Tracie, I listened to the show you did this past Saturday, and kept banging my head against the wall during the show, while Jeffrey Pepper was on, trying to get my mind to accept that this apparent PR person for the AKC and puppy mills, was actually trying to convince the listeners that he had a legitimate point of view. It was like listening to someone telling me that the holocaust wasn’t all that bad and served some sort of purpose in the scheme of things….
First of all, the AKC does not visit almost all the puppy mills and that is well documented. If that was not the case, and the AKC was really in fact looking into the majority of these puppy mills they are making tons of money from the worst puppy mills which are usually the busiest, that have their dogs registered by the AKC, would have been shut down years ago. If he doesn’t agree with this, let him list the puppy mills that the AKC has checked and OK’d. ( bet you will never get that list)
His second point seemed to involve the supply and demand situation, and that justifies “anything goes.” That is the same kind of justification that pimps use to justify the necessity of the business they are in, where they are marketing their teenage hookers, to satisfy the demand…. (Why waste the time to develop a relationship with someone, when you can just get a hooker?)
My take is that this guy is in the dog business, and the AKC is a very big cog in his world, and he will defend them no matter what they are doing. In my opinion, he is the worst kind of person in the dog world, making his living in the dog business as an author, a judge, and professing to love dogs, and at the same time excusing this AKC using puppy mills as a primary revenue source., while these poor dogs in these mills suffer everyday of their lives. If someone wants a pure breed, there are plenty of rescues that have them, if not breeders, and anyone with an IQ higher than their resting pulse rate, should be able today to figure out how to get one. All that is needed is to get to a library and look it up on a PC. If you aren’t capable of figuring out how to do that, you probably shouldn’t own a dog anyway. This stops the people that drop into the local pet store with a credit card on a Sunday afternoon, and impulse buying a $1500 “AKC Pedigree” dog and 4 months later it is dropped off at a shelter to be euthanized, because they “got tired of it.” By the way, I met someone at the dog park I Iive next to this weekend, and he had a 7 week old Cocker Spaniel at the park that he had just bought in a pet store the day before…. OH!! He told me it was “an AKC dog, so it was kind of expensive.” After I explained what Parvo is like to a 7 week old dog, he left the park….
The excerpts below are from this web page copied in bold.
Does the AKC inspect the breeders?
The AKC does not inspect kennels, nor does it vouch for the health or well-being of a puppy.
Are AKC – registered dogs guaranteed?
No. AKC registered simply means the puppy had two parents of the same breed. The AKC registers dogs and gives them ‘papers which help to sell them in pet shops or at breeders’ kennels.
Does the AKC make money from puppy mills?
Yes, lots. Puppy mills comprise 80% of the AKC’s business. It registered 917,247 puppies in 2003 at the cost of approximately $25.00 per puppy.
Here is some more documentation that shows how Jeffrey is misrepresenting the facts, from this link: http://network.bestfriends.org/truth/news/14019.html
An American Kennel Club (AKC) representative, Lisa Peterson, recently stated: “Dogs are… property… And we like to leave the option to the owner of the property, of the dog, with the breeder… It’s their decision as to how… many intact females to own or how many litters to produce.”
Commercial dog breeders are often “puppy mills”, those businesses that mass produce dogs for sale. There are reportedly 4,000-5,000 puppy mills in the U.S., each with 75 to 150 breeding dogs. Puppy mills are not much different from the factories that churn out toasters, televisions, and the like. Female dogs used for breeding in puppy mills are bred over and over until their bodies give out. The dogs are literally “stored” in cramped, usually filthy, dark cages, given little or no care, and no socialization or human companionship. Dogs in puppy mills have been found starved, with matted fur covered in fleas or tics.
Puppy mills mean big revenues for the AKC. In 2006 the American Kennel Club (AKC) registered 870,000 individual dogs and 416,000 litters. At $20 per dog and $25 per litter (plus $2 per puppy), AKC brought in well over $30 million in revenues from registration of dogs born in puppy mills.
The AKC, though, does not for the most part check to find out if dogs even qualify for registration. The AKC does not actually travel to every breeder’s facility to inspect it. The AKC has announced it “cannot guarantee the quality or health of dogs in its registry.” But AKC is happy to take the money and issue “papers” for the dogs anyway. Usually the “papers’ simply list the purebred lineage listed on the application submitted by the breeder.
Most puppy mill dogs are sold in pet stores or online. The consumers believe a dog with AKC registered papers is actually a purebred that is in good health. Of course, many dogs from mills are inbred, provided little or no care or socialization, and have diseases, illnesses or deformities and behavioral problems.
Now the AKC plans to have a seminar called “Legislative Empowerment” where they will teach breeders and other dog owners how to oppose legislation and regulations.
In another example of stunning indifference to cruelty to dogs, AKC announced restrictions on tethering or chaining dogs is “unnecessary”. For more on the cruelty and danger of tethering or chaining dogs, click here. A Growing Movement To End The Tethering And Chaining Of Dogs.
Now if you confront Jeffrey, with these facts, he will probably tell you how it isn’t that way “now”… which again is not true.
Kind of an old joke reworked but ” If you want to know if a defender of the AKC’s support of puppy mills is lying or not ?…. Just see if his mouth is moving… If it is, he is probably lying.
Here is another link.
Here is another quote from a web site that has a letter than can be sent to the AKC about their support of the Puppy Mills.
