According to French animal welfare associations, there is a dearth of small, adoptable dogs that are suited to city dwellers in France. Because of the lack of adoptable small dogs in French shelters, dog lovers are buying animals in pet shops, furthering the suffering of animals bred in puppy mills.

In the United States, there is such a surplus of small adoptable dogs, 25% of them purebred, that shelters are killing them for lack of space and in France, there are not enough small adoptable dogs and there are people who would gladly adopt them. But Riviera Rescue/ Sauvetage Riviera needs your help to make this happen.

Riviera Rescue/ Sauvetage Riviera is a program that pulls a manageable number of small adoptable dogs at a time. The dogs are sterilized, micro-chipped and vaccinated, quarantined for 21 days, treated (if needed) for respiratory infection or parasites and then flown from death row to freedom in France. They are planning the first Riviera Rescue this summer, with French and American media covering the story. A film crew will be documenting the rescue from the worst Los Angeles shelters of seven lucky dogs who will survive. Once the first seven have been rescued, they will be ready for the next airlift.

Generous sponsors including American Dog Magazine, Hope for Paws and Air France are already on board. But they need more help to rescue more death row dogs. If you can help with the price of the fare ($112), please contact us at Hollywoodjinky@gmail.com.

Join the cause because animal suffering has no borders.

Please ask the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Commissioner, John Stulp to require state-licensed facilities to provide caged dogs with a solid resting surface and chained dogs with daily exercise time.

Currently, facilities licensed by the Pet Animal Care Facilities Act (PACFA) can house animals in wire cages or on chains permanently with no relief. This time of prolonged confinement has enormous physical and emotional impacts on dogs, who are social and active by nature. Please take a second to ask Commissioner Stulp to make these modest changes and spread the word to your friends and family.

TAKE ACTION
Please ask Commissioner Stulp to require solid resting surfaces for dogs housed in wire cages and exercise requirements for chained dogs. These modest reforms would bring enormous relief to dogs living in state licensed facilities.

Fill in and submit this online form to automatically send an email to Commissioner Stulp.

CAPS has investigated the chain of stores and has revealed evidence that they sold a dying dog and withheld emergency medical care. Undercover CAPS investigations have evidence of very sick BARKWORKS puppies in the hospital currently. The mills that supply BARKWORKS have serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act on their USDA inspection reports. The dogs in the mills that supply the store are subjected to cruel and inhumane conditions. The dogs are living in wire cages, exposed to freezing temperatures and living in excrement.

Deb Dempsey, owner of Mouthfuls Pet Boutique in Denver, and her husband are amazing advocates for puppy mill dogs and dog rescue. They are definitely doing great work to leaving their mark.

In addition to providing a home to her other rescue dogs, Deb recently rescued Thelma and Stanley. Both were breeder dogs in a puppy mill in Iowa.

Read more about their rescue story in The American Dog Magazine

Dogs Trust campaign against the battery farming of dogs highlights the fact that the UK dog-owning public is uneducated about the truth about puppy mills and are inadvertently buying dogs from puppy farms and fueling the cruel trade.

In a recent survey, Dogs Trust asked dog owners if they would consider buying a dog from a puppy farm. Although almost 95% said no, when asked where they had got their dog from 15.1% – potentially 900,000 dog owners – admitted they had got them from an advertisement in the newspaper, the internet, a pet shop or a pet superstore, all outlets often supplied by puppy farms.

Dogs Trust introduced the term “battery farming of dogs” to associate the practice with the battery farming of chickens. They want dog lovers to be informed about how to find a “cruelty-free dog.” If you are interested in buying a dog and are worried about how to tell the difference between a reputable breeder and a puppy farm, please read their Buying a Dog section.

Learn more about the Dogs Trust Against Battery Farming of Dogs and how you can support the campaign.

Presented by The American Dog Magazine, you can show your commitment to your dog with a “Commit” Pet ID Tag. Also a portion of the proceeds will be donated to puppy mill rescues.

Get your “Commit” tag now.

Also the Fall 2009 issue of The American Dog Magazine features Sean “Hollywood” Hamilton on the cover. And Fans of “Hollywood” Hamilton who subscribe now will have 100% of the subscription profits donated to the a number of animal charity groups on behalf of Hollywood. These include Rescue Ink, North Shore Animal League, Companion Animals Protection Society and Dogs Deserve Better.

Subscribe to the magazine and make a difference.

You can also fan The American Dog Magazine on Facebook and Twitter. And you can read the full digital edition of The American Dog Magazine.

Millions of people unknowingly buy puppy mill puppies each year from pet shops or from websites of what appear to be legitimate breeders. Puppy Mill Awareness Day is an annual event designed to educate and inform the public about the neglect, unsanitary conditions, forced confinement and ailments caused by lack of basic vet care common to puppy mill dogs.

Puppy mills are breeding facilities that produce puppies in large numbers. Documented problems of puppy mills include: unsanitary facilities, overbreeding, inbreeding, disease, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of human socialization, overcrowded cages and the killing of unwanted animals. Often the puppies are sold directly to the public via the Internet, newspaper ads, or at the mill itself. In other cases they are sold to brokers and pet shops across the country.

Puppy Mill Awareness Day on Sept. 19, 2009, hopes to education people about puppy mills and what they can do t help stp the mistreatment of dogs caught up in the inhumane industry. Find an event in your area.

S.B. 460, intended to crack down on abusive puppy mills, passed the state senate by a vote of 23 to 22.

The bill calls upon the Department of Agriculture to establish basic humane care standards. It requires facilities with more than 10 female dogs and more than 30 puppies to register with the state, undergo yearly inspections and provide proper veterinary care.

The Humane Society of the United States applauded the bill’s passage.

In February, The HSUS and local authorities rescued more than 300 dogs from two abusive North Carolina puppy mills. The dogs were housed in filthy, cold, cramped cages without access to exercise, adequate veterinary care, or human contact. Many of the dogs were covered with feces and suffered from severe skin and eye infections. Some had chain collars embedded in their necks.

A similar bill was passed in Virginia in 2008 after a large puppy mill raid there.

Prisoners of Greed is a campaign to shut down the Puppy Mills.

Hundreds of thousands of dogs suffer in puppy mills in this country. The dogs are prisoners of greed. They are locked in small cages. They freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer. The dogs never get out of their prisons. They are bred over and over again until they die. The only way to free them from the misery of these horrid puppymills is to eliminate the demand for puppies by refusing to buy a puppy in a pet store and boycotting those pet stores that sell puppies.

You can speak out against the misery of puppy mills by joining the Coalition Againist Misery. On the website you can also learn how you can help, which can include everything from protesting a pet store to adopting a puppy mill rescue dog to linking to the website.

LEARN MORE ABOUT Prisoners of Greed.

Hip Hound Couture has launched a campaign to raise money and awareness to help end the suffering of millions of dogs in America’s puppy mills, Collar for a Cause. $3 from every retail collar sale (leads and harnesses, too) will go towards supporting Best Friends’ Puppies Aren’t Products initiative.

Hip Hound Couture is a small, family run operation located in sunny Southern California. It was born out of one woman’s and one dog’s fascination (okay – some may view it as a mild obsession) with the dog collar. Every place they went they were constantly on the lookout for the latest, greatest, hippest collar and leash fashions, but they not satisfied with what was out there. A year later Hip Hound Couture was born.

Visit their online store to not only pick up a new hip collar but to also make a difference in a dog’s life.