Survey Outside of Puppies 'N Love

by Mira P.

Today, a coworker and I went to ask people outside of Puppies 'N Love a few questions. The questions were: 

1. What did you think of the puppies? (a warm-up question - most common answer was "they're cute") 

2. What did you think of the cages? (Most people answered "too small", only one guy mentioned the floor, two people thought it was okay, one answered "comfy") 

3. Did the prices of the dogs surprise you? (most common answer was "I don't know" - they don't display the prices, you have to ask)

4. Did you know that Macerich, the company who manages this mall, will no longer allow pet stores that sell pets? (Should've been phrased better - most people answered "I didn't know that", a few people said "good", and about two people said "aw, that's too bad".

We did a lot better than I thought we were going to. We surveyed about sixteen people - we thought we were going to get about five! Most people took the flyer we made, which was this: (WARNING: CONTAINS SOME SAD INFORMATION. PG)

 

Puppies ‘N Love gets most of their dogs from Hunte Corporation (their corporate office told us this when we asked - 602-255-0166). Hunte Corp. sells 90,000 puppies per year from their 20,000 square foot block building, filled with 8-week-old puppies ready to be shipped around the country.

Under the United States Department of Agriculture Animal Welfare Act you could have 300 dogs stacked in cages for their entire lives. The regulation only requires that they have food, water, and space to turn around and lie down. There are 100 inspectors to monitor 10,000 facilities.

The Humane Society of the United States says that “almost all pet store puppies come from puppy mills”. They did a nine-month investigation, charging the Hunte Corporation and Petland for selling puppies with life-threatening genetic defects and highly contagious parasitic and viral infections.

How can I get a good dog if I shouldn’t buy one from a pet store?

There are a lot of shelters and pet stores that get dogs from shelters that have wonderful dogs that are waiting to be adopted. If you are looking for a purebred, there are plenty at local shelters - sometimes as many as 25% of dogs in shelters.

If you’re looking for a dog, check out your local animal shelter, or go online to Petfinder.com or theshelterpetproject.org to find a dog who is waiting for you.

And finally, don’t forget to visit stores like PetMatch over at [xyz] mall. They sell pet toys and treats and only adopt out shelter dogs.

If you’d like to check our sources, ask any questions, or tell us about your pet (or anything else!) e-mail at tinycages2@gmail.com. Thank you very much for reading this!

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That was it. I may have said "shelter" too many times . . . oops. 

We're planning on perhaps doing it again, but this time handing out flyers (we'll maybe make some nicer ones for children) inside. That's what my coworker wanted to do, at least. Well, I'll be honest, he did most of the work. It'll be a while before I recover enough to want to interact with human beings after learning more about Hunte Corp. and puppy mills! Haha. :)

We're not sure what our next plan of attack should be, besides conducting another survey. Perhaps I should put up some more friendly flyers around my neighborhood. The last time I did something like that, they got taken down - but it's worth a shot, I suppose. If you have any advice, please let me know, by e-mail (to the right of the page) or in a comment.

Thanks! :)