First. Place. When they 1st started. My few friends and i started going around to the males in iowa experiencing it firsthand so our local store is diabetics pet shop and we went in there and we saw the puppies and asked them and at 1st they were like from the breeder and the center they were very open about it and so we asked if we could contact them and so they gave us their card and we made an appointment and we went and we visited the mill and it was it was awful. And i are in general we have the negative temperatures and the very very High Temperature the dogs are forced to live in 247 and so our protests are every single week and no matter what the weather today we are very thankful to positive temperatures when i left my house this morning with the wind chill it was negative fortys this is cold its not our coldest it is average winter high or low but usually our protagonists are between 2 people and 10 people every lead just depends on the weather and what we all have going on it is a priority of everybody we have several people that travel from out of town to get here 2 years is a long time to think that weve been in front of here this is where we hang out young people hang out in front of 5 stars on saturdays and we only have to be out here for 2 hours and the dogs are have to be out here all the time the dogs in the shelters are. The. Press different. And i think its going to be in a trance people become more aware of what what a puppy mill means and what these dogs in the store actually do or i like to say that its a ripple of fact if i educate one person who knows how many other people they will town and. So if we can all educate our Little Corner of the earth that someday we will not have these problems because once the public really knows whats going on they will not support. No matter how upset i am i know the dogs have a works so i never even consider giving up etc been an option and i will use my voice because. I will keep doing it and al there are no more money. Until recent changes the only federal regulations governing commercial dog breeding date back to the passing of the Animal Welfare act or a. W. A. In 1966 the a. W. A. Defined a commercial dog breeder as one who maintains 4 or more breeding female dogs and sells the offspring into wholesale channels any breeder or Retail Pet Store engaged in the direct sale of dogs to the public was exempt from the a. W. A. Let me clarify that a little bit the Animal Welfare act only requires that we do annual inspections on Research Facilities so there is no requirement for the other entities that we regulate. But every facility thats either licensed or registered with us is assigned a minimum inspection frequency we have a risk based Inspection System so based on the risk of finding noncompliance risk of Animal Welfare concerns the facility may be assigned a frequency of once a year twice a year 3 times a year whatever that system a science to it the a. W. A. Does not require yearly vet check ups access to exercise socialization or protections against extreme heat or cold and allows both wire flooring and stackable cages. For the Animal Welfare act is passed and it requires humane standards of care for dogs raised in commercial breeding establishment and they require as of the department of agriculture go out and inspect these facilities and make sure that theyre complying with these regulations i always refer to the regulations that we have today with the u. S. D. A. As survival standards if you comply with the centers of care the dogs will probably but is it humane know right now in the u. S. D. A. Regulations a dog 6 inches a living space bigger than the dog itself and youre talking about a dog is living in that space for its entire lives and the department of agriculture really is there promote american agriculture its not an impartial sort of entity that is neutrally overseeing the laws and for years u. S. D. A. Was allied with the very interests that it was supposed to regulate including these folks within the Agriculture Sector who started raising puppies and started operating puppy mills never in the state of ohio has any breeder been forced out of this. Long. Standing violations of the Animal Welfare act if they choose to no longer pay u. S. D. A. License its because they chose not to renew their license not because inspectors came out to actually revoke that license i never heard of a regulator coming to pennsylvania no one was getting shut down the feeling of the industry was very we dont have to worry about it so frankly their doors were pretty open the so often if a breeder some violation of the Animal Welfare act they get a slap on the hands and when they get a slap on the hands. Off and it is months following the violation and theyre given an opportunity to correct the violation and sometimes it may be days. Before that inspector returns to ensure that the violations been corrected on its very rare that they will be given a fine that is truly impactful to their bottom line so they factor it in as a cost of doing business in the Animal Welfare it has been horrendous in the end for many many years and just 2000 to your own office of Inspector General issued a very doable report on how terrible their inspections were they documented inspectors walking by dogs and just leaving of their you know that writing up these people and putting them out of business to spend really really bad the Inspector General found several major problems with them foresman of the a. W. A. Including finding a massive loophole that allowed breeders to sell puppies over the internet without a license and delaying confiscation of suffering animals to give violators a final opportunity to take corrective action before confiscation can occur even in extreme cases where animals are dying its called the Animal Welfare or you know its not the kennel really well for it its the animals and yes even some of the good inspectors were there inspectors in made sure that the building was clean and they had good shelter from the extreme. Temperatures but the dogs of. The photo a lot of the focus of that. Was on inconsistency in some of the things our inspectors were citing and the length of time it took to get to enforcement so we put some an intensified training in place for our inspectors some a different oversight of our inspection process and worked with our force from