Inside America’s disturbing underground market for pets: Is your dog from a puppy mill?

Prospective new pet owners are usually greeted by energetic young puppies with eagerly wagging tails and expectant lolling tongues in pet stores.

Although almost every animal is presented as having been sourced from a caring and reputable breeder and to have enjoyed a happy life until that point, in the majority of cases that isn’t true.

Puppies, as well as cats and rabbits for sale in US pet stores, including New York, most often start their lives in mass-breeding facilities in the Midwest and are brought up and transported in often deplorable conditions — which their owners rarely find out about.

“Pet stores often advertise that their animals are ‘top quality’ and come from ‘responsible breeders,’ but the sad reality is that these dogs are trucked in from out-of-state commercial breeding facilities also known as puppy mills, where dogs often spend their entire lives in wire crates,” Bill Ketzer, senior director of state legislation for the Eastern division of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), told The Post.

According to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) there are 10,000 puppy mills in the US — licensed and unlicensed — which sell a combined total of about 2.6 million animals every year, according to their data.

Former Petland employee turned whistleblower Miriam Arena, 26, started working at the large pet retailer’s Lexington, Kentucky store in October 2023. 

She told The Post she first learned the brutal realities of the industry when a “white transport van” arrived from interstate to deliver puppies to her store.

“There were dozens of distressed puppies packed into cages on top of each other, soaking in feces and urine. They had no water and had traveled a long distance without being let out to move,” Arena explained to The Post.

“The ventilation wasn’t even working and the transporters did not seem to care at all even though the puppies had been in there with the doors shut and no windows on the road for days.

“There were four to five puppies in one cage. They were all in bad conditions, some losing hair, some matted and couldn’t even get a brush through them.”

Petland claimed it was not responsible for the incident when contacted by The Post, saying via a spokesperson it “does not operate transport vehicles.”

“Any allegations of abuse or negligence are investigated and if mistreatment is confirmed that distributor will be fired and/or reported to local authorities.”

The terrible conditions start well before puppies are packed into vans, according to various animal watchdogs.

The ‘Puppy Mill Belt’

Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and Iowa have the most high-volume dog-breeding facilities that churn out puppies for profit with little regard for the animals.

They form the backbone of the “Puppy Mill Belt” which stretches from Texas through the midwest.

Most pet store puppies come directly from a puppy mill where their mothers are bred, usually many times each year, in heartbreaking conditions. 

Animals in such facilities spend their lives in depressingly tiny confines where the mothers and their litters often suffer from malnutrition and exposure, according to PETA.

Once they can no longer reproduce, the mothers are typically auctioned off or simply killed. 

Poor sanitation and ventilation, severe neglect, little to no veterinary care, inadequate space, and rotten food are all hallmarks of puppy mills, as well as kitten and bunny mills alike.

Amazingly, many of these mills are licensed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Petland is the only national pet store chain in the US to sell puppies, kittens and bunnies. It is also one of the biggest offenders for fueling the puppy mill trade, the HSUS claims.

A spokesperson for Petland, Maria Smith, told The Post the chain has a process in place to freeze out puppy mills.

“These accusations are unequivocally false,” she said, adding: “Petland does not do business with puppy mills. 

“Petland works with reputable, responsible professional breeders who have zero direct USDA citations within the past 24 months, or from small hobby breeders.”

However, public records show otherwise. Petland bought animals, mostly puppies, from breeders who received multiple direct violations from USDA as recently as last year, according to records seen by The Post.

In one of several examples, Minnesota-based breeder Ada Yoder received a direct violation from USDA in April 2023, followed by another one in August that same year. 

A USDA inspector reported 21 puppies “sprawled out and scattered” because they appeared “too hot and uncomfortable”, along with 14 adult dogs that had not received necessary veterinary care.

In both instances, Petland purchased puppies from the breeder in the months after each violation, USDA inspection records show. Yoder was later stripped of her license only for a new one to be issued to Andy Yoder, believed to be a relative, at the same address months later. Yoder did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.

HSUS spokesperson John Goodwin told The Post although “Petland claims they only worked with USDA-licensed breeders, “this is not a guarantee of responsible breeding practices or animal welfare.”

Even within the USDA’s framework, dogs are only required to have six inches of space on each side of their body inside cages they can legally be confined to, for life.  

The Pipeline: Transporters

Once puppies reach about eight weeks old, they are taken from their mothers and locked in small cages in the back of a van, where they remain for days until arriving at pet stores around the country, like the one where Arena worked.

In December, a transport van from Missouri was in the process of dropping off puppies to various pet stores, including Petland and Pet Kingdom in Fort Myers, Florida, when authorities were alerted “due to an overwhelming stench of feces and urine.”

A Lee County Domestic Animal Services (LCAS) officer called to the scene noted “several puppies (were) enduring deplorable and unsanitary conditions within the van, lacking proper ventilation and access to water,” court records obtained by The Post show.

The generator for ventilation was also not functioning despite 34 of 80 dogs still being onboard, according to a report by LCAS.

The transport driver, Sophia Parker, was fined $330 for “cruelty to animals” in relation to the incident but so far has failed to pay, court records show.

“In the Lee County Animal Services case, the focus of the inspection was on the transport company, not Petland,” Smith clarified.

“The few puppies that were to be delivered to Petland were sent back to the breeder, and Petland Ft. Myers immediately severed its relationship with the transport company.”

The Pipeline: Pet Stores

Arena told The Post that she made 13 complaints to Petland’s HR that included details about what she allegedly witnessed involving the transport company and her concerns in-store. 

“Some puppies stayed in (tiny cages) for 18 weeks of their lives. They never touched grass or sunlight (in that time),” she told The Post.

According to the animal care technician, sick puppies were locked in even smaller cages and stacked on top of each other in an area known as the “sick bay”, aper store policy.

“These cages are tiny. They have no room to move or stand up much,” she said.

Arena quit her job at Petland in April this year.

The Pipeline: Brokers and Distributors

New York will join other states including Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Washington and California in enacting a Puppy Mill Pipeline bill next month.

“Most of the animals available for sale in pet stores come from notorious dog, cat and bunny mills, which are known to be inhumane,” New York State Senator Michael Gianaris said after the bill was signed, effective on December 15.

The bill is designed to make it harder for the mass-breeding facilities to find buyers, but pet stores are avoiding it by simply moving to neighboring states such as New Jersey and Connecticut, according to the HSUS.

It is also expected to have a negative impact on the brokers and distributors who act as middlemen between the mills and pet stores. The brokers snap up large numbers of puppies from various mills and rely on pet stores to pay top dollar for them after traveling long distances to distribute them.

“About two thirds of the puppies in pet stores are routed through brokers,” Goodwin told The Post.

“The use of puppy mill brokers often makes it difficult—if not impossible—for the public to know who a puppy’s breeder was, as many pet stores only disclose broker information—if they provide any information at all.”

They’re often also behind online sales of puppies and other animals, according to animal rights groups who spoke with The Post.