Blaring music drowned out the barking, but there was no masking the neglect inside the sweltering Riverside County garage.
Jamie Abruzzo, a Missouri middle school teacher who picked up a summer job trucking puppies around the country, was overcome by anger as he took in the filth and feces that surrounded him.
Outside, the temperature neared triple digits. Inside, where the air conditioner wasn’t working, dozens of puppies and kittens were jammed into small cages and storage bins lined with soiled shredded paper. Water containers nearby were empty.
The driver knew where this multi-state pipeline was supposed to lead for the animals left unattended that day: loving homes. But what Abruzzo stumbled into was the underbelly of California’s lucrative, unregulated puppy market.
And it haunted him.
A Times investigation found that truckloads of doodles, French bulldogs and other expensive dogs from profit-driven mass breeders pour into the state from the Midwest, feeding an underground market where they are resold by people claiming to be small, local home breeders.
The trail of imported dogs — some from operators cited by state and federal officials for neglect — persists, despite California’s efforts to stem the flow, The Los Angeles Times found.
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