Ever wonder where that cute dog in the pet store window came from? That tiny adorable puppy has had a rough life behind it. Because that poor dog came from a puppy mill.  Growing up my family always adopted our dogs from a local shelter. Those dogs have given me so many memories and have shaped my love for animals. All shelter and rescue dogs deserve a home. But these dogs seen in windows are taking these dogs chances at a good home. Puppy mills are the industry that is practically a puppy factory who sells their dogs to pet stores. Puppy mills jobs are to produce the cute, popular, pure bred dogs. Their main focus is their profit, not the dogs. The want to maximize profit and minimize spending. Which then leads to cheap housing, cheap care, cheap food, and cheap everything. Then that leads to horrible living conditions for these dogs. These dogs have dirty cages which are rarely or never cleaned, leading these dogs to develop diseases, sicknesses, and inhumane growths on their bodies. If the dogs are lucky, their cages will be cleaned, but now how you would think it would be cleaned. These workers turn on a powerful hose to spray these cages clean, but they keep the dogs inside the cages. These poor dogs end up losing their eyes due to the powerful water spraying their way. The dogs can't even be taken out of the cage to clean, sadly then they aren't taken out of these cages at all. These dogs are scared of grass because they've never seen it before, their cages become filled with rust because of the wire. The cages are all wire, the floor is even wire, leading to these dogs have paw pad problems because of living in these wire cages their whole life. The living conditions for these helpless animals is just the start. Feeding a dog is a responsibility every child is held to when getting a puppy. Children are doing a better job at feeding their dogs than the puppy mills. Dogs are emaciated, because their very little food portion is contaminated, and their water bowls are filled with algae. So these dogs are practically skin and bones, so how would they be in the shape to breed? Confusingly, puppy mills still pull off breeding millions of dogs at these fast rates. A female dog is used to breed until she can't anymore. Then instead of having that poor dog have a happy ever after, the puppy mills shoot those dogs because they aren't able to breed,  because otherwise they will be taking up space in their puppy mills. But space isn't a big thing in puppy mills either. There is a law that states dogs must be able to sit, stand up, turn around, and lay down comfortably in a cage. But these puppy mills bend these rules so often that there is no law that states how many dogs can be in a cage at one time, so 3, 4, 5 dogs in a cage is technically legal. The best way to stop this is to stop buying dogs from pet stores and online. But its hard to see is a puppy is from a puppy mill. Then buy from a respectable breeder, however, that breeder may be a puppy mill just trying to pull one over us. Many dogs are American Kennel Club certified or United States Department of Agriculture certified. AKC or USDA certified dog doesn't mean anything, the certification is not a statement of health, it just means that the dog is pure bred. Every kennel is USDA certified, because it must be certified to sell to a pet store. What if pet stores make a deal where they wont sell puppy mill dogs, but they wont know if the dogs they have are puppy mill dogs or not. What if they buy from certified breeders? But who would certify and regulate these breeders? It would have to be a kind hearted person who knows what to look for in a good, humane home. Who would preferably do this out of kindness of their heart because they wouldn't be paid. The only people that come to mind are animal shelter volunteers! They could certify these breeders because they already work for free out of the love for animals. In a return breeders could pay a small fee to the shelter, to help expand shelters and give animals more time before euthanized. This small fee can help get more animals off of the street and into good homes. Buying dogs from pet stores and online is what keeps puppy mills going. So to save these dogs, go to your local shelter and buy a dog. You aren't saving these dogs by buying them online or at a pet store, you're only helping puppy mills. So if you are wanting to buy a dog then go to an animal shelter, animal rescue, or a good responsible breeder with a noticeable good and humane home. No civilized society should ever allow dogs to be raised in those kinds of conditions. Help save these dogs by shutting down the 10,000 puppy mills in the U.S. Together we can help those poor dogs living those horrible lives and prevent more horrible lives these dogs will face. So that adorable tiny puppy in the window of the pet store, is not what it cuts out to be, there is bad and evil behind that cute face and we need to stop that evil.