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It seemed appropriate that the Amish food stand along Route 340 in Intercourse also happened to be selling puppies.


Inside the tall wire cage were tiny and boisterous Jack Russell terrier and Rottweiler pups. And for the 200 or so puppy mill protesters marching west along the muddy shoulder of Route 340, it was too inviting a target to resist.


So the long procession stopped and started chanting, “No more puppy mills!” and “Shame on you!” The tourists buying fresh vegetables looked amused; the four Amish kids looked bewildered.


The Plain men were just plain angry. “Get off the property!” one yelled. “We don’t want you around here!”


“Mind your own business!”


Police were called, and a sheepish- looking state trooper helped herd the protesters away from the stand. They turned around and marched back toward town, with a triumphal air.


They are, many of them believe, winning.


And indeed, that sense of momentum permeated the third annual Puppymill Awareness Day, sponsored by Adopt-A-Pet and Last Chance for Animals and held at Intercourse Community Park Saturday. Despite heavily overcast skies that threatened to open up at any moment, but didn’t, the crowd was roughly double what it was last year. People — who pleaded that they not be called animal activists, but rather animal advocates because, well, it sounds less extreme — came from as far away as San Francisco and Florida.


Among the speakers was Lancaster County Commissioner Molly Henderson, whose presence itself may have been a testament to the growing clout of the anti-puppy mill movement.


Henderson stressed that she was not there to represent the county commissioners per se, and that there was little the county can do to crack down on puppy mills.


But she told of going to buy a dog from an out-of-town breeder who, upon learning that she was from Lancaster County, immediately feared Henderson had something to do with puppy mills.


Lancaster County has a stigma attached to it, she said. “And that is not helpful for our community.”


A winnable cause


By noon, about 250 people packed the park, many with dogs in tow. Rescue organizations for about a half-dozen breeds were on hand; indeed, many people said they came to the puppy mill issue through rescue organizations.


Kim Albom of Cary, N.C., works with the French Bulldog Rescue Network; “Slowly, over time, we’d see the puppy mill dogs roll in,” she said, poorly socialized animals which in some cases spent their entire lives in small wire cages, matted, sick and “bred until they die.”


Like others at the rally, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s supposedly pending changes to the state’s dog laws were very much on Albom’s mind. She sent the governor an impassioned letter; she got a form letter in response, which disappointed her. What’s disappointed her more, however, is that Rendell hasn’t followed through on his promised reforms yet. “He seems like he talks a lot about it,” Albom said. “But he’s not stepping up to the plate.”


Others, however, were more confident. “I think Rendell will do something,” said Sandra Harris from the group Last Chance for Animals. “He has to — we’re very serious about this, and we’re not going to stop.”


One star of Saturday’s show was Tammy Grimes, who lives near Altoona and last week made national headlines when she was arrested after rescuing a shepherd mix that had been lying on its side in the dirt and mud for days, unable to move. Grimes took the dog to a “safe house” where it continues to get better. But police in Freedom Township arrested her and charged her with theft, receiving stolen property, criminal mischief and trespassing.


She’s was on the front page of the Altoona Mirror newspaper three times last week, she said, and all the hometown coverage has been relentlessly negative. Nevertheless, she opened her e-mail one day last week after the arrest, and had 422 messages, almost all of which were supportive.


After spending an hour responding to some of them, the number of unread messages in her inbox had actually increased, to more than 450. Apparently, there’s no such thing as bad publicity even for someone portrayed in the media as an extremist.


Yet while there were some extreme sentiments expressed Saturday — one man who would give only his first name, Mark, said that “people are angry... [the system] has to change, or it will be changed” — the crowd in Intercourse was hardly a bunch of wild-eyed radicals. A good portion were women in early middle age, though actor Chris DeRose, who heads Last Chance for Animals, remarked: “Look at all the guys here! At one time, it would have been all women.”


DeRose, who currently plays mob boss Joey Gamarra on the new MyNetworkTV channel, has battled puppy mills for nearly 20 years but said he’s “shocked to see how fast things are moving” now, with Rendell talking about the possibility of forming puppy mill “SWAT teams” to crack down on bad breeders.


“We’ve never had a politician come out and say something like that,” said DeRose. That, he said, proves the movement’s effectiveness. And there’s more to come.


“We’re going after the tourist trade, we’re going after the Amish,” said DeRose. “The billboards” — erected along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, advising travelers not to visit Lancaster County, “home to hundreds of puppy mills” — “are making a difference, and there will be more of them.


And, said DeRose, HBO and ABC News’ Primetime may soon air specials on the puppy mill issue. “There’s going to be some stuff coming on national TV,” he said. “The next big issue is going to be puppy mills.”


DeRose led the march along Route 340 with Rikki Rockett, a Harrisburg native who drums for the glam metal band Poison and has long been involved in the puppy mill issue. “The march sends a good clear message,” said Rockett. “This is a winnable cause; we will win this.”


Bullhorn in hand, Rockett led the procession from the park through the center of Intercourse, where the marchers drew quizzical and amused stares. West of town, the group walked past a Plain home that usually has a large sign out front, advertising more than a dozen breeds of puppies for sale. Saturday, the sign had been removed.


It didn’t work. DeRose approached a Plain man in the driveway. “He said it’s not a mill,” DeRose said. The crowd wasn’t buying it. “No more puppy mills!” they chanted, as four or five pre-teen Amish girls looked on.


And then it was back into town, where the crowd disappeared into Kitchen Kettle Village, handing out literature along the way. Even one Amishman, piloting his buggy along hopelessly snarled Route 340, clutched an anti-puppy mill brochure in his right hand while he held the reins in his left.


“I’ve had Amish people come up to me and say, ‘Why are you singling us out?’ ” said DeRose.


“We said, change has to come from within, and however much your business may be suffering, it pales in comparison to the suffering these animals go through.”





Contact Gil Smart at gsmart@lnpnews.com.
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