Oprah Show

April 4, 2008 Show on Puppy Mills:
Never Buy a Pet from a Pet Store

The Kerry Foundation has been fighting puppy mills since it started operation. We have documented our success stories on this web site. Now that the mainstream media has exposed these dog factories for what they are, we hope it will help eliminate the puppy mill industry.

With your support, we will continue to look for oportunities to buy out and close down some of the puppy mills that breed Kerry Blue Terriers.

Comments from Agatha Hughes

KBTF Rescue Volunteer and Foster Mom

Many people and organizations have tried for years to persuade Oprah to tackle puppy mills and no one could understand why she avoided the topic. So this was a major, major event, given her influence and ability to reach the American consumer.

You might wonder how she was finally persuaded. After all, professional PR people and just plain folk had approached her editors, her producers, sent her emails, letters, etc. Nothing worked. Then along came Bill Smith of Main Line Animal Rescue, near Philadelphia. He was the primary guest. Bill is renowned for his incredibly successful rescue organization/shelter, his advocacy against puppy mills, and for putting up anti-puppy mill billboards in PA and Missouri. One billboard, along the PA Turnpike, welcomes travelers/tourists to "Scenic Lancaster County -- home to hundreds of puppy mills." (BTW, these are primarily Amish millers -- a fact that always surprises people) The board refers you to his and other anti-puppy mill websites. Since the 2005 debut of the first billboard, more than 200,000 people have read about puppy mills on his website.

Sooo, what did Bill do to catch Oprah's attention? Why he put up a billboard, of course! He put it along her commuting route and it read, "OPRAH, please do a show on puppy mills; the dogs need you!"

Absolutely brilliant.

Bill writes on his website: "No sooner did the board go up, did we hear from the producer of her show. And within weeks, we were traveling the highways of Pennsylvania searching out substandard kennels and filming undercover footage inside some of the worst puppy mills in Pennsylvania with Special Investigator Lisa Ling and a film crew of five. The goal was to link puppies for sale in numerous pet stores with their mothers and fathers imprisoned in our state's puppy mills."

You can see his billboards and read more at www.mlar.org. And, because the media watches the media, I bet we will now see more and more stories about puppy mills. Our hats off, our eternal gratitude, to Bill Smith and Oprah Winfrey.

Comments from Tracey Fulmer

KBTF Board Member and
East Coast Rescue Coordinator

I was very happy with the content of Oprah's show, although I wish she had devoted the full hour to the puppy mill atrocity. And based on the many other undercover videos on the internet, those Oprah filmed weren't so bad (which Bill Smith of MainLine Rescue acknowledged noting that the mills they visited were actually the good ones, since they gave their unwanted dogs to rescue). If they had shown the worst mills, it would have turned off viewers. The spinning cages, however, made my stomach turn. It was smart to focus on the adult breeding dogs -- which is the most sickening, incomprehensible aspect of the puppy industry -- rather than the genetic/health issues of their in-bred pups that most mill reports highlight.

Also, the show really made an effort to differentiate between a mill and a reputable breeder. The message was to avoid pet stores and internet sellers, explaining that any reputable breeder would want to know where their pup was going and that responsible breeders aren't contributors to the unwanted shelter population. Wayne Pacelle of the HSUS chimed in on that, as did Oprah and Bill Smith. I hope the reputable breeders will see this as an opportunity to be PROACTIVE in differentiating themselves from the mills, e.g., include info on mills on their own websites, rather than just complaining that they are being bashed. Their lack of acknowledgment of the puppy mill problem and their own inaction makes them appear callous and uncaring about their own breed, in denial of puppy mills, or worse, in support of them. They need to take it upon themselves to be perceived as part of the solution, not part of the problem, to differentiate themselves from these horrific mills.

What I was very disappointed in was the Puppy Mill Lobby circling the wagons with their attempted PR strike before the show aired. There was a rant circulated by a puppy mill lobbyist, John Yates, readying for a round of Oprah bashing -- fearing the show's undercover investigation into bad breeders will reflect badly on all breeders. And the AKC chimed in with their own last minute PR effort. Far too many reputable breeders have gotten sucked in to protecting the mills, having bought into the mill lobby's propaganda. Any time you see a story on puppy mills, you will likely see these same "talking points" repeated by the breeding community whenever they feel they are under attack. This only serves to fuel the fire, lumping the reputable breeders in with the mills and making all breeders look bad. (Since these are consistently the same counter claims, it looks like the Mill lobby paid big bucks to some PR firm.)

1) Deny that pet overpopulation exists, using examples of shelters importing dogs from outside the US as evidence that we don't have the "supply" to meet the demand of the latest "fad" to rescue dogs rather than buy them.

* All I can say is look online or visit your local shelter and ask how many adoptable dogs they euthanize.

2) Discredit anybody who tries to raise awareness about the horrors of puppy mills.

* The primary target is the HSUS, who they label as "radical" and always lump in with PETA. The goal in discrediting the HSUS is to reduce their donations, thus the largest voice educating about the mills. Now it appears Oprah is on their target list as a left-wing, AR wacko who was "seriously considering" posing nude for PETA's anti-fur campaign (their source for this factoid was a tabloid!)

3) Change the issue. Claim that this isn't about dogs suffering in puppy mills, rather it's a conspiracy, a "hidden agenda of the animal rights movement to end all dog ownership". The objective here is to broaden their "cause" to anybody who owns a dog, rather than just the small community of hobby breeders and puppy profiteers.

* Unfortunately, this IS about the mills -- there is no denying they are a major animal welfare issue.

4) Talk up industry inspections and regulations: existing federal, state and animal cruelty laws already intensively regulate commercial kennels.

* Fact is, this is an unregulated industry. There are far too few inspectors to do the job and it isn't a priority. The AKC stated that they only have 15 inspectors for 5600 kennels -- that's right, 5600 kennels with AKC dogs warranted inspection in 2007! As for the USDA, as another poster noted, monitoring puppy factories is way down on their priority list relative to monitoring our food supply.

5) Label anybody fighting against the mills as "do gooders" who are only following the latest "fashionable cause".

*Um, I actually take this as a compliment. I'd rather be a do gooder -- part of the solution, than a "do badder" -- part of the problem.

6) Claim that the "sensational media" is only showing the "worst case" kennels.

* How anybody can defend raising puppies as a cash crop is beyond me, no matter if the kennels meet USDA standards for kennel size or not! Kudos to Oprah and to MainLine Rescue for getting her attention. I hope it isn't the last time we hear from her on this topic. It certainly has the puppy mill lobby running scared!

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