Besides Danya Dufour's 13 counts of animal cruelty, she is also accused of operating a kennel without a license, failing to vaccinate 26 dogs and failing to register her dogs with the town.
We petition you to ask for the longest jail term sentence, mandatory psychological testing and counseling and that she never have animals again. Also please remove her website immediately.
Besides Danya Dufour's 13 counts of animal cruelty, she is also accused of operating a kennel without a license, failing to vaccinate 26 dogs and failing to register her dogs with the town. The police arrested her on charges of allegedly running a puppy
mill out of her rented Granite Road home this week. More than a dozen
charges were filed including 13 counts of cruelty to
animals.
Danya Dufour, 32, of 4 Granite Road turned herself in to police after police issued a warrant for her arrest. Dufour
was selling dachshunds on the Internet for about $700 each. She was charged with 13 counts of cruelty to animals, one count of
failure to apply for a group-dog kennel license to operate her
business, one count of failure to vaccinate the dogs and one count of
failure to license the dogs.
The breeder called the business
Dufours Dachshunds and operated using
an Internet site at
http://www.dufoursdachshunds.net. The site has photographs
of the dogs for sale and a Web page dedicated to fighting puppy mills. The menu has been updated as recently as
April 27, 2005. Jill Diorio of Worcester, Mass., said she bought her dachshund, Bailey,
from Dufour and she said she is shocked at the condition the dogs were
living in. Diorio said Bailey is a healthy dog and she remembers Dufour
being adamant about accepting cash only.
Puppy mills are commercial mass dog-breeding facilities that put
profit above the welfare of dogs. Most puppy mill dogs are housed in
shockingly poor conditions, especially the ones kept in cages to be
bred over and over for years, without human companionship and with
little hope of ever joining a family. After they're no longer
profitable, these dogs are simply discarded. And hundreds of thousands
of puppies are born every year, adding to the pet overpopulation that
fills our nation's animal shelters.
Puppy mills sell their
"products" to unsuspecting consumers in pet stores, over the Internet,
and through newspaper classified advertisements. Many of the puppies
have serious behavioral and health problems that might not be apparent
for monthsproblems that can cost thousands of dollars to treat, if
treatable at all.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
licenses and inspects puppy mills for violations of the Animal Welfare
Act, and some states have laws to protect the animals. But puppy mills
can get around USDA licensing requirements by selling directly to
consumers, and many simply rely on the limited reach of the lawwith so
few inspectors and only minor fines in place, it's often easy for puppy
mills to stay in business.
We petition you to ask for the longest jail term sentence, mandatory psychological testing and counseling and that she never have animals again. Also please remove her website immediately.
Sincerely,
