6 months after we adopted Catty I found about about Melissa McDaniel, her photo book projects and that she was was going to do a photo book on puppy mill dogs. Prior to Catty, I knew nothing of puppy mills, honestly I didn't even know they existed. Once we knew about Catty I started researching puppy mills and was horrified with what I found. Puppy mills are legal and the conditions of the mills are deplorable. While I feel sad for the puppies, my heart goes out to the breeders rarely get out of the mills and have to live a life of misery in horrid conditions that no living being should be subjected to.
Catty is a complex girl - a mixture of fear and general terrier attitude and I'm sure her mill experience of being a breeder bitch for the first 3-4 years of her life, contributed to her fear & socialization issues. In the 2+ years we've had Catty she has made huge strides and while she still struggles, she's come a long ways and we know as time passes she will just keep getting better.
Back to the book -- Melissa was taking applications for dogs to be photographed by her and then appear in the puppy mill book. I submitted an application and Catty was chosen to showcase herself and speak to why puppy mills need to be abolished. All of this happened back in the winter of 2010. Melissa let me know she would be out in Seattle to photograph Catty in the late spring 2011 so it was just time to wait for spring to arrive.
We started fostering in February of 2011 and in late March New Rattitude was contacted about a registered/legal puppy mill in the midwest who needed to dump 15 rat terrier puppies due to the puppies being to old (they were well under 6 months) and the mill having too many puppies to stay in compliance with their state license. They were clear that New Rattitude needed to take all 15 and if not all would be destroyed. Nationally a number of New Rattitude foster parents stepped up and Washington took 4 of the 15 mill puppies. To read more about this tremendous effort click here http://www.newrattitude.org/tudenews201107.htm
Once the puppies arrived and I received the date from Melissa, I told her about our current puppy mill story. Melissa being the amazing person she is, offered to photograph the 4 puppies and include them in the puppy mill book. Of the 4 WA puppies, we fostered Jasper and later fostered Reuben. We took on Reuben so that the foster home he was in could take on another NR dog in Missouri who was in desperate need of a foster transfer. That dog would have been to much for Catty so Reuben came to stay with us until he was adopted.
Both Jasper and Reuben are pictured in my banner picture (the last two on the right, Reuben has the sweater on). While these puppies were young when they came to us, they clearly had issues. These dogs were not socialized and lived in a small packed cage during their time at the mill. Of the 15 puppies 3 of them suffered broken legs due to malnutrition and lack of movement while being caged. While Jasper was in good physical health, psychologically he was damaged. Jasper displayed some separation distress when he was with us and once he was adopted it turned into full blown severe separation anxiety and had to be returned to New Rattitude. I do blame the mill for little Jasper's psychological imbalance -- all that breeding and inbreeding you get some really messed up dogs. Lucky for us and Jasper, one of our retired foster parents adopted him so he's never left alone more than a couple of hours a week. With this lifestyle he is a happy go lucky boy who's anxiety is stabilized.
Now that you've read all of this I urge you to help Melissa with her cause, it doesn't take much and your few dollars can help get this book published to see how you can help click here:
To learn more about Melissa's photo book projects click her http://www.thephotobooks.com/index2.php#/info1
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| My Catty girl will be featured in the puppy mill project book |
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| I have all of Melissa's books and they are truly amazing! |
What a super cool project! I and Aim just helped this project out on the Kickstarter. We love the picture of Catty too :)
ReplyDeleteYes it's really cool and thank you so much for helping out!
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