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Tully’s, Pets R Us see heavy traffic today- in the form of protesters

By Eric Forrest on April 23, 2017

As Omaha’s Tully’s Kennels and Pets R Us stores expected to see dozens of people looking to buy puppies today, they’ve also been seeing dozens of peaceful protesters in addition. Volunteers from Nebraska’s Bailing Out Benji chapter educated the public with signs and literature that explain where it says the doggies in the windows come from. Rescue groups like Hands, Hearts, and Paws, Hearts United for Animals, and Muddy Paws also provided support. This is not great news for the Omaha pet stores. This is wonderful news for those who hope to initiate change, go to bat for puppy mill dogs, and promote animal welfare.

Bailing Out Benji maintains that 99% of puppies sold in pet stores are purchased directly from a puppy mill.

This is, by now, common knowledge to many people. To bring awareness to this, the Nebraska Chapter of Bailing Out Benji has staged Peaceful Protests of Puppy Stores & Puppy Mills at the two Omaha pet store locations.

84^th & Grover in protest of Tully’s Kennels
108^th & Center in protest of Pets R Us in Rockbrook Village

Both stores sell puppies and are known to purchase from mills throughout the Midwest.

The protests ran from 12:00 p.m. until approximately 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 23, 2017 and had been kept under wraps so as not to give advance notice to the stores.

In Nebraska alone, there are well over 100 puppy mills with approximately 3,000 adult dogs trapped in breeding cages. The dogs are bred every heat cycle so their offspring can be pulled away and sold in pet stores for huge profits.

In 2016, five Nebraska Mills were on the 2016 Humane Society of the United States’s Horrible Hundred List which identifies the worst mills in entire nation.

Puppy mills are large-scale commercial breeding facilities where dogs live in cramped cages 24/7 and are bred repeatedly, producing puppies to be sold in pet stores and online across the country and throughout the world.

According to Paul Solotaroff in an article he wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine, “I want everyone in America to know what grinding hell commercially bred dogs come out of. I want them to know the ways in which the parent dogs are horrifically exploited. This is what is happening in our name. This is who pet stores are buying from.” This was written after Paul did a scathing expose on the commercial dog breeding industry.

“This isn’t about all breeders,” says Mindi Callison, founder of Bailing Out Benji. “This is about the breeding operations that choose to churn out puppies without any thought to the physical and mental care of the parents, while also ignoring the health problems that these parents have. When you walk into a pet store and buy a puppy, you are supporting the puppy mill industry because a truly reputable breeder would never sell to just anyone who walks in the door with cash.”

Bailing Out Benji and many other animal welfare organizations are featured in a new documentary, Dog By Dog, which exposes the commercial dog breeding industry in a way that has never been done before. It shows the big money and lobbying efforts that goes into keeping the puppy mill industry thriving and legal. You can watch Dog by Dog on Netflix, Itunes, Amazon and various other venues. Click here to visit the documentary’s website.

To learn more about Bailing Out Benji’s grassroots efforts for change in Nebraska and elsewhere, please visit the nonprofit organization’s website at this link or email the Nebraska Chapter Leader, Dana Thelander, at dana.nebailingoutbenji@gmail.com.

Update: Twenty-five or so people stood on each of the corners of 108th and Center (near Pets R Us) and 84th and Grover (near Tully’s). Cars honked in solidarity as the volunteers from Bailing Out Benji, Muddy Paws Rescue, Hands, Hearts, and Paws Rescue, Hearts United for Animals, and other humane education groups spread the message of awareness.

Organizer Dana Thelander says Tully’s, Pets R Us, Charlie’s Angiels (Bellevue) and pet stores in Lincoln can expect to see her and others on an “at least monthly” basis going forward.

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