The Amish Are Not What They Seem: A Business of Brutal Cruelty

When we consider the Amish, we often have the image of a quaint and simple people, living a quiet devoutly religious life without the intrusion of modern influences. Often romanticized in movies and TV shows, we’re presented with the visage of gentle people dedicated to an uncomplicated “country” lifestyle. However, as is all propaganda, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Notorious for working horses until they die in the field or can no longer walk from pulling buggies for hours on hard paved roads, the Amish are known for something that directly clashes with their supposed religious beliefs, brutal animal cruelty.

This hidden aspect of Amish immorality has been brought to light recently in Minnesota, where illegally operated puppy mills have been granted new licenses for expanding their operations. That’s right, despite dozens of reports of extremely brutal cruelty toward the dogs, and extensive citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Amish puppy mills are expanding in Minnesota. A state where 80,000 to 90,000 unwanted dogs are euthanized each year.

One of the Minnesota puppy mill operators, an Amish man with an extensive record of USDA violations related to illegal dog breeding, has been granted a permit to operate a puppy farm with 85 adult dogs. Dogs that will be kept in cages, with untreated wounds and illnesses, covered in feces and unable to walk will be churning out those puppies you see in pet stores. Speculation on social media is that these “devoutly religious” Amish are bribing corrupt officials in order to get their permits — permits that would normally be denied to operators with their history of violations.

Minnesota is just the tip of an iceberg of brutality. Often illegally operated Amish puppy mills have been a problem across the Midwest and Northeast for decades. Back in 1993, the New York Times ran a series of stories exposing the illegal and mind boggling brutal Amish operations in Pennsylvania. Puppy mills in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and Indiana, most of which are operated by the Amish, refuse to follow state kennel laws and regularly accumulate multiple violations with little or no penalty. In the rare cases where an Amish puppy mill operation is shut down, it’s simply restarted on an Amish neighbor’s property.

Current estimates calculate that these mostly illegal Amish puppy mills are responsible for as much as 70% of the puppies that make it to retail pet stores. Masking the brutal points of origin through puppy auctions, it’s often difficult, if not impossible to trace the point of origin of these troubled dogs back to their brutal beginnings. And indeed they often come with behavioral problems, after being raised in sadistic conditions with little or no human contact outside of the ruthless operators. And all too often, these puppies with behavioral problems are too much for a family to handle, and are given up to shelters and humane societies where euthanasia is likely.

While in the broad scheme of all the world’s problems, these barbaric puppy mills might seem like a small annoyance amongst an overwhelming cacophony of societal problems. But is it really? Is this actually an example of how callous we’ve become; that we would allow these domesticated creatures that can give us so much, to be breed by the hundreds of thousands in such deplorable conditions? The only way to fix society is by one problem at a time, and this seems like an easy problem to fix. And fixing the smaller problems is the path to fixing the bigger ones.

I live in northern Indiana and deal with Amish on a regular basis.
They are usually very nice to people but will happily bend you over and take advantage of you.

This is simply HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a special place in hell for anyone that would abuse, or allow abuse directed at an animal.

You are correct that the overall image propagated by the Amish Community is deceptive..

Disgusting...

Thank you for bringing this here, maybe it will help expose this..

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

My wife and I have adopted all of our dogs and do not endorse at all the purchasing of pets from puppy mills.

After watching several documentaries on HBO about this very topic I no longer support the Amish at all with any of my purchases.

Certainly it’s an abominable act to be cruel to our animal friends.

Just goes to show us that outer religious presentation isn’t always reflecting the truth.

It’s the inner human that matters and good deeds not outward religious dress or presentation.

originally posted by: semperfortis
You are correct that the overall image propagated by the Amish Community is deceptive..

I purposefully didn't include some of the images of the puppy mills in my post -- they are truly horrible. "Breeding bitches" are kept in small cages their entire lives, and are almost always not able to walk and are ravaged with untreated sores and illnesses.

It was really hard to do the research to write this, but it needed to be written.

Puppy mills should not be allowed to exist in any way, shape, or form.

I've been around the Amish since '86.

They also like to abuse their women and children and incest is common. I've seen some horrifying inbreds.

Regarding the horses, their training methods are brutal. They literally starve some horses into submission and are liberal with the whip.

I can't speak to the puppy mills. There are none where I live.

How with all of the complaints and what seems to be obvious evidence of abuse are they allowed to continue to operate? Also, why are there not like hundreds of animal rights protesters giving them the business?

originally posted by: Helious
How with all of the complaints and what seems to be obvious evidence of abuse are they allowed to continue to operate?

There are two things at play here. The tight-knit Amish communities do a very good job of keeping outsiders at bay, making inspections difficult to impossible. When inspections result in violations, local officials often look the other way because of the incredible influence the Amish can have.

Also, why are there not like hundreds of animal rights protesters giving them the business?

There are some scheduled to happen today (following Friday and Saturday protests), at the entrance to an Amish property with a huge puppy mill near Rochester, Minnesota.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.. I could not have done it...

I am currently vacillating between extreme anger and extreme sadness...

More anger at myself as I am one of the "duped" and always considered the Amish to be gentle and loving... I almost exclusively buy their butter...

