When the wirehaired Fox terrier arrived at Honey Creek Animal Hospital in Terre Haute, Ind., the staff had no idea she was pregnant.
"She was so emaciated that we had no idea," said practice manager Candice Staub. "She was term and gave birth four days later to seven puppies."
After the dog's wounds were healed, she went to a rescue organization. She was treated for Sarcoptic Mange, open wounds, and eye abrasions. She had been debarked, a procedure in which vocal cords are severed either with scissors or by ramming a metal pipe down their throat to prevent them from barking. Some puppy millers who have hundreds of dogs on their property don't want neighbors to know so many of them will perform this procedure, often without anesthetic.
Photos of a French bulldog Staub is fostering tell the story of what happens to a dog used for breeding year after year. She has a nasty case of pneumonia and corneal abrasions. Her legs on both side are totally broken down; her feet flat and her toes broken from being caught in the wire bottom of her enclosure. She is totally emaciated with a body scale of 2 out of 10. She has only two canine teeth left and those are nubs. The rest have fallen out from decalcification from the constant nursing. Her vulva is swollen almost beyond recognition from being bred at each heat cycle and whelping so many puppies. She is still learning to walk on hard ground, having no idea how to plant her feet on a hard surface.
These are signs of the typical existence of a puppy mill dog rescued from a lifetime of suffering. Usually, they are either disposed of by drowning, skull crushing or shooting. Sometimes they are sold to the highest bidder for whatever they can get to try to have one more litter before the dog dies or their productivity slows
"The public needs to be aware that this dirty secret is being hidden in the state of Indiana with more and more millers being attracted to the state due to the very lax laws," Staub said.
There is a bill in the Indiana Senate that will either pass or fail in the next several days. Indiana House Bill 1468 (Animal Cruelty and Commercial Dog Breeders) passed the House with a vote of 81-14 on Feb. 23 and is now in the Senate Committee on Corrections, Criminal and Civil Matters for consideration. Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, is on that committee.
"We have no statewide regulations on commercial breeding of dogs," said Anne Sterling, the Indiana state director for the Humane Society of the United States. There are 34 states working on passing regulations similar to HB 1468.
"If this continues, we will become very attractive to puppy millers throughout the country."
Sterling has seen examples of breeding operations moving from states that have passed legislation to other states with no laws governing standards of care for dogs used to churn out hundreds of puppies in their lifetimes.
"The people who are targeted are those who breed 10 or more litters of puppies a year," she said. "The USDA inspects only licensed breeders that sell to pet stores."
Breeders that fall through the gap are those who breed without a license and who sell over the Internet and through other means.
Online purchasers see only cute online puppy photos -- never their true birthplace.
It costs the lives of countless dogs, but it also costs the taxpayer.
In December 2008 the Indiana Attorney General's removed 78 animals from a Cloverdale, Ind., breeder who sold puppies on the Internet by using more than a dozen aliases. Tammy Gilchrist was served with a search warrant for business and tax records dating back to 1998 and was served with a jeopardy levy when she was unable to produce payment of $192,960.28 in state sales tax.
Add to that the cost of treating the dogs and four horses for open sores, severe skin conditions, parasites, mammary tumors and malnutrition and the costs rise even further.
