Tails: Take the blinders off

Recently, channel 27 out of Madison, WI did a special report on the effects of the Puppy Mill Bill which was made into law earlier this year.

Sadly, what they reported was skewed and the reasons are sketchy… Some infer that Representative Pridemore was behind it in his tactics to overturn the new law and lessen the regulations placed on breeding facilities, shelters and rescues. I cannot say with certainty that this is true – but I can say I don’t doubt it.

But dirty politics aside, the sad truth is that the story itself was ill-reported. Ironically, the state vet, Dr. Bob Ehlenfeldt, told the reporter that to date the law has not shut down any puppy mills and suggested that he didn’t think there were that many bad places in the state.

This reporting is horrific to people like me who have had the unlikely experience of seeing dogs come out of the bad places Dr. Ehlenfeldt doesn’t seem to think exist in the state of WI.

Ironically, the segment aired on the same day that a fellow rescue friend had taken 7 dogs from an Amish Mill in WI where the Amish farmer explained that the new law was shutting him down and he would no longer be in the business.

I am more than disappointed in the reporting – and it pains me to know that the reporter even went so far as to interview Furry Babies – a known pet store selling puppies who come from mills across the country and WI. It would be like interviewing John Wayne Gacy on the death penalty.

I have two dogs, whom I took from the dredges of WI mills, and have spent long hours teaching them how to act like dogs and not fearful, empty shells of dogs who never knew a gentle hand or a kind act. Every day I get emails of more dogs being rescued from the bad places that reporters seem to go out of their way to report don’t exist – or state, “They aren’t as bad as people think.”

They ARE as bad- in fact for the common pet owner they would be worse than they imagined.

Bluntly, I am sick and tired of the crap, the BS, that the news spreads to unknowing consumers. I have no idea what it will take for WI and our country to realize the horror of puppy mills. The inhumanity that exists for the one animal we call, “man’s best friend.”

Right now, as I look to my left and see Penelope, a used up breeding female whose uterus was so overworked that it fell out during her spay, sleeping on a chair – I can’t help but me mad that people are saying these places don’t exist and that laws won’t make a difference.

Or, later today, when I take Thorp, a used up male breeding dog, to Clay School and he wears his Therapy Dog bandana and sits with kids who suffer from behavior challenges – I can’t help but shed a tear that dogs are not meant to be treated like caged animals. They have a higher purpose – one that WE taught them through years of domestication. We taught them to be our companions and yet in 2011 we treat them like trash.

Frustrating doesn’t describe the emotion felt by people like me – who have fought hard to free dogs of agony and neglect. It is so hard to know the truth and see it reported like a fallacy.

For years I tried to get my local paper to report the truth – to showcase an epidemic – but they said they couldn’t talk bad about a local business: Petland.

Apparently, channel 27 has its own reasons to save the public from the truth – maybe its political, maybe Furry Babies offered them a cut – truthfully, I don’t care the reason – I only care that thousands of dogs sit in wire cages with no hope of freedom and that I blame on the media.