NO MORE

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I can't bring myself to click any of the links, just in case there are some of those pictures, thank you for not posting them Bill.

I'm appalled, I too had never looked at the Amish in any other way than how most people do. I never knew this was such a huge problem...

Wow.

Disgusted. I might just log out and take my dogs to the park for some lovin' to make myself feel better.

~Tenth

I live right smack in the middle of Pennsylvania Amish Country. Not far from Lancaster. The small town I grew up in had a very large amish presence. You would be dodging buggies on the roads on a daily basis and they owned a large contingent of pallet shops, saw mills, and various other business in our area, that also unfortunately included "puppy mills". They seem to have no real compassion toward animals. Viewing them more as assets (horses) or commodities (puppies, rabbits and the like) the treatment of the "commodity" animals is as cold an cruel as it gets. I'm not saying it to bash the amish as every encounter I've hd with them on a personal level has been pleasant, cordial, and polite although since I'm tattooed and peirced they probably called me the antichrist the moment I walked away. Another thing people dont always realize is these people have MONEY. ALOT OF MONEY. I have seen that with my own eyes when amish would come into the gas station to get snacks and drinks, they go to pay and literally pull out a roll of 20, 50,100 dollar bills. They pay next to no taxes but own businesses that generate significant revenues. With money, comes influence. No matter what you religious affiliation

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: SkepticOverlord

My wife and I have adopted all of our dogs and do not endorse at all the purchasing of pets from puppy mills.

After watching several documentaries on HBO about this very topic I no longer support the Amish at all with any of my purchases.

Good move.
The people buying from pet stores facilitate the puppy mills.

The dog that lives with me is a rescue from the Animal Rescue League. He is dumber than a post. But I will take him over a cat any day.

I had no idea the Amish had anything to do with dogs.


I hope they get hip to what there doing and also that most of them don’t indulge in this abuse

originally posted by: butcherguy
Good move.

The people buying from pet stores facilitate the puppy mills.

Part of the documentaries we watched detailed the issues many of these puppy mill pets have in adjusting to physical contact since they were not raised properly to begin with. We will not shop at pet stores that sell puppies due to the treatment they receive when they are raised and the fact that you can adopt a dog quite easily from the numerous animal shelters or fosters in the area.

There is only one thing that gets my blood boiling more than cruelty to animals and that is low-life scum government officials who actively endorse allowing it to continue.

Clearly the Amish involved in this behavior and the officials who grant the licenses for these farms have no sense of morals and an ethical standard devoid of all decency.

Anyone who treats our 4-legged friends like this should be jailed - this is wrong on so many levels.

I have a emerging hypothesis for why they're this way. I don't think very many people would like it or like me for even having this bent. But nonetheless, I might try to explain it.

It has principally to do with technology. Primarily, things like machines, information computer systems and even AI. It also has to do with the robustness of the economy.

Ok so WTF am I trying to say? Well, our past is supposedly patriarchal. The men treated woman badly. The children and animals were also treated badly. Children treated animals badly. I don't disagree it was partiarchal, but I think it was patriarchal because of necessity. Restrictions in technology and economy pushed people to do what they excelled at naturally. Woman could naturally feed the babies with breast milk and innately understand the children better and be teachers and men were physically stronger and freer to do the hard labors and to protect the family. Men became powerful leaders in business and war because the woman were busier feeding and teaching the children and preparing the meals and making the clothing and doing what she could fit into her life.

I realize not every culture in our past was patriarchal. Native indian tribes were not necessarily patriarchal. There're some cultures who treated woman as having more value than men. However, my hypothesis is once societies are developed enough, they become patriarchal for a time. At some point in their development, they discard it, like old used tools.

I'll try to clarify some more. Machines displaced the physical labors of men. This devalued them, as in the past physical labor was their main contribution. They're now stuck in schools struggling to make ends meet. Day care centers and schools devalued woman because woman formerly were the sole caretakers for their children and their teachers. Some woman feel empty because they're not mothers anymore. Increasingly advanced weaponry--like guns--have divorced threat from the physical body, meaning woman are now almost as dangerous as men. Security systems--as well as other things like machines--have displaced ADHD males. Now, more than ever, males and females are separated from each other and blurry genders are hte norm. Woman can be independent from men and men independent from woman. This is enabled by our complex developed economy and technology. This further destroys our strong points, while at the same time freeing us to do things we never would have done when things were tighter.

The consequences of all this is thigns will become blurrier and hard to predict. Selection pressures are reduced. Lots of things could happen. New research is showing evolution doesn't stop when selection pressures are reduced. In fact, it might even be competitive.

EDIT: I didn't comment about animals much. But because the amish rebuke most technology, this puts more value on the physical labors of their men. Yet it also puts the value on teh animals. While it's true men had more physicla value in the past, animals were still used like machines ot make life easier. The reason animals are treated worse is because education is low and because animals have so much more value as workers. (Note this is also why children worked more in the past--more value as workers.)

The main thing I'm trying to get across is robustness of technology and economy define us and how we treat each other and other things. Maybe I should say conservation of energy becomes our morality.