Two dogs, one dark, one golden, bounded across the grass at Intercourse Community Park.
It was the tail end of Saturday's Puppy Mill Awareness Day protest march. But the fight was just starting.
Lancaster County harbors the greatest concentration of dog breeders in the nation, asserted Hollywood actor Chris DeRose, who headlined the rally with Rikki Rockett, a longtime animal activist and drummer with the glam metal band Poison.
Worse, more than 275 puppy mills operate here, and their ranks are growing.
Not all dog-raising operations are bad, acknowledged Helen Ebersole, president and co-founder of United Against Puppy Mills. But she said many breeders are guilty as charged of caging pups in filthy, disease-spreading environments.
Opinions on solving the problem varied with the speakers, which included Jessie L. Smith, the state's deputy secretary for dog law enforcement.
But there was clear consensus on trotting the issue before the public.
More than 125 animal lovers in the county's fourth annual rally filed along Route 340 beside heavy traffic. They chanted "Puppies are not for profit" and carried signs with messages such as "Kill the Mill."
West Chester resident Michele Wilt and her son, Zachary, each cradled a Pomeranian in their arms. They also bore the memory of a canine horror story.
A previous pet sickened and died from cancer, said Wilt, who blames the puppy mill where she bought the dog. "The cruelty is horrible."
All kinds of hellActivists have been uniting to battle it.
More than 20 pet welfare groups, including Best Friends Animal Society and DeRose's Los Angeles-based Last Chance for Animals, joined forces for the rally.
"We have to eliminate the evils," said Laurie Ulrich Fuller of the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of The League of Humane Voters.
Fuller, who was giving out information, said her organization supports Pennsylvania bills to tighten kennel licensing and prohibit the overnight tethering of dogs.
"We're having to get political," said Fuller, who noted that puppy mill abuses are typically invisible to consumers. "There could be all kinds of hell happening out back."
Humane police officers have been spearheading Gov. Ed Rendell's initiative to bring abusive breeders to heel.
The officers have wider latitude than dog wardens to seize animals, said Smith, who will also speak about zoning and other matters relating to kennels and dog law Oct. 10 in Lancaster. "That's why we've been doing it that way."
But Pennsylvania has 2,500 kennels. The potential for maltreatment is great.
So is the public health risk, according to Arthur Evangelista, a former federal investigator for the Food & Drug Administration.
Breeders introduce microbes into food and water supplies by sowing cropland with dog carcasses and excrement, Evangelista charged.
He exhorted the crowd to stage protests at the homes of puppy mill owners, among other actions.
"I think if we had one Jessie Smith and nobody else to deal with, we'd be fine." But dog breeders have powerful friends in Harrisburg, Evangelista said. "You cannot rely on the political machinery of this state or any state."
Joe Bednarik, an Enola resident who transports unwanted dogs to homes in other states, urged consumers to boycott mills.
"There are thousands of adoptable dogs all over the country that are killed," he said. "There's no need to go out and patronize these breeders."
Ebersole said consumers are learning to identify the bad guys by asking the right questions before they buy:
Does the dog come with a refund offer and a lifetime guarantee? May you meet the puppy's parents?
If the female shows no interest in the pup, Ebersole explained, she's probably not the mother.
DeRose said he became an animal activist 29 years ago after he learned that some shelters euthanize animals by suffocating them.
"It's an issue of suffering and waste and a handful of people making all the money off it," said DeRose, who was arrested 11 times for protesting animal experimentation, according to his Web site.
Last Chance for Animals' undercover investigation of an abusive dog dealer was profiled in a 2006 HBO documentary, "Dealing Dogs."
Public awareness of the problem is growing, he said. But Lancaster County and its puppy mills remain a prime focus for the group.
Because citizens support animal shelters that take excess dogs churned out by breeders, he said, "We're subsidizing the puppy mill industry with our tax dollars.
"We're going to keep coming back over and over and over again until this nonsense stops."
Jon Rutter is a staff writer for the Sunday News. His e-mail address is jrutter@lnpnews.com.
