An Unfortunate Truth

I have a small, minor, petite obsession with animals. I definitely have a soft spot for dogs and puppies. I recently discovered possibly the best place to deal with my addiction, or so I thought. It goes by the name of PETLAND! As soon as I walked into that store, nothing else in the world mattered. There were tiny puppies calling my name through the glass window. I was ecstatic! But let's be honest, who doesn't love puppies? I ended up spending most of my "study breaks" at petland with my roommates. It was a fun and free way to take our minds off of studying. We ended up naming all of the puppies and soon enough we knew all of the employees. Needless to say, we went a little overboard. I fell in love with the idea of Petland, I thought it was a great way for costumers to purchase their pets. You are able to pick the one you like then play with them in a separate pin for as long as you'd like. All of their medical expenses were taken care of for the first year, they were already neutered or spayed, and they would take care of all the initial puppy shots. I was sold even though I would not have lived to tell this story if I took one home. Even after being denied a puppy my roommates and I still continued to visit and play with our favorite puppies.

One evening I turned on the T.V. and saw that a special documentary for Petland on 60 Minutes was starting. So I eagerly tuned in and waited to hear all the good things they had to say about Petland. Unfortunately, there was no good news to be heard. 60 Minutes revealed that although Petland claims to get their puppies from small breeders, they actually get most of their puppies from large puppy mills. They are kept in terrible conditions and many of their dogs die before being adopted or have serious health issues. My heart sank. All this time I had no idea. At first I was bitter and depressed, I felt so bad for those helpless animals. Then I started to feel resentful towards Petland. I felt as though I had been supporting them for quite sometime even though I had never bought an animal there. Whose fault was it? Was Petland helping the puppies by taking them from the puppy mills? Or was this just causing more demand for the puppy mills? There is a never ending cycle with animal breeding. Clearly there is always a sufficient demand for puppies from puppy mills and I fear it will never stop. I want to do all I can to put an end to this problem, except I'm not quite sure of an answer.