For The Record

So it looks like the Westport News decided to remove its reporting on an incident involving Puppies of Westport owner Monty Kaufman and his wife. The news outlet reported their run in with local police but the story disappeared from their Web site a few days later. Odd huh?


Anyway, here's the original story as reported in the Westport News for those following along:

A married couple from Weston was charged Wednesday with breach of peace after getting into an altercation on Partrick Rd.

According to police, an officer was traveling eastbound at about 9:40pm when he saw a silver Jeep Wrangler stopped in the travel portion of the roadway.

Upon approaching the vehicle the officer found Lauren Meren-Kaufman sitting in the front passenger's seat.

Meren-Kaufman, 50, said she had gotten into a fight with her 55-yr-old husband, Monty Kaufman, and that he had taken the keys to the vehicle and was walking to their home two miles away, police said.

The officer noticed blood on Meren-Kaufman's ring finger and blood on the driver's side door but she refused medical attention, police said.

Other officials found Kaufman walking along Newtown Turnpike near Wilton Rd. according to the report. The report stated that Kaufman said he and his wife had gotten into an argument and that she had hit him in the face, grabbed his cell phone and threw it out the window.

Police said Kaufman admitted to biting her left hand to try to get her to let go of his cell phone. Both went to court yesterday.

Puppies of Westport Owner Faces Court

It looks like Puppies of Westport owner Monty Kaufman had a brush with the law this week. A local Web site reports he admitted biting his wife and was charged with breach of the peace.

Pondering The Habits of the Puppy Buying Public

The rain held out for our protest and we had a good turnout. This week, a friend of one of the volunteers recognized her protesting and stopped by to say hi. Turns out she had been given a puppy from a local pet store as a gift from a friend for her kids!! The puppy was healthy and she really had never stopped to think about where the puppy came from and where the mother was! I think we gave her something to think about.

So, once again, we find that people do not understand the real problem which is concern for the mother of the puppies that no one will ever see and which are locked in cages for most if not all of their existence. No chance of a happy home. Afraid of the world. Questionable health status. Another reminder that there is A LOT of work that needs to be done educating the public...and that is our mission.

How do we help people connect the dots? We have the reports that show so many of the puppies come from what the average person would certainly call a puppy mill. We have inspection reports of these "breeders" that we know would make people sick if they would only read them. Like so many issues, this is another where many people just don't really WANT to know and instant gratification trumps good sense. However, we know there are a good deal of humane people in this community that would not want to enable or tolerate businesses that profit from the inhumane treatment of dogs.

It's also clear that people are concerned about the pet store puppies. If they are concerned about puppies in small cages in stores are they equally concerned about the puppies and kittens in shelters living on death row? That's not yet clear...

To be honest the dogs in local shelters I've seen have bigger cages...