If you love your dog as much as I love mine, you’d probably do whatever you can to ensure that he or she was raised humanely. Sadly, the dogs we buy from pet stores suffer immensely, and most dogs that are bred to be pets end up being euthanized due to overpopulation in puppy mills.

Puppy mills breed dogs for human ownership, but they put profit over the health and safety of the dogs. Of the two million puppies bred in mills each year, about 1.2 million dogs wind up dead due to overpopulation. Dogs spend their entire lives confined to cages. The small wire cages are stacked on top of one another and offer no protection from heat, cold or dangerous weather conditions. Because veterinary care, food, quality shelter, and human attention cut into profit margins, dogs living in puppy mills receive little to none of these luxuries. Conditions are dirty, unsanitary, and disease-ridden. Dogs are exposed to extreme weather conditions, as well as dangerous levels of ammonia due to urine build-up. Caged puppies are often soaked in uric acid that builds up on cage floors, burning their skin and causing serious respiratory problems.

Cages are so small and packed that feces builds up on cage floors, and dogs are forced to live in layers of their own (and others’) excrement. This filth can lead to disease and even death. It’s not uncommon for dogs to die in the cages from these horrific conditions, leaving other puppies to live among dead animals. Louder dogs are often “de-barked” -- their vocal chords are painfully removed, without anesthetic, to silence their pleas for help.

In addition to lifelong suffering, puppies that are not bought are killed in cruel ways. Humane euthanasia is almost never practiced. It is much more common for dogs to be shot, drown or killed in gas chambers. Puppies are taken from their mothers, causing them to develop serious health, behavioral or psychological issues due to the inhumane conditions in which they are bred. Unsanitary living conditions are infested with bugs and rodents that cause diseases in dogs that are rarely ever treated with veterinary care. If they receive water at all, it is infested with algae growth, urine, and feces. Similarly, food they receive is contaminated with maggots and mold.

Breeding dogs are kept pregnant constantly, causing serious stress on their bodies. Female dogs are regarded as expendable economic units only useful for making money. They are often injected with hormones and steroids to increase production. However, these drugs cause pain and very serious side effects, maybe even death.

Puppies that do make it out of the puppy mill alive are sold either in pet stores or on the internet. Pet stores are what keep inhumane puppy mills in business. In shipment, puppies are confined to tiny spaces that are filthy with disease, and they are forced to go hours -- even days -- without food or water. Unfortunately, many puppies do not survive the shipment process.

Many customers are unaware of the cruelty they are contributing to when they purchase dogs. Mill owners advertise their puppies by portraying their living conditions as happy and humane; however, the image we are being sold is far from reality. In reality, puppy mills are like prisons, or even concentration camps. They are kept in confines, receiving little food and drink, and are often put down by being piled into gas chambers. Unfortunately, federal law does little to restrict these cruel practices.

Fortunately, there are ways that we can put an end to this cruelty by making smarter choices on where we get our pets, if we decide to own pets at all. By adopting pets from shelters or rescues instead of buying them from pet stores, we can help put an end to this cycle of abuse. Adoption is the only humane choice when it comes to pet ownership. This is true not only for dogs, but also for any other type of companion animal like cats or rabbits. If you care about the health and well-being of dogs, you can do more than just refuse to support this inhumane industry. You can raise awareness of the cruelty of puppy mills by sharing this article. Educate your friends and family by encouraging them to adopt companion animals rather than purchasing them from breeders.