I recently posted an article, The Eleventh Hour, to try and help raise funds for the Rocky Mountain Animal Defense. They were going to be attending an upcoming dog auction and money raised would be used to buy dogs that faced almost certain death. The auction has since taken place and thanks to some generous donors they had enough funds to buy 56 beautiful dogs.

Sharon L. Peters wrote a special article for USA Today. It’s a very moving piece on what happens at the auction, you may want to get out the tissues.

Some 250 or so dogs and puppies were, before the sale, living in a brick warehouse-like structure (which I drove to in order to make sure that others’ descriptions were accurate) a stone’s throw from the interstate. The building, essentially windowless except for in the front, where customers view puppies, is surrounded by asphalt and commercial buildings with no place for dogs to be outside. Adult dogs are kept behind doors posted with “Employees only” warnings.

In early May, PBK decided to sell many of the dogs in advance of relocating, according to the seller statement filed with the auction company.

When Last Chance and the Rocky Mountain Animal Defense heard the dogs would be sent to auction, they offered to pick them up and find them homes, says Last Chance’s Julie Sarff. “The dogs are perpetually pregnant or nursing; they live their lives in cages,” Sarff says. “We wanted something better for them.”

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I received a message from Dogster member Carol that really hit home.  On Friday in Wheaton, MO there is a dog auction that will be taking place to sell off puppy mill dogs.  If you’re wondering what a dog auction is you’re not alone. It wasn’t until we got our Berner Logan that I even heard of such a thing.

Our boy Logan was bought at auction by the Bernese Auction Rescue Coalition (BARC). He was around 4-years-old , lived his whole life in a 2×4 cage, had been horribly mistreated and used as a stud dog at a puppy mill. The breeder decided he was no longer worth keeping and discarded him as a flea and tick infested 64 pound sack of garbage. If BARC hadn’t come along he could have been bought by someone else who would have abused him, or if he went unsold most likely he’d have been put down.

So when you read this story keep in mind it’s about donating to save the life of an innocent dog, not to put money in the mill owners bank accounts. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to look at the end result, in this case saving a life, and not focus on how you got there.

As some of you may know, we protested Jessie’s Pet Paradise (whose owner is now in the criminal court system for – among other things – animal cruelty). The mill supplying Jessie’s was Prairie Bark Kennels in downtown Denver. The fact that this mill was in the middle of Denver outraged many dog lovers.

Without the pet store selling his animals, PBK cannot make it financially. So they are liquidating the animals at the SW Kennel auction in Wheaton, Missouri.

We are raising funds to help ‘buy back’ some of the old and feeble dogs at auction. A mill auction expert will help bid on our dogs. $20 will buy an old dog who otherwise might be discarded (murdered). Any and all money collected will be used to buy dogs and bring them back to Colorado where shelters and rescues are waiting to take them in and change their lives forever. No longer will they live in cages but will have the chance to be adopted into loving home.

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