I will never forget the moment when I got my first puppy. I was 10 years old, and had been begging my parents for a puppy for months after I saw the neighbor’s Jack Russell Terrier. My family and I went to a man’s house—my parents called him a breeder—and he had five or six puppies running around a mama dog inside of a pen. My goal was to pick up all the puppies one by one before deciding which one was going to be my new found friend, but I didn't have to. The first puppy I picked up was nervous and sick. The second puppy was soft, energetic, and as I peered into her bright, dark brown eyes;, I knew it was love. That day, we named the puppy Isabel and brought her home with us.

For the next few years, I would teach Isabel tricks, sleep with her, and feed her bits of my food. Having a dog was better than the pets I had before ( a bird and two fish, who both died). The problem was that Isabel got bored and lonely a lot because my parents would get home from work late, and I was at school. So we decided to get another dog to keep Isabel company. One day, when I got home from school, there was another puppy—who we would name Ferdinand. My parents told me that the breeder they got our new canine companion from wouldn't let my parents see the back room where Ferdinand was brought out from; they thought it was a puppy mill.

This was to be my introduction to puppy mills. I didn't hear about them again until college, when a classmate gave a speech about adopting dogs instead of buying them from puppy mills.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals (ASPCA) says that a puppy mill “is a large-scale commercial dog breeding facility where profit is given priority over the well-being of the dogs”. Dogs are bred constantly, and they aren’t given any time to rest between litters. Oftentimes they get sick before they get to the pet store, because dogs from puppy mills are separated from their moms and their litters when they are two months old; they suffer from anxiety and behavioral issues. I experienced this firsthand myself when I went to a pet store one time.

My mom would take me to the pet store whenever I got good grades. As we looked at the cute puppies—not to buy, but this was my idea of a visit to the zoo to see animals—a few of them stood out to me because they were smaller, or furrier, or more playful. I saw a Yorkie that caught my attention, and asked an associate at the pet store if we could take the Yorkie out of his cage and play with it. Now, this puppy was not playful. When we took the Yorkie to a playroom, my mom was clapping her hands, trying to get the puppy to play. The Yorkie tried to bite her! Whatever we tried to do, instead of playing the dog kept on trying to bite. My mom made a comment on how this poor little dog was likely abused at a puppy mill.

This is why you should adopt. You might think that it won’t make any difference, because puppy mills will exist anyways. Businesses are supply and demand, they would not exist without customers’ money. If you love dogs so much, why would you pay money to a person who abuses them? You might still want to get a puppy from a responsible breeder. If you do, that’s great—though I still don’t believe in breeding. But unless you know the breeder personally, sadly, there’s no way to know if the animal you got is from a puppy mill or not. The ASPCA states that even certificates or paperwork aren’t proof; some breeders at certain puppy mills are smart. Also, shelters have limited room for animals, so the more that get adopted, the more that the shelter can take in.

Some people fear that adopting a dog from a shelter will cost a lot. In fact, adopting a pet costs significantly less than getting one from a breeder or pet store. One of my relatives got a cat with all of its immunizations for a little over $100.00. A little bit of searching for the right pet is worth it, as pets make their way into our homes and into our hearts.