mom and dad will probably live their entire lives on that facility in a pin whether it's smaller or a larger size but they're not themselves hence they are breeding stock they they typically don't come in the house and snuggle on the couch. they have no idea what life as a pet is about because they spend 247 in a cage when you came into one of these puppy mills you would just see one on top of another in these little chicken wire crates. you know how cramped it is when you're when you're flying and i was thinking about and i thought it must be like that for

the puppy mill dogs that are in these cages being able to get up and move around and i think that's the 740 seven's comedy 400 people and i thought it's just like taking 400 golden traverse or labs or shepherds and putting them in a scene shrapnel them in and making them live there for 8 years you will typically smell the facility before you actually walk near the cages and as soon as you can see the cages. i know it's going to be a bad situation when you have the above ground wire bottom change because that sort of tells us that the person is trying to be very efficient. this is a business people are not for profit for an initial outlay of a couple $100.00 for a few breeding pairs you can be selling puppies for a $1000.00 or more apiece if you breed every heat cycle which is not what you're supposed to do but which many millers do you could be making 10. of thousands of

dollars within a couple of years they were housed in chicken coops on dog river so there's probably more dogs and chicken coops no news of their own chickens. they make money. dogs being born. they rarely see of that. that's how expensive and expensive the met would cut into their profits as far as selling the dogs. it's not good it's really not a good place for going to the. night that i was on the internet and some mouse and they came over me and said i want a puppy so i googled puppies and the bees on my.

delivery person called me to set up a day in time what time the dog would be arriving and he said you know i would like cash upon arrival not a check and that was fine so he went 1st wanted me to meet him at a rest stop off the new jersey turnpike. i just cut off right there like that was not i'm not end up on the island is not happening. i know i know something's are right and that was one of them. i'm not a nervous person i'm not scared of many things but i was nervous because my children were inside and this guy was delivering a puppy 11 o'clock at night in a van that reeked of cigarette smoke i said this is a street my house and i want to have a real address so he said that's fine i'll call you on the street mr i run 8 o'clock he scored and said he was running late and showed up at 11 so it was very fast he called he was out front i ran outside on the street and he got opened his it was a van he opened his van. and there is our crates of dogs puppies in the back and he

picked out rufus and he said here's your dog. 2 pieces of paper came with the dog that they looked like i could have printed off the computer but that's i didn't know any better so i just assumed it was fine. i brought the dog and it was late so i just put him to play with him for a little bit but he was super tired and he just looked like he wanted to go to sleep so i put his bed in this crazy cry was weird because when i had puppies before they cried in a crate the 1st time he did make a sound that was like this the best dog every doesn't make noises perfect baby and i look up to a dog that was basically having seizures going to the bathroom and throwing up either is going to die. and at that i you know is it's only 24 hours but you buy that as a person you just feel super bad for it's a baby in you just want to help it. he starts making this horrific sound like he's

yelping in pain out of nowhere like just laying down just making this terrible sound off and on he said this isn't normal and then he threw up and had diarrhea and i said i'm going to take him to our family that i'm thinking that i can't believe that somebody was in this dog here that 2nd and this is all the money that we're going to spend and this is crazy because i had no idea what to expect as they said they could stay there for days to get better and i was just i was worried about the money i was worried about the dog at the same time after spending 2 days at northstar parents being treated for hypoglycemia rufus was able to return home at the initial examination the veterinarian the care for rufus certified he was unfit for purchase. rufus's cross-country journey began in miller's burg ohio on a farm owned by moses troyer this is how i am after i buy the dog after he's delivered then i start googling most rare then is when i start and then i was like what was

wrong with you i wouldn't i really that's how naïve i was i thought it was going to be perfect and then then i start googling and i hindsight was like i need to find out where these parents are like i was disgusted less than 2 weeks before nicole purchased rufus online tours the u.s.d.a. license was cancelled currently no u.s.d.a. or state commercial license is issued for this address i've got like giving up a couple times a day said no one's call me back this is so frustrating but then i kept thinking it wasn't about the money it was the fact that this was a life that no one cared about. they are just like oh take the puppy that was 6 weeks old 5 weeks old away from its mom and just shove it in a van with creeps stirrer and then called a day like no one cared. of state highway $53.00 in the middle of ohio this is a puppy mill not unlike the one that rufus was likely born and it's where his

