“Puppy mills are businesses or families that breed puppies for sale online, in retail stores such as pet shops, or from their homes,” said Kitsap Humane Society employee Rhonda Manville. Puppy mills originated a little after the World War II era, many Midwestern farmers had to look for different products to sell to people. The farmers soon found out that there was a growing demand for purebred puppies and that started the beginning of commercial puppy businesses. Flash forward to present time, there are now about 10,000 puppy mills in the United States alone. Puppy mills are spread across the world but are concentrated mainly in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Although puppy mills are very discreet about their businesses, some citizens believe that there is a puppy mill right in the middle of Silverdale; Farmland Pets and Feed motto, “Your complete animal supply resource”

Farmland Pets and Feed is a privately owned, single location pet store in Silverdale, the store is known for having necessities that other stores like Petco or PetSmart often times don’t have.

“We often have stuff that other people don’t. Sometimes other people come in and say ‘Wow I wanted this and you guys have it. I mean it’s great,’” said  Manager of Farmland Pets and Feed Shannon Rachel.

Farmland has many supplies for animals such as collars, shampoo, toys, and medicine. Their day to day operations can get a little chaotic with all the animals in the store, the staff comes in early and makes sure that all their work is finished and they’re not reluctant to stay late if they need to. Since 1977, Shannon Rachel’s family has kept their business thriving and when her parents retired, Rachel became the manager. Since then the business has had a steady rate of customers.

“We have some customers that have been coming here since I was a little tiny girl, I mean we’ve been in business for forty years. I’ve been working at the store since I was eight and there are customers that I’ve been working with since I was eight. So and then I sometimes now see their kids and their kids that come in that are like with their kids ‘I came here when I was little,’” said Rachel.

Citizens in the Silverdale region are boycotting the store due to rumors that Farmland Pets and Feed is a puppy mill business.One of the protesters Terry Shuck the KAA members have been working with lawmakers at the country and state level more than three years to ban selling puppies in puppy mills. In an article written about the boycott by Chris Tucker from Kitsap Daily News, he met with KAA protester Terry Shuck who reportedly said, “the protests were held to inform the general public about where the puppies came from”.

The puppies are delivered from a large scale of a breeding operation called BJ’s and Guys, in Menlo, Kansas.“We used to do only local puppies, the problem we have is that we couldn’t get health guarantees with them, we couldn’t get any shot records with them, you know often times a year later if you try to get information the people would be gone.  At least dealing with the kennel groups that we deal with you can call them at anytime,” explained Rachel.

Yelp currently holds a two star review for Farmland with a total of 34 reviews written. One reviewer who had recently adopted a puppy from there wrote about how her dog was healthy, had proper paperwork and how the staff was helpful with this process. While other reviewers are on the more negative side, many of them accuse Farmland of being a puppy mill and their supplies like the food being expired. A Yelp reviewer from 2015 said that when he purchased two “male” gerbils, one of them turned out to be female and reproduced five pups. When he talked to them, he wasn’t met with much help.

Google gives Farmland Pets and Feed three point three stars, it also consists of many mixed reviews. Many of the new reviews range from four stars to one star and each person has different experiences while buying animals or supplies from the store. Local guide Betty Bennett gave Farmland four stars, she spoke about how Farmland has a lot of supplies and the staff is friendly and knows a lot about their products. While another local guide, Chelsea Rice wrote about there wasn’t a lot of room in the store, the conditions of the store were in need of some cleaning and the driveway was in need of a little touch ups.

According to Manville, some identifiers of a puppy mills are the conditions that the puppies are in, which includes: cramped areas for the animals to stay in, the sellers don’t screen the buyers before they sell which means they value the profit more than the dog’s care, often times people may find them in dirty and cramped areas and many of the dogs could be sick in some way. More ways to see if the dog you’re adopting is from a puppy mill is if they are underpriced or they won’t let you meet the parents.

There are many state laws in place to help fight against puppy mills. Surprising, in most cases the puppy mills we see today are not illegal albeit still inhumane. There are state laws in place to further protect the animals; in fact, in 2017 California became the first state to outlaw puppy mills. Washington’s state law says that a person is not able to legally own more than fifty dogs with intact sex organs over six months old at any time, must provide adequate exercise periods and many more amendments.

The Animal Welfare Act  is a federal law that was established in 1966 and requires pet stores such as Farmland Pets and Feed to undergo mandatory annual inspection. This is meant to make sure the pets are being taking care of, the products they sell are up to date and make sure the employees are doing their job while treating the animals in a humane way. Many stores use this law as a guideline to make sure that the animals are in healthy conditions and their products are safe to use for all customers.

The Animal Welfare Act authorizes “The Secretary of Agriculture to promulgate such rules, regulations and orders as he may deem necessary to effectuate the purposes of this Act,”. The original purpose of the Animal Welfare Act is to protect dog and cat owners from theft, stop sales or use of dogs and cats that had been taken and ensure that animals being used for research were under humane and safe conditions.

Due to the Animal Welfare Act, businesses like Farmland have to make sure that their animals are documented and they are thoroughly licensed; they are required to have forms that proves the legalities of their business. “Basically if they come in and talk to us then we are happy to show them all of the information we have on all of the animals we have.” said Rachel.

More information on puppy mills can be found on PETA, Humane Society of America, ASPCA, and Best Friends. More information about Farmland Pets and Feed can be found on their website and they can be contacted at their phone number (360)692-0415 or their email address [email protected]. Farmland is open from Mon. through Fri. nine to seven, Sat. nine to six, Sun. nine to five.