I snuggle deeper into my mother’s thick fur coat, the steady beat of her heart helping me calm down. But today, even this does not ease the freezing cold. All I can do is shiver as the slight chills running down my back morph into stinging needles, their icy grasp leaving no part of my body behind. Slowly my siblings follow me, bringing with them a sense of comfort. We usually fight for the warmest spot. I try to relax as a sleepy haze clouds my thoughts but the howls of the anguished dogs around us are anything but relaxing. They screech and cry, each voice filled with despair. These sounds hurt my ears, but they are unavoidable, since the other canines share the space with us. Since I was born, these sounds have always been there, just like the smells. The pungent scent of urine, the smells of blood.
I shift, changing positions from time to time, the wire flooring digging into me. What doesn’t help is the constant itch I feel everywhere. The feeling of a thousand tiny creatures crawling up me, bringing with them an irritating tingling sensation. No matter how much I scratch, the feeling never goes away. Suddenly, I’m not so sleepy anymore. I watch as my mother forces her bleeding feet to the bowl of food and decide to follow. But walking is even harder than laying down. Each step on the wire hurts, reignighting the healing cuts it previously caused. Every step feels like a fire burning my already damaged paws. I watch her lick the still-empty bowl of food, watch her wet the huge gash on her side using her tongue, watch her pace the enclosure myriad times.
But then something else catches my eye.
The door. A human. A human swings the door open and saunters in.
But this is not what distracts me, It’s the sudden overload of sounds, scents and feelings. Slowly, the other dogs quieten down and I am now entirely focused on these alien stimuli coming from the other side of the door.
The chirp of a bird.
The smell of grass and rich soil.
Beams of sunlight.
Rays of hope.
All of these come with a sudden longing. A pull. I am drawn to them. All my other troubles out of mind, I race to the door. But then I crash into something. A wire wall. Realization strikes me and I come back to my senses. I whimper, for I had forgotten about the four wire walls.
The four wire walls that trap me and my family in.
The four wire walls that make up my enclosure. All the dogs here have them. I scratch at them, I pound. But they do not budge. I notice my mother and my siblings, who have slunk to the back of the enclosure. Surely they feel the pull as well. They know.
For the first time, I feel like a prisoner.
A caged prisoner.
One in three Canadian puppies comes from a puppy mill. There are around a thousand puppy mills in Canada, with about 100,000 dogs being bred for commercial purposes. These animals live have inhumane living conditions and are usually sold online or shipped to pet shops. The mothers face a different plight, being bred again and again until they can no longer do so. Adopt your puppy from an animal shelter or trusted breeder instead.
Sources:
- https://thebark.com/content/veterinarians-get-puppy-mill-blues
- https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/pet-trade/puppy-mills/
- https://www.dogster.com/lifestyle/puppy-mill-statistics-canada
- https://www.humanesociety.org/all-our-fights/stopping-puppy-mills