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We’ve heard it a million times: “Yes, I bought my puppy at a pet store, but he didn’t come from a puppy mill. The store told me that they only get puppies from USDA-licensed breeders.” That line is used frequently by pet store employees to reassure customers—but what does it really mean?

Sadly, it doesn’t mean much. The USDA’s standards of care are so minimal that most of us would not consider them to be humane. Dogs in commercial breeding facilities can legally be kept in cages only six inches longer than the dog in each direction, stacked on top of one another, for their entire lives. It's completely legal to house them in cages with wire flooring, and to breed female dogs at every opportunity. These federal standards leave a lot of room for dogs to be severely mistreated.

But seeing is believing. We wanted to make it easy for the public to truly understand where pet store puppies come from. That’s why today we’re launching a new tool on our No Pet Store Puppies website that lets users view more than 10,000 photos of USDA-licensed commercial dog breeding facilities and links some of them to specific pet stores that have sold their puppies within the past year.

You can search the website by pet store name or zip code, USDA license number, the breeder’s name, and specific breed. The photos were taken by USDA inspectors during routine inspections of the facilities.

“Our research reveals a clear disconnect between what many Americans think ‘USDA licensed’ means and what the USDA actually requires of commercial dog breeders nationwide,” explains Cori Menkin, Senior Director of the ASPCA Puppy Mills Campaign. “The federal requirements fall far short of the public’s standards and expectations for the humane treatment of dogs, and we hope that people will use the new tool on the ASPCA’s No Pet Store Puppies website to see for themselves.”

We hope to work with USDA to better enforce and improve the care standards for dogs in commercial breeding facilities, and you can help, too, by decreasing the demand for puppy mill puppies. Take the No Pet Store Puppies Pledge to not purchase anything—including pet food, kitty litter and toys—from a store or website that sells puppies.

The ASPCA works hard to ensure that there are good laws on the books to protect animals across the country. But we can’t do it without the grassroots advocacy of our dedicated ASPCA supporters!

The most powerful way for animal advocates to help reshape our laws is through lobbying their legislators directly. We help you do that by hosting Lobby Days, where we invite passionate citizens like you to be trained by our advocacy experts and make your voices heard at your state Capitol.

So far in 2013, we have been joined by over 2,000 incredible advocates at 29 state Lobby Days. These citizen lobbyists include people from all backgrounds and all levels of advocacy experience, and collectively they made an enormous impact on animal protection, helping to pass bills into law in Maryland (establishing a first-of-its-kind statewide spay/neuter program), Texas (a gas chamber ban), New York (increased penalties for killing a police animal) and New Jersey (a ban on inhumane gestation crates).

And we’re not done yet—our 30^th Lobby Day of the year is in Sacramento, CA, and kicks off in less than two weeks! If you’re a Californian, register to join us!

Be part of history and make real change for our animals—join our ASPCA Advocacy Brigade. Sign up now, and ask your friends and family to join, so you’ll never miss out on the next Lobby Day, grassroots training or opportunity to take action. Together, we are unstoppable!

Happy Adopt a Shelter Cat Month! How are you celebrating with your feline friends? We’ve got a few ideas!

1. We’re kicking off the special month of June with a Top Video Catdown contest. Enter your cat’s most adorable or wacky video for a chance to win a year’s worth of Fresh Step litter and a premiere at our livestream event on June 25.

2. With kitten season in full swing, check with your local shelter to see if it needs extra kitty fosters or volunteers to help with the influx of felines.

3. But of course, the best way to celebrate Adopt a Shelter Cat Month is—you guessed it—adopting a shelter cat!

Whether you’re a feline fancier or a dyed-in-the-wool dog person, there’s something you can do for kitties this month—and they really need your help! Visit our Adopt a Shelter Cat Month page to learn more.

With yesterday’s news that Smithfield Foods, one of the oldest and largest pork producers in the country, has agreed to be sold to a meat processing company based in China, we’re once again reminded how important it is for consumers to be aware of where meat products come from.

According to news reports, Smithfield’s new ownership is primarily intended to export pork products to China, which is prohibited from sending its pork and beef to the U.S due to food safety concerns for both humans and companion animals. Increasingly, American consumers are concerned with the conditions in which their food is produced. Smithfield is one of many companies phasing out gestation crates, horrendous metal-barred cages that keep breeding sows in spaces so tight they cannot even turn around. It had pledged to remove these archaic cages from its international operations by 2022, and we are encouraged to hear the company state that it plans to keep this commitment.

What You Can Do

What can consumers do when faced with difficult issues surrounding food safety and the welfare of animals? Animal health and consumer safety can be encouraged through expanded education. If meat is part of your diet, there are several product-labeling programs that require higher standards of care for farm animals. They include:

• Certified Humane*
• Animal Welfare Approved
• Global Animal Partnership
• Food Alliance
• American Grassfed

Similarly, the government is increasingly responding to consumer demand for more transparency around the conditions in which our food is produced. Just last week, the US Department of Agriculture approved mandatory country-of-origin labeling on steaks, ribs and other cuts of meat that will indicate where the animal was born, raised and slaughtered. This is a huge step in the right direction and will help consumers make informed choices when shopping for their families.

For more information, please visit the Farm Animal section of ASPCA.org.

*The ASPCA supports this program through grants funding