Los Angeles News

by David Goldstein
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― Puppies are cute and cuddly but many of them come from puppy mills and can be seriously ill. They carry diseases and could die in a matter of weeks.

We found them in Mexico for sale on the sidewalks in cages and crates, ready to be smuggled into the U.S.

They end up for sale in newspapers, swap meets and pet stores near you.

This is Otay Mesa, just minutes over the San Diego border and a few hours by car from L.A. It's here where cheap puppies are born and bred and shipped to the us. We found some of them malnourished and sick, being raised in conditions that wouldn't be allowed back home.

With a hidden camera we uncovered this puppy mill. Here the dogs are kept in 24-inch cages. No water bowls in sight.

Stacked three cages high, any breed you want. Chihuahua, French poodles, Doberman…

The stench of urine and feces filled the rooms. We took San Diego vet Ginny Bischell who found health problems with just about all the puppies.

"They're all wormy. Look at that belly," she says, "that's normal, that's not normal. It's an umbilical hernia. That's a tear in the muscle," Bischell said.

Others were just too young to leave their mothers. The woman who showed us around said this puppy was seven weeks old. That's too young to sell in California. Our vet thought the puppy was even younger.

According to Bischell, the puppy looked five weeks old. Then she took us downstairs into the dark basement where her breeding ground was. There she had tiny puppies. They were born just a few days ago.

She says those are two weeks old but Bischell thinks they're even younger.

The woman said most of her customers are from the U.S. She claims she takes care of the dogs and even does her own vaccinations but the pictures tell the story.

Bischell says that a situation like this would be illegal in the U.S. where it is considered abuse and animal cruelty.

This was certainly the worst of what we found but not the only puppy peddler. We met several.

A man called George showed us two crates of puppies and had people ready to smuggle them over the border. George had two English bulldogs he was selling for $140 each.

One had a hernia, an infection on its cheek, and didn't have the proper vaccinations to cross the border. But the breeder was ready to forge the papers.

He told us that they could write something for us that states that they're vaccinated.

Then there was Erwin, a dog salesman in Mexico. "I'm the second seller in Tijuana right now," he told us.

Erwin brought us crates of poodles for sale. He also wanted $140.00 for each. Many of these were sick according to our vet and this tiny one was full of parasites, couldn't walk and was barely six weeks old. But Erwin said he ships them into Southern California all the time; six times a week.

One of his connections he said is a woman named Maria. "Maria sells to pet shops all the time. I don't know the names but I think they're in L.A., Long Beach and Costa Mesa."

Puppies have to be healthy to cross the border and breeders have to pay a tax if they're going to be sold in the U.S. but Erwin had a way around it. "If they have their shots you can cross four or five at a time."

He has drivers ready to bring them over the border in small groups to avoid detection, for an extra $20.00 a puppy.

Our vet said that it hurts to look at that. "I just want to get them out of there and close them up." We ended up getting one out of there. The tiny white puppy that was seriously ill. We rescued her and she's being treated by our vet.

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