Puppy/Kitten Mill Bill

Lollipop and Missy

My parents with Minnie

When I started volunteering with the Animal Humane Society a few years ago, I started to learn about puppy/kitten mills.  What I learned was so horrible I had to take action. I wrote letters to the papers and to my MN legislatures, to no avail.  I was already taking a writing class online, so I decided to write an article about these mills.  You can read this article in this blog under the heading My Writing.

I am posting this now as this is the first week of the MN legislature.  Our state goes on a two-year cycle.  So every two years a new bill has to be created.  This is the second year, and the mill bill was stuck in the agriculture committees last spring, as it has been in every other spring since the start of trying to pass this legislation.

Last year one of my letters finally made it in my local paper.  Over the years I have received letters from legislators that I wrote to.  But my legislators represent the Twin Cities metro area, whereas the Ag committees represents rural MN.  Therein lies the problem.

Pets are companion animals, not farm animals.  They are domesticated from the wolf and the wild cat.  Domesticated by humans, thence the label companion animal.  Why you might ask are the bills in the Ag committees?  Good question!  Of which I have no answer to.

After the bill did not pass the first year of my involvement, I sobbed that night.  I imagined those poor animals shivering in their barns, hungry for food, water, love.  I imagine them now as we suffer the coldest winter we have had for years.

I look into my cat's eyes, my family's pets eyes, the dogs and cats at the humane society, and they ask me why?  Why do humans do this?  They ask me will I be their voice?

I ask you will you be their voice.

To learn more about mills and what to do.