branch to find different ways to expedite the enforcement process since and weve also worked on some nontraditional or non Regulatory Solutions if we can help somebody come into compliance without having to resort to enforcement action and get those animals in a better welfare situation quicker and thats what were going to do. Since being elected in 1907 senator dick durbin has introduced legislation in every session that would dramatically improve the lives of dogs in commercial kennels and would close the internet loophole. The way people sold dogs changed and has it changed it was no longer going to the individual breeder oh longer just going to the store now was online sales and they were exempt from the kind of regular inspection that would protect the puppies and their mothers so we had to make sure that our bill really filled the scale up and provided the protection for those online sales in the pups that were part of it even in the midst of the hyper partisanship of the u. S. Senate on the issue of puppy mills senator durbin found willing partners on the republican side of the aisle my 1st cosponsor was Rick Santorum one of the most conservative republicans from pennsylvania he was on this bill with me and then after he left the senate i had senator vitter from louisiana another very conservative senator so it turns out that when it comes to humane treatment of animals and dogs in particular this is very bipartisan if a bill like pups went to the floor of the house of the senate it would be an overwhelming yea vote for the measure it would be 9095. 00 yes votes in the senate you know be 400. 00 or so yes votes in the house out of 430. 00 but the problem is on an a wall for legislation the congress is that many of the bills get track to the house and Senate Committees on agriculture and those committees are populated by the most rural lawmakers aligned with the biggest agribusiness interests in the United States. Based on ive been arguing for the last decade or so. Crisis is both a structural crisis and it is also a crisis of state will get in to see in a capitalist edge money and this and then it did not cause that crisis. It only made it they asked lee. And we deal with it so the whole world and its going to aggravate all of the reds and dimensions of the crisis the Health Emergency relearns good were still going to be left with this dual crisis of structural the structural crisis of the economy and the political crisis of state budget in the sea and. Sell bananas is to put on a chain on us going to continue a little spot thats me a and. Now theyre going to own that it is a. Bunch of old episode off but. Just a little earlier still. You know but lets show that were still a lot of folks out. There some will push. A little you put its not just on cuts the last thing you will not on one level so that is to stop and it takes 2. 00 to 3. 00. Throughout the years members of the Senate Agriculture committee have received enormous Campaign Contributions from agriculture giant including month sento tyson smithfield and cargill the sides these direct contributions each of these corporations spent millions of dollars each year lobbying congress. Seemingly afraid of how a theoretical slippery slope protecting dogs in puppy mills could hurt their operation and corporate agriculture sided with commercial breeders get loads of Campaign Cash from these. Agribusiness groups because thats the funnel for the legislation that these agribusiness groups want who doesnt want to protect dogs and yet somehow interest to find a way to twisted around and make you scared into voting against those commonsense positive Public Policy is they typically oppose any Animal Welfare legislation because they think theyre going to be next and they think that if you have a society that is incrementally building Animal Welfare standards its eventually going to lead society to examine their thought even with strong public support for commonsense changes to the Animal Welfare act none of these bills were allowed out of committee recognizing the original intentions of the a. W. A. And the advent of commercial breeders selling exclusively over the internet the u. S. D. A. Moved on their own to update the regulations so the administration seeing the enormous number of senators and u. S. Representatives backing of legislation and getting hundreds of thousands of comments from h. S. U. S. Members and other Animal Welfare advocates they finally passed a rule to bring these internet sellers under the Regulatory Authority of us to before the change in regulations nearly 7500 facilities across the United States were subject to inspection. Besides commercial breeding facilities this includes Research Facilities zoos circuses marine parks transport vehicles television and Film Productions involving animals state fairs camel right petting zoos elephant right and traveling and or roadside zoos. In 2013115 u. S. D. A. Inspectors conducted between 1011000 inspections on these various facilities approximately 3000 of those inspections were conducted on commercial dog breeding facilities since this change in policy will now also require commercial breeders selling on the internet to obtain a license the u. S. D. A. Estimates that there will be up to 4600. 00 additional new facilities under their inspection umbrella based on their own projections a total of between 1012000 facilities will now fall under the inspection provisions of the Animal Welfare act this change will increase the workload of their 115. 00 inspectors by newley a 3rd the u. S. D. A. Has no plans to add additional inspectors i think sense the real big came into effect the number one way that weve gotten contacts are peoples names as people suffer porting we do we have looked at breeder registries to get i did get numbers we watch the internet a look at. Marketing promotional things from folks that thats all over the internet so this is a good move for our dogs that its now part of the Animal Welfare act but again our question is going to be how are you going to enforce it because youre having a very difficult time in forcing a law that was already in place and now weve just added a new dimension to it weve got a 115 people. Stationed across the country to do. Our inspections. Their workload is prioritized by a risk based system so we get them to those places where theyre most needed and at this point in time we do feel like we have resources to be successful in doing this you know i worry about that what a time were coming back on spending appropriations in every direction and they say they have enough to get started but i want to keep an eye on it i even documented u. S. You inspectors who had their old puppy mill themselves documented supervisors of inspectors who were out working as roofers during the day theyre supposed to be out check you know their inspectors i mean inforced was absolutely atrocious and has been since the inception of the act and it was just recently in the last couple years that u. S. D. A. Has really turned around and started to enforce the law its been on the books since 1007. 