by Robbie Wilson Engle

Created on: August 19, 2009   Last Updated: August 20, 2009

You walk into a local pet store to purchase a new puppy you have been waiting weeks to get. Over these past few weeks you've found yourself daydreaming at work about the various options of obtaining your new dream dog: local breeders, pet stores, online purchasing, and the humane society. You finally decide on this store because of its convenience (plus you just couldn't resist the cute little puppies you saw bouncing around in the window display while driving by the other day). The chiming of the bell as you walk through the threshold seems to be a cue for a wave of yapping and barking coming at you. All you can see are tons of tiny little four-legged bodies flinging themselves up against the side of their cages, tails wagging high and proud. Casually, you browse throughout the store trying to conceal the intense excitement swimming inside. While nonchalantly skimming over the aisles you see a face staring up that suddenly strikes you. Not even aware of what magnetism is drawing you towards this specific dog, you just can't break the concentration of those piercing eyes staring into you. Unaware to most of us, a world of inhumanity and pain has been firsthand witnessed and experienced through those effervescent eyes. I am speaking of the disgusting world of puppy mills.

Dogs love affection; they place it first on their very short list of needs. (J.R. Ackerley, Woof Pgs. 34-35) Unfortunately, dogs receive none of this in these dreadful places. Although I have never visited a puppy mill, I am aware of the downright torture that takes place there. In my belief, torture is defined as never giving someone a chance, and that is just what is happening to these innocent dogs. Newborn puppies that have just spent 8 10 weeks crammed in the womb are born into a world in which they are once again immediately confined. Sadly, when these puppies are born they never get the opportunity to experience any freedom. They are quickly shoved into small wire cages, in which most of them live out the remainder of their lives. Before these mills owners can shut these pups in for good, they first tattoo an expiration date on their ears, as if they to be forgotten like spoiling food into the back of a fridge. After years and years of force breeding and imprisonment, these expired dogs are then wrongfully euthanized, generally non-humanely. As the next dogs in line await their final hour all they can think is, What did I do to deserve to live my life like this? Through these mills,

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