parents will remain until they're unable to produce the puppies in profits expected by the owner there's no natural light no human contact except for the red pickup that stops by wanted a discount or food and fill water bowls unregulated and under the radar. often we find that on the east coast that many of the puppies are coming from what we call ground 0 for large scale volume bring puppy mill bring and that's holmes county and it is really the heartbeat of where a lot of the puppy mills and a lot of the issues have started in the state of ohio when you consider that they have 43000 population and you have over 500 channels that's a lot of camels for the number of people in that general area. and holmes county alone and 200720088 was

a $9000000.00 business. now when you consider that the average family income for a family of 4 is probably less than $30000.00 in holmes county that's a considerable amount of production that is coming out of that particular area in amish country. rufus's journey to new jersey is similar to the one thousands of puppies travel from holmes county ohio in the years since rufus arrived at nicole's house and the driver has made multiple journeys to the east coast delivering puppies sold on the internet from puppy mills throughout holmes county. there's times where we here where the puppy was actually transported by someone just like john public and they load him into a vehicle and so when the puppies arrive it's not unusual to have a vehicle full of puppies and some of those puppies are very sick and some won't

make the trip whatsoever they use a syringe ban puppy mills places they always meant like the mall the puppy store in the mall or the puppy store the inside of st i just never thought that it was like on the internet i really thought when i bought rufus that he was in pennsylvania running through a field happy night didn't think it was a puppy mill dog at all. pennsylvania farmers began breeding dogs probably about 30 or so years ago there were actually breeders in missouri who came up to pennsylvania specifically because of its large amish and mennonite farming communities here we had one of the worst states for puppy mills i we were called the puppy mill capital of the east and that was primarily because pennsylvania's number one industry is agriculture. and the mennonites are more likely to view these animals as cash crops as agricultural

products we've heard that over and over again and i believe that to be true. not all amish families or not all minimally families breed dogs but the large majority the overwhelming majority of the people that we deal with the breeders are from illinois it was something that farm families could do between when you harvest in the fall and when you plant the spring. as commercial kennels cropped up across pennsylvania in the late 1960 s. the welfare of the dogs trapped in puppy mills was not viewed as a priority of the pennsylvania department of agriculture inspections were few and far between the regulations were ill defined and the program was clearly underfunded so the regulators were completely tied by the laws and just to the vagueness of all of them so what we really needed was in forcible measurable

standards you would see inspection reports time and time again where a warden is morning operator to do something. and this didn't go on for like one or 2 inspections in a year's time you're talking about years and years of warnings for many of the same offenses there was so much opposition from within the industry itself that the regulations were just going nowhere. and it became very apparent that we had to do a legislative fix. up and on the full entire system i found a way to go through a suit. bandicoots so smooth exterior i. was in this way got to dog and so hard not to think of the mother disappeared this moment then walk up to him take a look and open this door up and if. this is the only thing that we do is music

because everybody fights a useful way to. the floor you can move the fee down this bill frist woody allen called the ability to put a hold on the. what i think is this is the fund that is a constant. and we're going to fulfill the repeated promises of politics to the people and promise that you know we've all pots the truth.

that you want to 1st. know. for being. a link i link i link up by you.

throughout the years efforts to improve the lives of dogs in pennsylvania puppy mills would ultimately die in the legislature at the hands of powerful lawmakers who was not until a simple billboard was put up in lancaster county that the general public began to learn of the prop. our 1st billboard we made it look like a postcard and we had a family in our car and they were all waving across the top and yellow script just like a postcard and said welcome to scenic lancaster county home to hundreds of puppy mills and we received over 3000 phone calls and e-mails in 2 days and the majority of those phone calls came from people who lived in lancaster county who were thanked us for finally doing something about what their neighbors were doing i

think the issue gained a lot of traction through the media you know more reporting on the issue it became sort of something that was that was out front it was no longer confined to you know what happened behind the party doors after witnessing the overwhelming response to their billboards in pennsylvania main line animal rescue placed a new billboard this time near oprah winfrey studio in chicago when we were on oprah and the aftermath we watched up here in the kennel i realized that it really didn't matter what the legislators wanted or what they didn't want because people started contacting us and people were horrified horrified by what was happening in lancaster county it was happening in pennsylvania what was happening in missouri and oklahoma nebraska and they couldn't believe that animals were being treated this way and they wanted to do something about it. this was 100 percent public effort it was really because people were hearing about the plight of puppy mills on

