeders, as well as others who share in this abuse and cruelty in the raising of animals. Check the groups below under “More Info.”
Please leave your comments or e-mail me: jack.dundiv@cox.net
For more info:
Petential Paths/Tellington TTouch
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