We must dismantle the cruel puppy mill industry from every angle. Here’s how.

When we chose puppy mill cruelty as a core priority for our organization to address, we identified the sale of puppies at pet stores as the point of pressure where we could put a stop to the cruelty.

The sale of a puppy mill puppy from a pet store is a transaction that conceals the everyday cruelties of puppy mills, where dogs languish in cramped, dirty and bare enclosures, often without adequate protection from the elements. Largely invisible to the public, puppy mills tend to be ramshackle and isolated facilities tucked away on backroads, with only the occasional federal or state inspection report to give a glimpse of the wanton disregard for animals’ well-being.

Many stores do not list a puppy’s price on their websites, and some won’t even reveal the price over the phone; instead, they tell interested customers to come into the store. There, at the pet store, the positive emotions people experience at the sight of puppies for sale leave them vulnerable to misrepresentations about the animals’ origins, hollow and baseless assurances about their health, and financing rates so exorbitant they would make even a loan shark blush.

No one deserves to be duped, and so we have stood up for people whose enthusiasm for bringing a puppy into their home led them into situations in which they became victims of fraud and deceit. In all our campaigns, we make existing law work for animals, and consumer protection law represents a strong channel for redress. In recent years, working with local counsel, our Animal Protection Law team has assisted plaintiffs in lawsuits seeking to hold pet stores, such as those owned or franchised by national puppy-selling chain Petland, accountable for the harm they cause to animals and to their unwitting customers.

Our Animal Rescue Team responds on a regular basis to large-scale cruelty cases involving alleged puppy mills, and we make sure to share our findings with the public, with the media and with lawmakers. We do the same for our undercover investigations, helping to expose the cruel reality of life inside a puppy store, for scared, often sick, weeks-old puppies. Frequently, these investigations support our policy work, as was the case in Nevada this year, where Cindy Lou’s story fueled our campaign for the state bill to stop the sale of puppies in pet stores.

The passage of state laws and local ordinances is essential for long-term change, and our State Affairs and program teams are essential in making this happen. With eight states and over 500 localities banning the sale of puppies in pet stores, and many more to come, puppy mills are seeing their sales outlets (and thus profits) diminish. Our Animal Protection Law team has played a crucial role in fortifying the measures introduced in state legislatures and local municipalities. We help to defend those laws post-enactment, too. In instances when these local and state pet store laws have been challenged in court, not one has been struck down. Currently, Delaware’s Humane Pet Store Bill (HB 131) passed unanimously out of committee and heads to the House floor, and we’re determined that this will be yet another law on the books to crack down on the puppy mill industry.