Get ready for pup rallies — that’s what animal welfare advocates are calling the protests they’re launching at pet stores that sell puppies from puppy mills.

It’s all part of a campaign on the part of two animal welfare groups, Last Chance for Animals and Best Friends Animal Society, to publicize conditions at puppy mills, tighten existing regulations on them and let people know that the majority of pet stores get their puppies from puppy mills.

“If they ever tell you anything other than that, they’re lying,” says Chris DeRose, the founder of Last Chance for Animals, which has done its own investigations of puppy mills and pet stores.

If they ever tell you anything other than that, they’re lying,” says Chris DeRose, the founder of Last Chance for Animals, which has done its own investigations of puppy mills and pet stores.

Taking in the scene at the “Puppy-Store-Free L.A.” news conference in Brentwood on Wednesday morning was Lovey (pictured above with Chris DeRose) — a Yorkshire terrier rescued from a Lancaster puppy mill cited for overcrowding. Lovey had been used as a breeding dog. Her right back foot was amputated after it got caught in a puppy mill cage, activists say, but the 4-year-old Yorkie seemed oblivious to that as she easily scampered around a meeting room at the Luxe Hotel Sunset Boulevard.

Puppy mills are legal and licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but they are considered a scourge by animal welfare groups. The Humane Society of the United States, which has done its own undercover investigations of puppy mills, has made campaigning against them a primary focus. Animal welfare activists say mills are often in violation of USDA rules and are little more than badly run factory farms for dogs — overcrowded and filthy, with small cages where puppies are housed and females are relentlessly bred.

“It’s not just about the puppies but the parents of the puppies and the wretched conditions they live in,” L.A. City Councilman Tony Cardenas said at the news conference.

Overly inbred mill puppies can end up with serious illnesses and behavior problems, activists say.

Puppy mills supply many of the minuscule dogs that have become trendy. “Unfortunately, a handful of quasi-talented actors have been using these animals as accessories,” said DeRose (a sometime actor). Also present at the news conference was Maggie Q, the actress and animal rescuer who co-starred in “Mission: Impossible III.” She has eight rescued dogs. (They did not attend with her.)

The groups have already been demonstrating outside pet stores, telling potential buyers that the stores are getting their puppies from mills. “It’s the blood diamond equivalent to us,” says Julie Castle of Best Friends.

But they’re going for a gentle approach, they say — no yelling and screaming at pet store patrons. “We’re educating people,” Castle says. “We set up tables. We say, ‘Do you want to know where these animals come from?’ ” But they will exhibit giant photos of puppy mills — which increasingly, DeRose says, are being run here in California, not just in the East and Midwest.

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