Shanti
True love
Member since 6/05 12653 total posts
Name:
|
Puppy Mill 4 part tv series
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 14:30:55 -0700
Subject: Four part TV series on puppy mill/pet store link -- Miami 2/7/06 --2/9/06
This week, NBC 6 in Miami is doing a four part series linking a popular pet store to hideous puppy mills. The first three parts are available on line. Those in Miami can watch the fourth part at 6pm this evening (Thursday February 9) with a follow-up at 11pm. The rest of us can watch it on the station's website tomorrow.
The first two pieces focus almost exclusively on consumer fraud -- people being sold sick puppies. But the third piece is terrific, letting people know what they support when they buy pet store puppies, regardless of the luck they have with the particular dog's health. It traces the puppies, which the Wizard of Claws pet store advertises as coming from fine breeders with exceptionally high standards, to a puppy mill in Missouri.
A tour of that puppy mill reveals frantic dogs in tiny cages. The voiceover says,
"We were shown dogs in cages, and these cowering dogs in a wooden hutch. These two are breeding stock. They look terrified of people. The water bowl as you can see right there is frozen over from the temperatures in the teens last night. There is no visible sign of heating element back there; they are shaking right now and the morning sun has already been up for about an hour or two."
Wayne Pacelle of HSUS is shown the video and comments, "What we saw in your video were dogs who were too frightened to come or were just manic, wanting attention. Their feet don't touch the earth, they are standing on wire. They're
engaging in repetitive motion and at the point of even going a little mad."
When the pet store owner is shown the video he says that the puppy mill should be reported and it is not a place he would buy a dog from. But indeed he is buying dogs from them and pretending to his customers that he is careful about the source of his dogs.
Hopefully many people watching this story and learning a little about puppy mills will not only steer clear of that particular pet store, Wizard of Claws, but will entirely
rethink the purchase of puppies. Jeff Burnside, the reporter doing the current series, has a piece coming up on our pet overpopulation crisis, and the NBC 6 website includes links to many humane societies and adoption groups.
Apparently the story is receiving much attention, some of it national, which makes it worthwhile for the station to stay focused on the issue with follow-ups. Please take a look at the story and send your thanks to Jeff Burnside and the NBC 6 team in Miami. Positive feedback for animal friendly stories gives reporters license to do more of them.
The print version of the story is on line at http://www.nbc6.net/nbc6investigates/6853389/detail.html
You can click the link to the video from that page, or the following will take you right to the video of the third part in the series, which includes the puppy mill footage:
http://tinyurl.com/8j3er
"NBC 6 Investigates" takes comments at
[email protected]. Please send a quick note.
|
