Puppy Mill

I believe citizen action happens when you least expect it. Ten years ago I adopted a puppy from a rescue in Wisconsin. Shortly after having him, I noticed that he had medical problems that were going to be fatal within a year. After doing more research and finding out everything that the rescue knew about the dog, it was the beginning of understanding what the term, “puppy mill” meant. I had never heard of this before and soon realized that they were large scale, torturous dog breeding systems. A puppy mills only goal is profit and greed at the expense of the health of the dogs and their eventual unsuspecting owners. After discovering all the appalling ways that these animals are abused and the practices used in puppy mills, I began a journey to try to do everything I could to change this horrible institution and bring it to an end. I started by educating others and writing my congressional representatives. In 2011, Wisconsin did pass the Dog Seller License Law. This it is not the answer as it only imposed minimum standards and licensing instead of bringing this heinous practice to an end. The other citizen action step I took was to begin fostering, rehabilitating and rehoming puppy mill survivors. To this date I have rehomed over fifty dogs and adopted three myself. I have rehabilitated dogs that were so frightened, they would lose control of their bodily functions, bite and squeal with any human touch. It takes time, patience and lots of love to try to teach …show more content…
I organized and ran a “Be the Match” Campaign to bring in as many people as possible to be swabbed. We cheek swabbed more than 100 people that day and with a silent auction I raised over $9000.00. In the end, “Team Tim, as I called my campaign” was able to find a match. Tim had his bone stem cell transplant and he is cancer free four years