tara
Jan 10, 2007 at 11:31
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please write if you can
Hillsboro Sentry-Enterprise
P.O. Box 469
Hillsboro, WI 54634
Phone 608-489-2264
Fax 608-489-2348
January 9, 2007
RE: Letter to the Editor/Amish Puppymills in Hillsboro
To Whom It May Concern:
Recently an event happened in your community I feel you should know about and I hope it shocks and horrifies you as it has done me and everyone involved in my line of work.
I belong to a network of people in the state of Wisconsin involved in dog breed rescue. Each of us has chosen to work with a breed of dogs, a group of shelters or as Puppymill rescue people. I have a dear friend who chose to help puppies born in mills bred solely for resale to Pet stores by the Amish. Whether you know it or not, the Amish in Vernon county have been breeding mixed and purebred puppies by the score for the last year and the rescue people working with mill releases have simply been overwhelmed by the amount of dogs these people are cranking out. Now, not all Amish do this but you have a preponderance of them in Vernon County and Hillsboro, specifically.
Last week my friend was contacted by an Amish puppymiller in Hillsboro to come out to his farm and pick up a litter of Yorkshire Terrier puppies that his Pet store broker had deemed too old to be financially profitable to him for resale to a Pet store. My friend went to this man’s farm where he signed the United States Department of Agriculture sale contract (a legal document he is required to sign when he releases ownership of any of his puppies) over to her. He then placed the puppies in her car and she left.
My friend rushed the puppies to her vet because she noticed something pretty terrible about them: they had rubber bands tied tightly around their tails! It seems the Amish man had decided to save a veterinarian bill and dock their tails himself with rubber bands. Apparently he hoped they would just “fall off.”
At the vet’s office, my friend was told the puppies needed immediate care for their tails, of course, and a strong course of antibiotics to save their lives as the infection was rapidly spreading throughout their bodies. After the infection was brought under control, the tails would need to be amputated as they were pretty much “dead” by now. Treatment was promptly begun.
I went to my friend’s home the following morning to help her care for these puppies. While we were working with them her phone rang – it was the Amish man who had signed over the puppies and he wanted them back! His Pet store broker had stopped by and told him he had changed his mind and that he would buy the puppies from the Amish man for sale to a Pet store after all. My friend tried to explain the puppies health needs to the Amish man and it did seem, from listening, as if he was understanding they were seriously ill. The two of them ended the phone conversation and we continued to work with the puppies. Not long after that, the phone rang again – this
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