Puppy mills are production facilities which breed dogs in large quantities for the commercial purposes. Some cruel people leave those animals in puppy mills unattended for the purpose of having new babies. However, some people do not know about the seriousness of puppy mills and pet stores. What is the reality of puppy mills and how should we eradicate this reality?

According to the Korean Animal Protection Society (KAPS), there are approximately 3,000 puppy mills which are running illegally. What is worse about these puppy mills is that the places are inappropriate for the animals to live. They live in confined cages and more than two dogs live in these small cages, so there is not enough space for them to run and even move. Under these poor conditions, dogs get stressed, suffer from skin diseases, arthritis, and numerous other diseases.

Babies born at puppy mills are then packed into small boxes lined with newspapers and sent to auction houses. At auction houses, people put a price to the puppies, and they are sold to a person who bids the highest price. The person who receives the puppy checks its condition as if they were checking general products. Finally, those puppies go to the pet store and wait for people to buy them.

According to animal protection law, the place where animals live should be well-lit and well-ventilated. However, most of the puppy mills are containers or vinyl greenhouses, where there is not enough light and air. Furthermore, according to law, puppy mills should
maintain a clean condition, but immoral people never clean up their muck, which leads to a stink and maggots growing. Animals which are more than two months old can be sold legally, but only 30 to 40 days old puppies are also sold through illegal routes.

In California, U.S.A., it prohibited citizen from buying animals from pet stores and it only allowed people to adopt abandoned animals. However, in Korea, there is no specific punishment for buying animals from pet stores; when they are exposed, they only need to pay some fine. This kind of light punishment does not change those people’s behavior. Even though the animal protection law has been revised, most people do not follow the rules. As they did in California, Korea has to strengthen the law not to buy animals from pet stores, but rather encourage them to adopt abandoned animals.