Courtesy of Victoria King
from In Defense of Animals -
[email protected]
PUPPY MILL RELATED COMPANIES :
Hunte Corp. = Petland parent / supplier of puppies to Petland.
Pfizer gives advice to Hunte at a Missouri convention of
puppy millers on how to increase their production of puppies.
The Hunte Corporation which produces over 35,000 puppies
per year, shipping between 900-1200 dogs per month all over the country
and is the corporation that owns Petland had an open house and seminar
type event in MO. A post was sent by someone who attended that event
that it was attended by a wide variety of "puppymillers" who were there
to learn how to produce more puppies, more effectively etc etc. The
breeders that the rescue person talked to bred over ten breeds of dogs
each and many had
kennels with dogs numbering in the hundreds. It is up to your individual
opinion to determine whether any "reputable breeders" would have
attended such an event.
One key point was that Pfizer Corporation had a booth at
this event and also provided a vet, Dr. Peggy Fisher, an employee of
Pfizer, to speak to the group assembled there about how to increase
sperm production in dogs, get more litters etc etc. (there were at least
4 other vets speaking as well, not from Pfizer). If you look at Pfizer's
website for their Animal Health Division, you will see that they
dedicate much information to companion animals and "education" of the
public on related issues.
My thought was, how could such a large company, that was
billing itself to be an educational force that cares about companion
animals also be knowingly supporting an operation such as Hunte AND
further than that, providing education to other unethical for-profit
breeders on how to basically increase their profits (which is what the
info disseminated will do).
So, I called Pfizer and eventually spoke with Denise
Ulrich, Manager of Marketing Communications. Following is an abridged
version (meaning not word for word!) of our conversation.
Ms. Ulrich stated that The Hunte Corp. is a long time
customer of Pfizer Animal Health, but then stated that up until today
she had never heard of them. She said they provide booths and speakers
for many groups and how are they to know who they are speaking to or
for...how were they to know that Hunte is probably the largest puppymill
in the country and that puppymills don't produce quality dogs?
(Personally, I think that answer is laughable.)
My response was, how can you send speakers somewhere
WITHOUT checking at all who you are talking to? I don't know any
individual much less a large company who would do that.) I asked how
they can do education if they themselves aren't educated. I told her who
was in attendance and how they would utilize the information Pfizer
provided them with. She said that she thought not everyone would agree
with me that people who breed over ten breeds of dogs are puppymillers!
(Hey, if anyone reading this disagrees with that, let me know ok?)
I asked her why with such an elaborate website, there is
no way to contact anyone at Pfizer via email. She said that they don't
have the time or resources to answer thousands of emails a day. (Take a
look at other Fortune 50 companies websites, you will see multiple ways
to contact them, including toll free numbers on their sites.) I asked
her if Pfizer views dogs as livestock. She said absolutely not. I asked
if rows of metal cages in long aisles labeled A-Z with hundreds and
hundreds of dogs in them seemed like a livestock situation. She didn't
answer. I told her to do an Internet search on Hunte and read the sad
and shocking stories of dogs purchased from Petlands, bred by the very
breeders Pfizer chooses to support.
She said they would send vets to talk to our
organizations as well if we wanted. We don't mass produce puppies, so
that doesn't help us, however, if they are so committed to helping
educate, then why don't they offer grant applications to rescues and
shelters specifically for education of the public on the matter of where
to acquire a dog, what to look for etc etc. She said that they would
have to create a whole separate division to do that! I said surely
Pfizer must have a Community Involvement program already to which the
answer was yes, BUT SHE SAID THAT HOW COULD THEY BE SURE THEY WEREN'T
PROVIDING MONEY TO BOGUS RESCUE GROUPS OR BAD RESCUERS. I found that
very interesting since they hadn't seemed to have been concerned about
providing information / money / resources to bad breeders. She said
perhaps someday in the future they would do "something like that". I
commented that Grant Applications were exactly the tool used to SCREEN
out all those "bad
rescuers". :) She also mentioned that she talked to Dr. Peggy Fisher
this morning who said that the focus was on how to breed healthier
puppies, not just more puppies and who doesn't see any issue with what
they did.
Finally we got into a discussion about how they can't do
any more to help our end because of the high cost of pharmaceuticals and
cost controls. I had the perfect answer for that which I won't bother
you all with the details of, but suffice it to say, Pfizer is notorious
for being the most unethical and biggest spender out there in the human
health field to sway physicians to write Pfizer products. This of
course, is my opinion, but if you ask anyone in the industry, even some
who work for Pfizer, they will validate that opinion.
So, to net it out, you can't email them. But, I have not
changed my mind that calling and expressing your opinion on their
involvement with this type of organization (Hunte) is not in their best
interest as we, the people who have to clean up the messes that Pfizer
is helping to create, are large in numbers, human as well as canine,
that we do have choices in product and that we are intelligent enough
when we go to a human or animal doctor to say we choose not to be
prescribed Pfizer products.
I told her that Hunte may indeed be a large customer of
theirs, but we, the protectors, the rescuers, the animal lovers, the
activists and the plain old everyday folks who care about these animals
and who have suffered at the hands of the puppymillers because we bought
a dog we had to euthanize at 4 years old due to double hip dysplasia, or
because it bit a child, or we who as a rescuer cried as we held a
puppymill dog that was euthanized because of behavior problems, or
watched a litter of puppies slowly die due to bad breeding...that WE
CARE, and that WE TOGETHER equal a hundred Hunte Corporations at least.
I leave this up to all of you.
If you choose to, call Denise Ulrich at Pfizer Animal
Health at 800-366-5288 and let her know your thoughts. I got involved in
this this morning because no matter how diligent we are as shelters and
rescues, we can never do enough on the back end. It is the front end,
education of the public, an end to unethical breeding and puppymills etc
etc that is our only hope of stemming the tide of all the unwanted
companion animals in this country. When this began, it was simply
forwarding on someone else's call for help. But now, I fully agree, we
need to act.
Go on to Are We Our
Own Gods?
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