What puppy mill?

So what is a puppy-mill? To some people it can mean:

1) A place that produces a large number of puppies. AKA: a high volume breeder.

2) A place that produces at least one litter of puppies, but the mother dog is not well cared for. AKA: animal neglect.

3) Only those places that produce lots of puppies, and also have substandard conditions.

4)To some people, all breeders are bad, "puppy mill" is an insult, so "All breeders are a puppy mill".

So they are simply using a negative term to insult, like a person who can't find the right word, but who knows the tone he wants to express, calling someone who he is angry at a "murderer, thief, stupid, ugly, the son of a popular woman, or various body parts".

Let's calm down and find the right words, shall we?

"High Volume Breeder" - they produce lots of puppies. This is NOT illegal in most states - at least not on the state level, but counties, cities, and landlords can all set limits on how many pets you can have.

The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) WAS looking at legislation (PAWS) to have mandatory inspections of breeders who sold more than (I think it was) 25 puppies, dogs, cats,and/or kittens per year. (But the legislation ended up with wording that "left the fox guarding the hen house" and it got shelved.)

Breeder WHO SELL WHOLESALE are limited to (I think it is) 3 adult female dogs, unless they pay for a license and pass a yearly inspection. (IMO, yearly is NOT good enough, every kennel needs to be inspected in both the winter and in the summer - not just in the summer).

If ALL BREEDERS could only have a maximum of 3 breedable females, or face really heavy expensive restrictions and licensing, then we would not have any puppy mills because we would not have high volume breeders except those whose kennels that are held to very high standards, at that point, it doesn't matter what else we would call sub-standard kennels because they would be ill-eagle (illegal) kennels.

Very small 'kennels', of with just one or two female dogs, are common in Germany.
I will add, that as far as taking care of their dogs goes, some people with only a few dogs, take such bad care of their dogs, that the dogs would be better off in a concrete kennel in with a high volume breeder.But there are other problems associated with high volume kennels - things other than direct lack of care of the dogs.