The plight of puppy farm mums - when motherhood means suffering

Mother’s Day is meant to be a time of joy and appreciation. But for the countless canine mothers cruelly trapped and exploited in 'puppy farms', it's a day of suffering like any other.

Puppy farms are dog-breeding facilities operated purely for profit. Likened to battery hens, the breeding dogs are kept in cages or pens for their entire life for the sole purpose of producing puppies for the pet shop, internet and overseas markets. The female dogs chosen as 'breeding stock' are repeatedly impregnated from a very young age -- forced to give birth to litter after litter -- until they are no longer fertile.

In Australia these farms have anything from 20 to 1,000 breeding females who are kept constantly pregnant or lactating in order to keep up with demand. These animals typically live in small cages and receive no medical treatment or human attention of any kind. And perhaps most heartbreaking of all is that when they can no longer produce puppies, they are often killed.

Puppy farms are legal, as long as the proprietors meet the minimum standard of care. The law is different in each state and territory, but usually requires that the dog can stand up, turn around and lie down and that the pen has a partial roof.

The dogs can remain in these cages their entire life - there is no requirement for socialisation, exercise, grooming or bathing and certainly no requirement for love.

The health, behaviour and temperament problems found in puppies from puppy farms are well documented and for each cute, fluffy litter of puppies seen in a pet shop window their mother is likely to be suffering the fate of a puppy farm dog.

This Mother's Day take the time to learn about puppy farms and spread the word to help bring a better life to these puppy farm 'mums'.

Images courtesty of Prisoners for Profit blog. A huge thank you for Debra for allowing us use of these pictures from her latest puppy farm investigation.