Indiana Puppy Mills

Note: The following is an account of a long and frustrating campaign to bring awareness to conditions inside Indiana Amish puppy mills.  Some images are graphic, and therefore we have opted to provide hyperlinks within the text of the story.  If you choose to click on those links to view videos, images, or documents, the link will open in a new page and you can simply close the new page to return to this story.

Several years ago, before PetShopPuppies was even an organization, Kim Townsend was contacted by someone who had been inside an Indiana Amish puppy mill.  Throughout the years, Kim had encountered many people who were unaware that puppy mills were legal and licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and she felt this person was likely just an uninformed citizen that she would try to educate about the commercial dog industry.

The friendship that developed between Kim and Lisa* has lasted for five years, both learning from each other and sadly realizing how cruelty and abuse is tolerated in the state of Indiana, and even seemingly encouraged by local, state, and federal officials, as well as those within the industry that stood to profit from that cruelty.

It all began with a dog auction in November 2003, reported to have been held by an Amish dog farmer named John Graber.  The Washington Times-Herald reported on the troubles with registering dogs, as well as noting that County Deputies were escorting people off the property for taking pictures.  The American Kennel Club (AKC) was reported to have withheld papers on all dogs and puppies at the auction, and shortly after, both John Graber and auctioneer Mark Graber were suspended for ten years each by the AKC and fined $2,000 for refusing an AKC inspection.

There was much outrage, both before and after the auction.  A formal complaint was filed with USDA (who was present at the auction), but that complaint was ignored...even disputed, and Mark Graber, the auctioneer, was only given a written violation for keeping dogs in pull-out drawers too small to allow the dogs to move about. (another view)

For Lisa, enough was not being done.  She began a courageous and difficult journey into the underbelly of the Amish puppy mill industry -- a journey that thus far has failed to produce any justice for the mangled Shih Tzu (additional photos 1 2 3 4) that inspired her in the years that would follow, or the dogs still in the possession of John Graber and other Amish dog farmers in and around Daviess County Indiana.  These videos show just some of the incredible courage Lisa displayed in exposing the puppy mill problem in Indiana, Click Here to see John Graber, Indiana Amish Puppy Mill and Uncle Bills Pet Stores and Safari Pets.

With the help of several organizations, Lisa and Kim exhausted all legal avenues to get the illegal activity in Indiana stopped.  Kim Townsend was already researching puppies sold at Uncle Bills Pet Stores and Safari Pets, and saw a disturbing pattern of unlicensed and seemingly illegal breeders from Daviess County that were supplying the stores.  Lisa confirmed this with her own investigations.  The easiest path seemed to file complaints with the USDA, since they were charged with enforcing the federal Animal Welfare Act that required most breeders selling to pet stores to hold a USDA license.  The first step was to request documents from the USDA through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in order to determine whether or not USDA was aware of the problems.  USDA's response indicated they were aware that Uncle Bills was buying from unlicensed sources. Safari pets, though previously licensed by USDA, no longer held a license and USDA did not provide any information on Safari Pets when our request was filled. (Note: Safari Pets is again licensed and we are in the process of obtaining inspection reports.)

According to the most recently released list of those licensed to breed and/or broker puppies in the U.S., Uncle Bills and Safari Pets has their choice of over 5,000 entities, with over 100 of those located in Indiana. Why would they repeatedly buy from illegal and unlicensed Amish sources?  The USDA that regulates the puppy mill industry in America has "minimum standards" set for the care of the animals.  These standards are so low and abysmal that virtually every pet shop customer would find them to be nothing short of cruel and inhumane.  Our videos better explain the USDA standards and take you inside a "Blue Ribbon Kennel" or what you could expect in the "best of the best" USDA kennel.

An estimated 400,000 puppies a year are sold in American pet stores, and an Uncle Bill's spokesman claims their chain of stores sells 2500 puppies a year.  While PetShopPuppies does encounter unlicensed breeders from pet stores throughout the country, it is seldom evident that the breeders do not fall under USDA's exemption for "hobby breeders" that have three or fewer breeding females.  Breeders that supply Uncle Bills and Safari Pets have repeatedly been documented to have more than three breeding females dogs, and therefore are not exempt from USDA licensing.