the news on oprah reading about it in their newspapers going home and looking in the faces of these little pooches that are sharing their you know tables and beds for most of us and saying oh my gosh what if that had been my dog and it became very very personal to a huge number of people who started picking up the phones and calling their legislators through this whole struggle and it was a struggle and it was hard it was very very difficult i never lost sight of the fact that the people have the power to change things and when the legislature realized that they did not want to go home in an election cycle and face a constituency wondering why didn't you do something. this the bill got legs and this was a 2 year long is like 2 to 3 year long legislative battle in pennsylvania many of the dogs that the law was was pushed through many of the law the dogs that we wanted to protect are now dead so i'm hoping that it's that the dogs in the future dogs the dogs that are in these places in the future are helped by what we've done

but most of the dogs the majority of the dogs that we wanted to help are gone now and they never got the relief that they deserved or that the law afforded. union boilermaker out of pittsburgh. despite every free town life i have is basically in their own work and and i work in a 10 hour shift i'm working on saving dogs. everybody has their own little parts and i think that was that was my call and you know go into the mills and that's what i want to do the dogs so i know there are a lot of calves are covered in your and they're covering and they've got at least what i'd like to do is take them and then hold on my head on to say they're a bit touched a they ok so i mean i don't mind they go all over him because i want to separate dead were different you know you're leaving that life and i want their you know the rehab to start as soon as we take the dogs. and it's sad because you can't save

all said it hurts i mean there's plenty of nights you stay up at night and you can't sleep or they go rescues or you know deal with the puppy mill dogs now that i mean honestly you know it's costly running through your mind about the dog you left behind like the one puppy mill i went to the guys bringing the dogs that are so many dogs inside the puppy mill that when the dog started barking when he went in to get the dogs the side of the barn was actually shaking. there's no force was good they suppose he this year and last year and kind of both pennsylvania and ohio made the laws better but there they they passed the walls but no one's in force and. a lot of people think when you say rescue dogs from puppy mills i think we went in to the born down take the dogs but that's that's not good because the because mills are legal i think a lot of people don't understand that you know these puppy mills are legal they're

allowed to explain to him how you know we wait for the amish to contact you know then we set up a day when we can go get the dogs and then we know will load up the. ours you know and then we'll drive you know made on their property get the dogs. i mean. i don't know about. they said all that all that all they want is luggage or yesterday. but you know they're not in i mean.

in my name is eugene deep ask well you know i'm the pennsylvania auditor general. we make sure all money is spent legally ineffectively but we also audit state programs so it's not just a question whether the financial side of it is the you know the the account ledgers are matching up but also what is the effectiveness of the program so we get to go in and say ok the money might have been spent legally but was it spent effectively it was a program run effectively while inspections and prosecutions dramatically increased after the pennsylvania dog law came into force within a few years noticeable concerns began to emerge i started to receive reports

confidentially from within department reaching out to me dog wardens administrators people who had worked for the department and had left that are an area. who were concerned that the new head of the office of dog law had no idea what she was doing so reviewing inspection reports and in 2011. indicates that there were virtually no citations issued just like any other law it's only as good as the enforcement of it and early on in in the law there were some concerns that it wasn't being enforced properly so and the audit of the dog or program began . in a scathing report auditor general di pascali found the dog law program from its introduction in 2008 through 2012 showed an intentional lack of enforcement of the state's dog law and the commercial kennel canine health regulations. enforcing the

law in the can mean the partner agriculture said this during the audit that they weren't enforcing it because they knew the kennels weren't complying is say that again they were enforcing it because they knew the kennels weren't complying with the goal of the laws to get people not to do it the goal of the dog was not to find champs it was to get kennels do improve the conditions in their facilities. for the animals that's the goal of the program and we were getting the troops ready to really make a huge deal out of the lack of enforcement of this berry popular law and all of a sudden there was a one in 80 of the department and they hired a director of enforcement who was one of the best dog wardens that we've ever seen but here is the big big issue and it's not just this it's anything we do the people matter who are running the programs right now i think the administration made significant strides into who is running the program but the people that are actually running the program sometimes you know that there are faceless bureaucrats

to the general public and i understand that but the actual individual who's in charge matters and it's important governors where they began. mark radical republican the no i just put people in because of the considerations but also the qualifications of the individual but i do think that that is the case now that you know a top notch professional there and that i think is a big reason why you're starting to see a turnaround in approach. while progress has been made the challenges of regulating and inspecting licensed commercial breeders and finding unlicensed breeders in pennsylvania continues in the heart of lancaster county millwood kennel aka millwood puppies provides a prime example of the bureaucratic shell game played by some large scale breeders . david and iommi stalls fus have been breeding dogs on their property in lancaster county since the early 1990 s.

