Blame Profiteers for Death of Puppies : Animal welfare: Treatment by ‘puppy mill’ operators results in tragedies like recent deaths of animals in airline cargo hold.
When United Airlines employees opened the cargo door on Flight 141 from Chicago Sept. 6, the sight of more than two dozen dead and dying puppies greeted them. Of the 29 animals loaded on the plane in Chicago, only two puppies and two kittens survived.
The cause of death is still being investigated by the U.S Department of Agriculture, but most of the blame will undoubtedly be placed on the airline. Just as surely, none of the blame will be placed on people equally responsible, those who deal in animals as if they were commodities and consider their mortality the price of doing business.
The journey for these commodities began in Walnut, Iowa, took them through Omaha, Neb., and then to Chicago, where they were loaded onto Flight 141. As the jet taxied for takeoff around 11 a.m., a warning light came on.
“The plane turned back and was directed to a different gate and a different concourse,†explains Rob Doughty, spokesman for United Airlines. ‘What was thought to be a quick delay became what we call a “creeping delay.â€
The delay crept to two hours. According to United’s procedure, the animals should have been unloaded and taken to a holding area. Instead, they were left in the cargo hold to swelter--and most to die--as temperatures on the ground neared 100 degrees.
“Obviously, procedures were not followed,†Doughty said. “The person who made the mistake is subject to disciplinary action. He feels terrible about this. He’s an animal lover himself.â€
To prevent future tragedies, airlines should limit the number of animals allowed in cargo holds with less than ideal temperatures and oxygen controls to two or three. The 29 animals packed into the hold on Flight 141 never had a chance as they fought for oxygen and against the baking temperatures increased by their own body heat.
But writing new procedures and changing airline policies avoids the larger question: Should baby animals be cranked out like widgets, transported across the country and displayed in store windows?
The answer should be a resounding no--not only for the sake of the animals themselves but also for the unsuspecting souls who fall for the doggies in the window.
Although reputable breeders regularly ship dogs, they usually ship one at a time directly to the new owner. Reputable breeders look at the needs of the potential owner, try to fit the dog to the person and make a good match.
It’s one thing to ship a puppy to a person in New York. These are infant animals, and flying is an overall stress on them. Even temperature changes will affect them more than adult animals.
Puppies headed to pet stores face the additional stress of being placed in an environment containing viruses and other potentially infectious conditions.
The infants on Flight 141 began their short lives in one of the six notorious “puppy mill†states (Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Iowa) and, like a huge percentage of those animals, were destined not for well-chosen homes but for California pet stores.
For more than 10 years, the Humane Society of the United States has investigated dog breeding and brokering facilities commonly called puppy mills and located, for the most part, in the Midwest.
The organization recently called for a national boycott of dogs raised in the six states because of what its investigators discovered in more than 600 visits to puppy mills: “Dogs with no protection from the freezing cold or burning sun; dogs forced to have litter after litter until they are killed because they are bred out and useless to their owners.â€
But this goes beyond the humane issue. This is a safety issue for people as well.
Puppies go through a fear imprint stage that terminates at about 12 weeks. If they are exposed to any trauma during that time, symptoms of that fear, including “fear biting,†aggression or extreme submissiveness, will last a lifetime.
Because buyers are more likely to buy baby dogs in the window, it is the very nature of the puppy mill/pet store business to subject infant animals to the trauma of transport, as well as the trauma of caged existence as an object of display.
When you take a dog into your home, sometimes to live with children, and that animal has already suffered trauma at the hands of people, you expose your children to a danger which has increased geometrically. And you pay a premium for this.
People are more likely to get a healthier and better socialized animal from the Humane Society or Department of Animal Control rather than a pet store, because those animals have been handled and evaluated by professionals who have no financial motive in offering them to the public.
But the blame in this scenario must be placed on others besides the airlines, puppy mills and pet stores, all of which profit at the expense of living creatures.
The American Kennel Club rakes in millions of dollars annually in registration fees for purebred dogs but refuses to take a stand against the puppy mills and pet stores which exploit the animals the organization supposedly cares about. The AKC will register anything with papered parents, including, as its president once admitted, “a blind, deaf, three-legged pup with hip dysplasia and green fur.â€
The puppy-buying public pays the price of the AKC-sponsored rip-off, but the animals pay a far higher price. The survivors of Flight 141 recently left a local emergency veterinary clinic for the next leg of their journey. Instead of going to local pet stores, they were sent all the way back to Walnut, Iowa, at the shipper’s request.
We can only wonder what their ultimate fate will be.
Inside the business of entertainment
The Wide Shot brings you news, analysis and insights on everything from streaming wars to production — and what it all means for the future.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