Once our FOIA request for records on Uncle Bills was filled, we confirmed what we already suspected -- that USDA was aware of the problem of illegal breeders in Indiana and were seemingly doing nothing about it.  To ignore a problem was one thing we had come to expect from USDA, but to seemingly aid and abet these violators of a Federal law was quite another!  We'll get to that shortly.

Next, The Animal Legal Defense Fund, through staff attorneys, presented all evidence against John Graber to the local Prosecutor. The Prosecutor declined to bring criminal charges because he did not think a jury in Daviess County would convict John Graber of animal cruelty.

Shortly after the video was submitted to the Prosecutor, USDA published the usual list of licensed breeders in the U.S.  and one significant change was noted on the lists of over 5,000 breeders and brokers -- nearly all of the Daviess County licensed Amish dog breeders' addresses were replaced with one common P.O. box in Bloomfield, IN, a town in a different county, and over 16 miles from where most of the Amish dog breeders lived.  In addition, the paperwork that PetShopPuppies was receiving on puppies bred by the unlicensed Amish farmers was now indicating the same P.O. Box.  Remember that the Amish do not drive cars -- were all of these people now driving their buggies over thirty miles a day to check their mail?  To Kim and Lisa, the message was clear -- the Amish did not appreciate our intrusion, and USDA was willing to help them hide their physical addresses from prying eyes!

In a totally unrelated chain of events, someone who had responded to an advertisement placed by John Graber filed a complaint against him with the Daviess County Sheriff's Office. Through a public records request, a copy was obtained of the original complaint and follow up report, as well as copies of photos taken by the detective. According to the report, John Graber initially falsely stated that the dogs were owned by his son. Additionally, he refused to let officers enter the facility. 

Eleven days after the initial complaint was filed, according to the report, John Graber allowed a detective from the Sheriff's Department and a local veterinarian access to at least some portion of his facility. Since this did not involve a search warrant and since eleven days had passed, it is unknown how much of the facility he permitted them to view, if he made improvements to his facility and/or removed any of his dogs. Based on the report by Detective Dougherty and the veterinarian, the Washington Times-Herald reported that the charges were unfounded and that Graber's kennel got a "clean bill of health."
 

How could this conclusion have been drawn? Considering the resistance already encountered related to this issue, it was suspected the Sheriff's Department was simply part of the "good ol' boy network" that was protecting John Graber. This suspicion was further supported when a comparison was made between detective's photos taken in 2007 and Lisa's photos taken in 2004. The conditions appeared nearly identical. We have no doubt the same conditions still exist today. Even though monthly inspections were agreed upon between the detective and John Graber, an attorney with The Animal Legal Defense Fund confirmed with Detective Dougherty in January 2008 that no subsequent inspections had been done of John Graber's facility.
 

Setback after setback, Kim and Lisa still refused to give up.  If legal methods don't work, there's always the media.  By now, PetShopPuppies was no longer Kim's personal efforts to educate the public about puppy mills; she formed a 501(c)(3) charity and PetShopPuppies.org was born.  When they began working with WTHR in Indianapolis they hoped for a resolution.  While the coverage did help to bring public awareness to the problem, and they did an excellent job of explaining "the puppy pipeline," (See WTHR coverage on our video player) it seems that interest faded quickly.  They would not stop there.

Knowing the only reason suffering would continue at John Graber's farm and the farms of other Amish breeders was that uninformed people in the Indianapolis area were continuing to patronize Uncle Bills and Safari Pets, the major outlet for the Indiana Amish dog breeders, they began protests in front of Uncle Bills and Safari Pets, with a tremendous outpouring of support from the public.  They started a mailing list for those interested in the progress of the fight, as well as upcoming protests.  In addition, they erected their first billboard in Indianapolis!

They won't stop!  They will never give up until John Graber is closed down; USDA begins a full investigation into the unlicensed dog breeders in Indiana that are supplying Uncle Bills and Safari Pets; USDA begins the administrative process of an injunction against Uncle Bills to stop him from buying from unlicensed breeders; and consumers in Indiana are aware of the truth behind pet shop puppies!  While they think that the Daviess County Prosecutor's and Sheriff's offices acted unprofessionally, Indiana humane laws are so weak that someone like John Graber can leave a dog to die of injuries and not be charged with any crime.  Additionally, Indiana has no state law that governs dog breeders -- even those with hundreds or thousands of dogs.  Indiana humane laws must be changed to eliminate the neglect and cruelty inherent in puppy mills.
 

*Names have been changed to protect our sources