Oprah's Show on Puppy Mills

It's been an interesting week in the media, dogwise. Word started flying around late last week that Oprah was going to do a show on puppy mills. Some of the dog writers were merely interested, some were trepidatious. Most of us probably watched.
But before the show aired, almost as soon as word got out, in fact, several of us received a long email from a man who appeared to be speaking for the American Sporting Dogs Alliance. I have not confirmed that with the organization, but he included their name prominently in his email. He was livid over this show (which had not yet aired), and demanding that everyone boycott Oprah's sponsors, because she was certainly going to get it wrong!
Well, after I wrote my last blog about freedom of speech and freedom of the press, you can imagine how well this went over with me. I put the show on my calendar so I wouldn't forget to watch, and reserved judgment.
I have just finished watching the show, and I have to say kudos, Oprah. I thought it was a very fair-minded and, for a lot of people, probably eye-opening account.
First a man involved in rescue and Oprah's reporter Lisa Ling went to several puppy mills. That was combined with some footage from the HSUS. It showed dogs crammed in little wire cages, or larger dogs in small fenced areas in the mud. The rescuer was taking dogs the puppy millers no longer wanted. He often had to carry the dogs to his car because they had never walked on ground before.
They talked about pet shops getting most of their dogs from puppy mills, and the rescuer noted that no responsible breeder would sell their pups to a pet shop.
The show followed some of the dogs that had been rescued, showing them cutting off the chain collars, shaving them down because they were so matted.
Then the focus switched to animal shelters, the municipal kind, and how many dogs are euthanized. They showed a shelter manager going through and choosing which dogs would die that day.
Then they talked about spay and neuter. Oprah's vet was there, and gave some of the benefits of spaying and neutering. The show did NOT encourage, or even mention, legislation regarding spay/neuter, they simply encouraged owners to have their pets spayed and neutered. They talked about free or low-cost clinics, and said that money was not an excuse.
Other that what was probably an inflated percentage of how many dogs in shelter are purebreds, I found nothing in the program to quibble about.
What would be absolutely fantastic would be a follow-up show. On the off-chance that someone from Oprah's staff stumbles over this blog, a look at how successfull education combined with low-cost clinics has been at reducing the number of dogs in shelters would be a great next step. We don't need legislation. The legislation won't have any effect on most of the guilty parties, makes hard feelings with the responsible breeds, and accomplishes little.
Good job, Oprah. And Mr. nobody from American Sporting Dogs Alliance, I hope you might open your eyes and realize that you were WAY out of line.