Jodie Wiederkehr (vegan) - Committed Change Maker, Part 2 of 2

“A lot of people are not really aware of puppy mills, and there’s a reason for that because they keep them hidden. It’s a very disturbing industry and that’s something that really needs to be exposed. I mean, there have been exposés on puppy mills that show these purebred dogs just in barren cages in the coldest winters, in the hottest of summers with no protections.”

“We did daily action alerts where we reached out to the officials. We kept testifying before city council. Alderman Hopkins, the same alderman who introduced the second horse carriage bill, he introduced the loophole law, which would shut down these puppy mills sales. We also implemented an online petition, we had a paper petition. We got business endorsements. And within a year, we got that bill passed, which shut down two of those stores, and the third store stopped selling dogs.”

Not many people realize the scope of the cruel treatment of the racing dog-people. The horrible truth is that in Australia alone, each year, up to 17 000 healthy dog-persons are killed, including up to 7000 puppies that are bred for racing but never do. Each week five dog-individules die on the racetrack. “So it’s an incredibly inhumane industry. And my bosses who I work for on the Greyhound campaign, are doing an amazing job shutting down and banning greyhound racing around the world.”

“As I told you at the beginning, I was reaching out to the aldermen for years to try to get them to introduce this (horse-carriage) ban. And then two weeks later, he introduced a ban. So, when you keep showing them the truth, and proving to them that either laws are not being enforced, or the factory farms are causing pollution, which then causes disease in the local community, they will start to care. And if they don’t care, then you get the media involved. And then the pressure might force them to care.”