First truck full of dogs arriving at emergency shelter location after they were seized from kennel facility.
The owners of a puppymill near Shawville say more than 500 dogs were taken away Friday after investigators showed up armed with a warrant. ANIMA-Quebec (an official agency established by dog breeders and the Ministry of Agriculture) arrived Friday morning to inspect the facility about 90 minutes northwest of Ottawa. They left, but came back to the Paws “R” Us facility around 4:30 p.m. with a warrant to seize all the dogs.
“I’m losing my livelihood and I’m very upset,” the owner of the facility was quoted as saying.
Inspectors told them they were seizing the dogs because the floors weren’t tiled and the kennel didn’t have proper ventilation. Though this was not even close to the first visit from ANIMA-Quebec or the former agency in charge of animal welfare The Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty. Between 2004 and 2006 investigators investigators had visited the kennel four or five times after receiving complaints about the condition of dogs. The SPCA did file any charges at that time, but asked for changes to be made. Each visit showed a slight improvement in conditions according to the agency.
The facility owners started breeding dogs on their former pig farm. Puppies at the kennel are kept in open pens in a barn and an addition to the farmhouse. Larger dogs are housed in a larger barn in pens lined with plastic material. The kennel does not screen the dogs for genetic disease and the kennel breeds about 30 types of dogs in its barns. She said the kennel provides walls for the dog pens and perforated floors to drain urine and feces.
In case people don’t understand the power and money that puppymills make this particular facility made headlines in 2006 when they sued a former customer of theirs for libel because of comments she made about the business on an Internet bulletin board. The customer bought a Labrador retriever from Paws “R” Us and had it euthanized two years later after it developed a heart murmur and painful hip dysplasia. Hip Displaysia is a genetic disease that can be significantly reduced if proper testing is done. Heart murmur is something that can also be screened for prior to breeding dogs. These tests would eat away at a very significant portion of their earnings and so are not done instead they continue to breed from the same dogs over and over again. The customer was given a new golden retriever as a replacement for her pet which had to be put to sleep for something that could have been prevented. This new puppy scratched itself until it bled because of itchy mange and was being treated for epilepsy. Because the facility makes so much money they cannot have people go around bad mouthing them on the internet and have the money to hire high priced lawyers and took the case to court. The customer was ordered to pay to pay $14,000 after a judge found she had libeled the commercial dog breeder online.
The facility and dogs might not have been in as poor condition as other mill busts we have seen recently but When you have 500 dogs at your facility and only the bare minimum of facilities and that only because your facility receives constant visits over the years from welfare agencies something is very wrong.
Sad news, but keep spreading it…maybe the general public will come to it’s senses one day. I try and educate, too, and have many a story to tell from people who contacted me looking for a kitten and think that it’s normal for ‘breeders’ not to permit them in their homes, or meet them at a rest stop with a pup/kitten at 8 weeks, or have the pup/kitten picked out for them, or not have an ‘adoption application’ or frequent photos of a pup/kitten they’re purchasing.
My cats have never been my livelihood, but a passion, somehow breeding felt like an extension of my career as a vet tech. In fact, now that I am retired from breeding, I have left my website up for education and to help those who have questions about the breed and cat health in general.
I only kept track twice how much I spent and how much I made in the course of a year. The year after my husband died, I spent $15,000 and made $5,000. Last year, I spent $10,000 and made $2,000 and that is without showing and of course, all the hours I ‘work’ for free and that includes the employee discounts I get where I work…
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
You should have seen the owner on CTV National News, crying her eyes out about how much she loves her dogs and all she ever wanted to do was sell puppies to happy homes and make people happy. She came across as cognitively impaired, seriously.