00 were seeing a closing of this loophole that a lot of internet sellers and we just have to continue now with our effort to educate the public good the best place to get an old as a shelter over a rescue group or a responsible breeder who is really treating the mother dog like a pet and not a breathing machine. They have a number so she actually has a tattoo on his ear as hes auction in that neighborhood its not that my business. Once we got him he was shaking a lot because he didnt know what to do he was trapped in this tiny little wired cage. We dont need a crate with him he will just start freaking out and he wont let us bring him anywhere near. Me. Abi no. I mean ask me a little no i dont im rains ill be known. Yes thats me as i see a woman a little bit out there. And i say well so are these really really cute. These are all you know your body your skull and these 2 in here came from a hoarding situation in philadelphia and we took in 39 little blue show off docks and makes this. Guy. Dog was probably about 9 months old even months old and the dog was so full of joy and just wanted to get out run around and the dog was down on its elbows and its playing in and it was in a rabbit hutch standing on wire but it desperately wanted to get out and i can we take this dog no i just got the dog breeding the dog im just starting to breed or so this was years ago and then every time we went back i would see this dog and the dog was getting older and older and he didnt want to anymore because she wasnt a good breeder and i was looking at her and her eyes were dead and within i would say about a month beast she started to come around and i could see the dog that i remember her from before and its a shame that she had to go through all that you know her entire life just consisted of this misery. And we need people to start realizing that these poppy mills exist these puppies in pet stores come from puppy mill us whether you believe it or not thats where your dog came from a puppy. Thing that hes really crossed was there not rest we are saving a puppy by by buying that dog what theyre doing is theyre sentencing the mother of that dog to a lifetime of misery you know you know the general public doesnt stop buying poppies i stock i change its just its not going to stop ill be down on us till the day i die and i owe a lot and i hope i hope i dont have to spend my days gonna save dogs we americans are treating dogs like members of the family we all love them in their beds to sleep at night we spend money on them we give them life saving better a care a society that values dogs is not a suicide its going to tolerate this abuse of dogs on puppy mills. Until the public is willing to forgo the purchase of a puppy on the internet or in pet stores no regulation will end the suffering of thousands of breeding dogs trapped in commercial mills across the United States and humane societies rescues impounds millions of dogs are awaiting the chance to join a family if the general public decides to adopt and not shop the factory farming of puppies would and. The power really does lie in the people what we have as a movement is a 1000000 households who care about animals and who are willing to pick up the phone and being able to tap that power that is what should make any puppy miller terrified the other side has a much more difficult. Theyve got to convince people that keeping dogs in confinement for their entire law is. Denying the vet care or exposing them to a true give even cold is an acceptable way to treat go these are alike to officials and they work for us and were going to make sure they work for us we know were up against a lot of corruption and Consumer Fraud and animal cruelty but i think its every time you educate that one person that could be the next person who makes a difference at the state house or at the local level or even at the federal level as the case may gone. Home i do think its really important people if they see something going on especially i mean i mean just as it should bring it to peoples attention you know people to know whats going on out there and. They just feel otherwise change is not possible. 20 years from now wed all like to look back and we know whats going to happen were going to what back and were going to say thank god we dont have anymore i cant believe the way we allow people to treat these dogs. And. God. God. God. My god. I had. My. My. Little own little. Girl bertman. That is just every small cycle dont pull with. The really p. C. On fire and it can be said is usually the policeman for me. To take the safe cool shots walk to sit next dont. Give us emotional safety feature. The sort of the. This is a story about what happens auster a stray bullet kills a young girl in the streets. What happens to her family and daughters in florida know the mother daughter is buried in a cemetery it is meaningless is your head what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the Police Needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pen this on than him and what happens in court the big. Shot after shot as far off as i feel. We dont know shell share this room. End of this trial im sure. That lead you to the will still not know what childress. Will be doing this so the day i die and i hope not i hope i dont have to spend my days going to save dogs and you know you cant save mall and then you drive by barnes and you look at the armor as a dog for. The sad thing is its legal for allowed to do this to these dogs. I mean 67 years you know theyve been locked up in a cage outside you see no protection from the weather the heat you know the cold air the rain the snow the thunder not