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10-16-07

Last week I went with HALO 'moms'  to pick up 10 havanese for HALO.  We ended up bring 15 dogs back! Three of them will be in the Freedom Family.  They are a  litter of pugs. 

This is the first time that I went with them to pick up pups, my first time at a puppy mill.  The Amish home is beautiful, fairly new with a great playground area for the kids... all very well kept. It is way off the 'main' road. Before we arrived, I was given the 'no ohh and ahhs' speech since we are not there as a rescue group.  First there is a neat clean barn that you go through to get to the puppy mill.  You cannot see the mill buildings or dogs and puppies until you go through this.  When I walked through and saw the puppy mill, my heart just sank.  You just can not imagine how many dogs are there, all barking and looking for some kind of attention. There was a large outside run and 2 very large buildings.  The inside of the buildings were very clean.  One of the 'moms' said that this is one of the cleanest she's been to.  I just cannot imagine how hard it must be for them to go to the 'bad' mills.  There is a main hall in the buildings with cages on either side. Each cage has access to go to another cage outside.  There isn't a single cage that has only 1 dog in it, most have 3-5 and many have new litters.  One cage held a Yorkie mom with a litter of her pups plus one different looking pup.  When asked why that one was different, we were told it was a Cavalier.  I can only imagine why it is not with it's mother... :(   Looking in another cage, I could not recognize the breed nor could our other foster mom.  When we asked, we were told them were Havanese. I just couldn't believe it.  They looked so different.  These must have been the ones used for breeding since they were not young pups.

We asked about Cavaliers but none were 'ready'. He showed her a litter of pugs, 2 males and 1 female.  He told us that we could have the one male and 'just find it a home' because he thought he was pretty much blind.  How sad.  On the way home the little girl pug started hacking away.  I rode the rest of the way home with her cuddled under my coat.  I hear that she is doing just fine now :) and our little blind guy is adjusting great! 

As we rode through the countryside seeing the beautiful homes, most of which are the Amish, I noticed so many of them with runs in the yards.  I guess I just never thought that there were dogs in them.  I assumed they were for the animals they used in farming.  I guess in a way they are, they are the new crop....dogs raised just for $$$$$$$$$$.

-Lynne