Do you believe that "puppy mills" should be legal?

I fully agree with my fellow hubbers and don't need to repeat the facts about the inhumane practices of puppy mills and the need of them to be shut down. But I would even go further and question the practice of breeding certain dog breeds altogether. In the past my family acquired a pure bred White Shepherd which no doubt was a beautiful animal to look at and a sweet soul by nature.

The dog came from a small breeder just raising the female's second litter right in their house and garden - a dream scenario compared to contemporary breeding practices. Nevertheless the poor dog suffered all her life from ailments related to prolonged in-breeding that usual can't be fully avoided due to the limited amount of dogs with the papers that make them eligible for breeding. Eventually, after a few gruesome deaths the breeder couldn't stand the thought of the dog's suffering and stopped the breeding on her own (hats off to her).

The question is - do we really need to fullfill our selfish desires of creating certain dog-looks on the cost of the health of man's best friend? While they are nice to look at and under some circumstances might have certain traits that could be important for certain tasks, over-all there is no necessity to own a breeded dog with an usual shortened life-span. Ever since our one and only pure bred dog died we have been adopting mixed breeds from animal shelters.

These dogs have been beautiful, intelligent, mostly healthy (if not sick due to their fromer neglect) and more loyal than anyone could have ever wished for in a dog. Seeing the current situation of unlimited amounts of animals in need of care and loving homes it seems irresponsible to 'create' new puppies when it could be avoided. While street dog populations still explode uncontrollably and innumerous dogs end up traumatized in animal shelters after being abandoned in the holiday season, neglect, abuse, rescue from the dog meat trade or from starvation I seriously question the practice of planned breeding at all until unless all animals in distress are being taken care of.

In this light 'puppy mills' are the last thing anyone could want - a place where puppies are mass-produced by incarcerated tortured parents to live a life of poor health in a world where they weren't needed to begin with - only in the name of fast, immoral money.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.