having obtained both the pennsylvania license and a u.s.d.a. commercial breeders license from 2003 onward pennsylvania inspection reports clearly indicate dogs were suffering in a facility that was not meeting even minimal welfare standards after a further string of harangued us inspection reports in 2008 david still sfusd voluntarily relinquish both his pennsylvania and u.s.d.a. license but the dogs remained at the same puppy mill though the name was changed to millwood puppies and ownership passed to david's son matthew stills foose matthew quickly obtained a u.s.d.a. commercial breeders license at the same address. immediately the violations continued under the new license when millwood puppies was inspected in october 2009 the violations were so severe that the commonwealth of pennsylvania brought multiple charges against matthew for violations under the dog law. before

pennsylvania district judge isaac stalls foose all charges against matthew were summarily withdrawn and all cases closed in 2010. at no time with the dogs removed from the facility by either state or federal authorities. around this time matthew found a new very lucrative avenue to sell his puppies the internet since 2010 it's estimated that matthew has sold over $3000.00 puppies online ranging from 302-2800 dollars each in 2013 alone millwood puppy sold 472 dogs more than a dog a day during this period matthew maintained a pennsylvania kennel license but in january 2014 he applied for a new u.s.d.a. commercial breeders license for millwood puppies l l c this was the 3rd u.s.d.a. commercial breeders license and the 2nd pennsylvania license issued for this one

address in the past 8 years i think one of the most remarkable things that we actually were able to illustrate on the oprah show that one of the dogs that we picked up from know what chemicals we can it was either know what kind of time or millward obviously was a yellow out a male yellow lab and i'll never forget he's a really beautiful dog but he had never been off water for some beautiful young and the amish breeder if you stop astride the dog government we put pick the dog up and put a dog in the band and we put the dog down on the solid floor and in the lobby he started to walk like he had never been he had ever been to south florida and he started walking up a wall he tried to walk up the wall of our lobby because he had never been solid before and it's just amazing to me that they would expect an animal to live his or her entire life unpaid for wire flooring and they wouldn't do it themselves. matthew's large scale puppy breeding business was not his only interaction with the u.s.d.a. during the same time period he was receiving farm subsidies from the u.s.d.a.

the total $56624.00 in commodity subsidies associated with. his dairy farm lancaster county pennsylvania has a total population of a little over 536000 residents from 1995 to 2012 farmers in the county have received 100 $28000000.00 in taxpayer funded farm subsidies from the u.s.d.a. . an extensive investigation for this film found numerous examples of u.s.d.a. license commercial breeders receiving multiple violations from the animal health of vision on one hand and large taxpayer funded farm subsidies on the other while the programs are viewed as distinct and separate by the u.s.d.a. the fact remains that license commercial breeders with multiple dog welfare violations continue to receive taxpayer funded farm subsidies in lancaster county and many other rural areas throughout the united states these commercial breeders

are exploiting a federal agency by receiving a taxpayer funded handout while simultaneously receiving major violations for failing the dogs in their care. don't want to be a showy and shallow but he is once again defied his critics this time by securing his impeachment acquittal what is it about the 45th president of the united states that makes people love and hate him so look. at his community there are people who believe that it's ok to suffer actual food on the table it's really hard there are no jobs and you see that i've got kids ask and

as a pair. i can come up with a lot of arguments there's a lot of conflict in the game between the. most of the conflict i would say. there is maybe. close one on each other does he know each other is good business the state of california alone makes $6000000000.00 a year of the prison complex and gets a life where. you don't care and. so your care might.

be a. form of action confusion in iowa to daunt from some patron to acquittal we look at a week of frustrations for the us democratic party. in the weekly the arrest of an alleged war criminal who lived in hungary in france on a student visa or expose his dangerous roles in even the gratian policy found in moscow a call grounds custody to social services of a completely healthy child and been kept in hospital by her parents for 5 years. and i welcome the latest news and look back at what's been happening over the last 7 days to you watching the weekend here on r.t. international.