Homewoods Rescue for the Wayward Hound

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Please submit your adoption application immediately. All mill dogs will be current on all vaccines; Heartworm tested negative; non-aggressive; mange, ringworm and flea free; healthy and old enough for transport; de-wormed and FREE for the first time in their lives!!! Won't you rejoice with them by offering a loving forever home? It's a very decent thing to do under the circumstances. Each mill dog's individual adoption fee is noted in its write-up on PetFinder and helps cover program expenses, food, veterinary care and transportation costs and is required at the time of adoption.

There is some contention over the definition of the term puppymill. A common definition describes a puppymill as "a substandard breeding facility that fails to adhere to the Animal Welfare Act and which tries to avoid state and/or federal inspections." My definition is more broad:

Puppymill: A mass breeding facility, the sole purpose of which is monetary profit, with little or no regard to the health and well-being of the animals therein.

This being said, there are varying degrees of puppymills. I know of large puppymills with heated, air-conditioned indoor/outdoor runs for the dogs - much superior to the opposite end of the spectrum, which generally consists of rabbit hutches in barns with little light or ventilation. Yet, these "better" puppymills still breed females each heat cycle, and offer little or no veterinary care for the animals.

Hundreds of thousands of dogs suffer in puppymills in this country. They are prisoners of greed. The dogs are locked in small cages. They freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer. They never get out of their prisons. They are bred over and over again until they die. The only way to free them from their misery is to eliminate the demand for puppies by refusing to buy a puppy in a petstore and boycotting those stores that sell puppies. When the demand ends, the misery will end. The state and federal governments do not enforce the laws to protect the dogs. The commercial breeders and brokers have huge well-funded lobbying efforts. Please join this fight to free the prisoners of greed. The only person who is going to make a difference for these dogs is you. You, the people, can free them.

Recently Homewoods Rescue took the bit in their teeth to help the dogs of Missouri. Alone, Lisa Winters, Homewoods Rescue transport co-ordinator, drove 3,000 miles round-trip to spring fourteen lost souls. After a week of quarantine, these wonderful dogs are now ready to begin their lives anew and make up for lost time. Will you give one of these dogs a loving forever home?

These dogs can not believe where they had landed. Some have never been on the ground before! They have explored and played. It has been something to watch them. We have loved and cuddled these unconsenting victims and they are coming around beautifully. They are so precious and deserve the very best! Please adopt one :o)

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The auditorium was filled to capacity and all eyes turned to the rear as the elderly female with the white tipped cane walked stoically and carefully down the center aisle. Many in the audience that night talked later about the smell of lilacs that preceded her down the aisle. They would also talk in whispers about the almost God-like expression on her face.

One couldn't help but notice the clean, crisp house dress she wore and how traces of starch glistened in the dim auditorium. She was a strange looking old bird with no teeth and hair that resembled that of a silver fox. The audience watched in fascination as she stopped halfway down the aisle to retrieve a crumpled kerchief from her dress pocket. Tears formed in the eyes of the spectators when they saw her take a few minutes to wipe away tears that were streaming down her very weathered and tired old face. You couldn't help but notice the support hose that covered her legs or the very worn but solidly made black work shoes that adorned her feet. They didn't know why she was here but she had certainly piqued their interest.

The people sitting in the front row were not surprised to hear the creak of her bones as she painfully climbed the steps to the podium. The entire audience watched in fascination as this obviously blind old girl easily made her way to center stage and the microphone that awaited her. There wasn't a sound in the auditorium as she opened her mouth to speak. She began by asking all the mothers to stand. She then asked the mothers who had lost children to remain standing as she gently asked the others to take their seats. Then she asked that only the mothers who had lost more than one child to remain standing. Not one woman remained standing. Just the old girl who had issued the request.

Then she began. She told of being born many, many years ago. She told about the people that enslaved her and the males they sent in regularly to visit her. She talked about days and nights filled with hunger, torture and pain. She talked about living in a wooden shed no bigger than a tool shed and the fifty or sixty other prisoners who resided along side her. She talked about the lack of heat, electricity, running water, air vents and space. She mentioned that there wasn't even a window to let in sunshine. She talked about the man in the black hat who showed up once a day to offer a few scraps of food to the occupants of this over crowded building. She mentioned the fights that would ensue as the man departed. The stronger occupants would attack the weaker to gain control of all the food. This would leave over half the occupants without nourishment and force them to find other means of survival. It wasn't unusual to see several shed dwellers eating the remains of rodents, bugs and anything else that had entered the shed in error. This old girl had even witnessed mothers eating the remains of babies that were stillborn.

She talked about living a building that would contain the heat of the summer days and even worse the below zero temperatures of winter. She told them about the occupants that would die in the frigid temperatures and how the man in the black hat would retrieve their bodies and toss them onto a compost pile or into his fields.She shared stories of her many pregnancies and she made them cry as she described the pain she felt as her babies were taken from her just days after being born. She told them how she would watch in horror as the man in the black hat would break the necks of the babies that were born with obvious defects. She described her sense of failure when her weak and worn body was unable to produce the milk that her babies needed to survive. She shared the pain she felt as she heard them cry out in hunger and the even bigger heartache when their crying ceased. She talked about the babies that were sold to the big spenders and the babies that got too big to be sold and were taken behind the barn to be destroyed. The man in the black hat didn't want to feed anything that could not produce an income. She talked about being born with the desire to play and frolic and learning all too quickly that this was not her destiny. She had been born to produce babies. Nothing more, nothing less. She talked about losing her teeth to poor nutrition and her eyesight to urine burns and infection. She went on for about 45 minutes and then she turned the topic and began to speak about her life today. That is when the audiences tears really began to flow. This wonderful old girl shared the following:

I have lived many years and I want you all to know that my life is and has been truly wonderful. I have been given strong arms and legs. I have been given a family that loves me. I have sunshine each day, food and water at my disposal. I have a warm lap to call my own and people that tell me how beautiful I am on a daily basis. I have been blessed. Then a young man stood up and asked; "how can you say you have been blessed when your life has been a living hell?' This elderly old puppy mill girl turned in his direction and said: "My friend, what I have had for the last part of my life is what I will take with me when I leave this earth. I will take only warm thoughts and kind acts. Until I go- I will live the rest of my life being spoiled and loved. I am truly blessed."

PICTURES OF THE NEW RESCUES WILL BE POSTED SOON!