Dear Future President:

I am a student in middle school. I think it’s great that you’re focusing on the bigger issues immigration, for example, you also need to look at the smaller issues too. Just imagine that you are a dog or a cat, whichever one you prefer, in a cage just wanting some loving attention and a good home; someone who would take good care of you but no, you're stuck in a cage your entire life, not even having loving human contact. Just breeding puppies over and over again with little time to recover, until you can’t anymore and get killed (2). The approaching president should get rid of puppy mills. Puppy mills are wrong, have you even seen what the inside looks like of a puppy mill? Did you know that puppies that come from puppy mills may have health issues? What about how filthy, unclean, and neglectful puppy mills are? These are just some of the facts that puppy mills have.

A Closer Look Inside of Puppy Mills.

Puppy mills are brutal to the animals they receive; woman dogs have little to no time to recover, and are bred right away, as well as they are bred twice a year (2). A puppy, when you buy one that may be one of the 1st times that it actually gets loving human contact. Puppies at puppy mills don’t get any loving human contact, so some dogs may be mean to people (3). At puppy mills they don’t care about the quality of a puppy only the quantity; so this means that if a puppy is sick it’s less likely to get medicine. “Even if a store claims that it doesn’t buy from puppy mills, there is a good chance that it buys puppies from a broker who does.” according the organization PETA. Dogs being bred at puppy mills could range from 10 to 1000. That’s a lot of dogs and yet they can’t let the dog have more recovery time. There are estimated 10,000 puppy mills in the U.S. 8 weeks is when a puppy from a puppy mill can be taken from their mom and be sold (3). Dogs and puppies from puppy mills can’t get the exercise they need, they are stuck inside of a cage until they get killed or get taken away to be sold. Puppy mills are barbarous to their dogs.

Puppies from Puppy Mills may Have Health Issues.

Puppies that come from puppy mills can have health issues. Puppy mills don’t care about the quality but the quantity; because of this defects are passed down from generation to generation. One reason why some of the dogs that have health issues, are because puppy mill owners don’t take out the sick dogs and it spreads (4). The health issues are epilepsy, heart disease, kidney disease, musculoskeletal disorders, endocrine disorders, blood disorders, deafness, eye problems, and respiratory disorders (3). This is just the most common health issues, not to mention what puppies come into stores with. Which is giardia, parvovirus, distemper, upper respiratory infections, kennel cough, pneumonia, mange, fleas, ticks, intestinal parasites, heartworm, and chronic diarrhea (3). These symptoms are inherited from their mothers (4) . These symptoms are just the most common, there could be more.

Filthy, Unclean, and Neglected.

Puppies and dogs that are in puppy mills are in filthy, and unclean environments. Not only that but the dogs are treated inhumanely. Woman dogs and their puppies are kept in a wired, with some wood cages, which hurts the dogs (2). The owners of puppy mills keep their dogs in cages because other than that it would be hard to keep all of them contained. Woman dogs are the most neglected; they are less likely to make it out of a puppy mill alive, because once they are not able to be bred, most likely they will be killed. The reason why they won’t be able to get a loving home after they can’t bred anymore is because they look horrible. These dogs are brutal to each other. One dog has sores on them from other dogs, or from other dogs sickness. Another dog has a leg bitten off from another dog (1). That doesn’t help the fact that they’re in filthy and unclean conditions dogs that have sores or their leg bitten off still probably don’t get the health care they need. It probably makes it worse by living in these conditions and making it have the chance to get in infected. These woman dogs are not living the live they deserve, instead they are living in an environment where they think nothing good can ever happen to them.

The future president should get rid of puppy mills. Puppy mills treat the dogs in a way they didn’t deserve, a dog that did nothing wrong could be treated this way. You might have thought that puppy mills weren’t that bad but, now you see how it is. They treat their dogs badly, puppies from puppy mills could be sick as well as the mother dogs. Puppy mills are filthy and unclean and dogs are getting neglected by the owners of the puppy mills and by other dogs (3); dogs that get hurt in puppy mills could get infections because of the environment around them. When you go to a puppy store and you think to yourself ‘ If I get this puppy I will be saving it from a life in the kennel’ but are you really saving a dog that needs it the most? Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to read my letter, I appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Natasha O.

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