The Puppy Mill interview

An Interview with Director William Wolfendon, by
Claudette Vaughan - 21st December 2007

Tell us about The Puppy Mill, this exciting and innovating Australian documentary against puppy mills. A long over-due Australian first, I believe.

When I was in the US a year and a half ago I saw a program over there that was a documentary on this subject. "Dog Dealers" or "Dealing Dogs", one or the other, it was called. It was about the conditions of kennels over there regarding the breeding of dogs for medical experiments and various other things. I mentioned that to some friends of mine who were vets here in Australia and they said it sounds similar to puppy mills and what’s going on over here so I did some research and found they were in existence in Australia as well. From there I thought, "Has anyone done anything on it?" because I like to produce documentaries. There is a lot of concerned animal societies and organisations here doing work, doing great work I might add, but it doesn’t seem to be reaching anywhere where it can make a difference.I found no one final conclusion to what’s occurring with breeding in Australia. There’s a lot of different factors that goes into the whole breeding, sale and ownership equation. There’s obviously a supply to pet stores, there’s a lot of supply going on through the internet and there’s a huge amount of sales going on through the Classified ads and papers etc. That could be anything from a puppy mill farm to a backyard breeder. There’s no control on this nor is there any proper regulation occurring. There are existing regulations, there’s a Code of Ethics, but it’s not enforced.

How did you get the footage?

I contacted a hell of a lot of puppy farmers to get clearance to get in and see for myself but for obvious reasons they wouldn’t allow it. They said "The dogs aren’t in a reasonable condition at the moment" and all kinds of excuses. They won’t let anybody film because they are wise. They are out living in the country, locked away so people can’t get access to them. The means on how to get these people reported is very hard. There has to be certain proof available. They have to come under the title of ‘breeder’ to come under certain regulations.

What do you think is the solution best suited for Australian conditions? Is it in changing legislation or is it in the prosecuting factor?

I think it has to be a bit of both. There has to be stricter lines for people to sell animals and there also has to be a greater awareness happening. Everything is driven by awareness. I think people need to be educated corrected and it needs to be shown in a way that’s not operating as spin in a way that ill founded. What needs to happen to correct an over population is what I actually address in the program through the changing of the legislation in the UK and the changing of commercial practice in the US.

In the UK today there is perhaps one, maybe two stores that actually still sell animals, that is dogs and cats specifically. In the US, the larger chain stores and the ones I went to see, have a re-homing policy for dogs and cats. These chains acts as agents for the local rescue shelters etc and they refer all their customers onto the shelters. They have the dogs and cats in-store and on display but are the avenue for the shelter to re-home these dogs and cats.

How does Australia compare to these overseas innovative schemes?

Poorly.

Have you looked at the Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s legislation yet?

Yes and it’s a step in the right direction. Like any Bill that’s first presented it needs discussion, argument and the ironing out in a few areas. There may be issues with a few breeders and those issues need to be discussed but certainly down the line, this legislation is going in the right direction.

In this documentary you said "Discover the changing face with our relationship with man’s best friend" which of course dogs are. By traveling the world to get all this footage together what were the influences that got you first producing "The Puppy Mill?"

Yes, I traveled to Beijing, to the UK and to parts of the US for this. With the intensive farming of any animals there is going to be issues whether it be dogs or chickens. When you start mass producing animals the welfare and cruelty to those animals really comes into play. The reason I choose this topic is because dogs are truly Man’s best friend and the way they are being treated is certainly a form of slavery.

It’s great timing because it’s desperately needed.

About a year ago I started researching this and finished it just a few weeks ago.

In The Puppy Mill did you look specifically at any one breed in particular? For example, curtailing breeders from producing so many fluffy white Maltese dogs because the killing shelters are over-run with this breed that people own for 2 minutes then assume they can get rid of them when the novelty wears off.

I have a Maltese myself. If you look at the rescue shelters they are full of white fluffies that are pushed through the pet stores. Kids like them because they look like little teddy bears – "Daddy can I have one of those?" but if anybody goes to an R.S.P.C.A there’s a real range of dogs there.

What I’d like to say about my documentary is it looks at a lot of other areas as well. It looks at the genesis of the human relationship with dogs as far as we can reasonably go back in time. When humans created villages a lot of waste product was created and that’s where the scavengers first came in. I think the split from the wolf to the dog is more fairy tale than anything else. In the village environment, dogs then became tame with human contact and that’s where you get the chain of scavenger to domesticated animal that becomes a pet approximately 10,000 years ago. This program looks at that and that’s how the story starts. From then on, I went into dog breeders and the cross-breeders who are the real drivers of this industry. People go to a pet store because they think they are saving a dog and then if somebody doesn’t want the dog, he ends up in a shelter.

The whole idea behind this documentary was to make it mainstream. Make it a PG rating so it’s palpable to all parts of society to watch, learn and educate themselves. There were many aspects to cram in a 50 minute allotted time frame. I hope I have made it entertaining and the reviews so far have been very positive. It’s been on release for a couple of weeks now. I’m not sure whether it’s going to be picked up by a TV station or not yet but the thing is I produced this independently and used my own time and my own money to do it. I wanted to keep it independent because I wanted a balanced view. I didn’t want other people writing it. The idea I had was to produce exactly the way I wanted it so it was the most balanced and I also wanted to keep it from other influences.

My views came about by speaking with both sides of the argument and the program runs along that balance. I wasn’t out to create an activist film. I wasn’t out to create a commercially driven product. I want people to walk away from The Puppy Mill with their own questions and to get their own set of truths out of it with long term discussions on the subject on whether that be on registration, breeding or something else. I think the long-term operators in the industry are not doing the best business and can really learn from this as well. I have highlighted what works in other countries and even with multi-national companies.