“If you balk at the idea that dogs could be bred like pigs, I’m sorry to disabuse you. Dogs and pigs alike are treated as breeding livestock. The animals are made to have as many young as possible. The babies are taken away at a young age so that they can be sold and a new breeding cycle can begin. The animals never have real sex—that is, sex when and with whom they choose; rather, females are tied up so they can be mounted or, more often, they are artificially inseminated. In commercial breeding operations, and also in many small-scale or backyard breeding outfits, dogs are treated, like the sows and their piglets, as units of production and their sole function is to bear young for profit. All they do is bear one litter after another, until (usually at the age of four or five) they are spent. At which point they are no longer of value and are killed. Taken together with the spay/neuter picture, what we have is rather bizarre: an enormous population of eunuchs and virgins, and a small population of dogs who live their entire meagre existence as breeders, as part of a puppy production line.” EthicsPetDogsBreedingPetsPuppiesPuppy Mills Book:Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets Source: Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets
“I’m focusing here on dogs because this is where almost all of the research and exposés lead us. But of course puppies aren’t the only pet animal being bred and brokered and sold for profit; they are just the most high profile. There are kitten mills, too. And rabbit mills. And the many other animals who we keep as pets—the rats, hamsters, and geckos—don’t just materialize out of thin air; they come from a mother somewhere, who has been intentionally bred so that humans can make a profit selling her babies (see chaps. 38, “Cradle to Grave,” and 39, “A Living Industry”).” PetDogsBreedingPetsCompanion AnimalsPuppy MillsPet Industry Book:Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets Source: Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets
“In Sweden, only about 7 percent of pets are desexed, and in Norway, it is currently illegal to desex a healthy animal.” PetNeuteringSpayingDesexingPetss Book:Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets Source: Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets