Written by Mindi Callison
October 2026
After I Hit Send
Two weeks ago, I filed a compliance complaint against a business.
I’m not going to name them here, because this isn’t that kind of story.
Alexis and I had been watching how many puppies they were moving, and the numbers were shockingly high for an operation without a license so we did what we’ve done for years. We pulled the pieces together, built a little case, typed it up, and I hit send.
And then I paused.
I wasn’t doubting the facts or questioning the action. The pause was because of something I don’t ever remember feeling in this work until recently. I sat for a second and tried to imagine what it would be like to be on the other side of that communication. To hear from a regulation agency out of the blue and realize someone had been watching your business, counting, documenting, and finally filing a complaint. Right or wrong, true or false, someone’s life was about to be affected because of a decision I made.
But really, it was because of a decision they made. Right? Right. I believe that. I also know that a few years ago, I wouldn’t have asked myself that question at all.
The Hunt
There was a time when a big part of our work was pairing pet store data with breeder violations for media stories. Since we already know a lot about who sells where, it was easy to find examples to make a case without questioning whether or not we had a mountain of evidence- or a molehill.
I never hesitated. I never once paused to wonder what the other side looked like, because my story had to be the right story. Right? Right. We were getting justice for dogs and that is what matters. And honestly? There was excitement in that. Real, heart-racing excitement every time I found something. It all always felt so big.
If you’ve done this work, you may know the feeling. You finally find the record that proves what you suspected. The inspection report lines up with the photos, and the business that swore everything was fine is caught in the documents. For a moment, it feels like justice.
That feeling isn’t wrong, necessarily. But it is addictive.
The stories got shared. People who had never paid attention to the cause were suddenly paying attention, and they wanted more: more villains, more outrage, more moments where someone got “caught.” Comment sections filled with hurtful things people wished on other human beings, and too often those comments were left to fester, because engagement is engagement.
But an audience that’s fed on outrage is never full.
When the reward is the reaction, the targets get bigger and the evidence gets thinner. Nuance starts to look like weakness. Someone who is trying to improve gets lumped in with the ones who aren’t, because “trying to improve” doesn’t go viral and it doesn’t help the narrative that passes laws. Slowly, the questions change from “Is this true?” and “Will this help?” to “Will this make the news?”
I didn’t see any of that in those moments. In those moments, it just felt like being right.
The Comment
Then I visited my first kennels in person, outside of rescue missions. I came home with my mind surprisingly open, and, honestly, a little light-headed from realizing so many things at once.
But an open mind doesn’t always mean wide open, sometimes it means it is slowly creaking open as you gain more perspective. Every time you think you have a handle on how you feel or how you think, you encounter an entirely different situation and you have to sit with it. Another one of those moments came the following year, in a Facebook comment section.
A rescue had posted about the worst puppy mills in our state and a breeder whose name appeared on that list left a comment. Her violations weren’t great, but they weren’t examples of cruelty and neglect. She missed her annual exam for her dogs, missed their shots, and kept their kennels clean of feces but was struggling to keep the deep cleaning done. Prior to that, she had a clean history for at least the last 10 years. But not now. Now she’s the worst puppy mill in America. This incident was a blip in her history and it wasn’t okay. She knew that the violations weren’t okay. And also, they happened during a stretch when she had lost her mom and her husband and was struggling herself. She was vulnerable and shared a part of her life in the comments and, what followed, was zero sympathy for a woman who felt like she lost everything.
I read her words, I read the follow up comments, and I immediately pictured myself in her place. Going through that nightmare and then having my name shouted out so loudly and publicly. Watching strangers decide who I was based on the worst season of my life. I knew I would be devastated too.
It isn’t an excuse for the violations but it was a perspective I had never let myself see. Our expectations had gotten so high that we left zero room for the humanity of it all. From then on, I couldn’t unlearn that lesson. Every time I would read a news story or see an inspection record I would pause and wonder what I couldn’t see from this small piece of the puzzle. From then on, it was hard not to let my walls down and see the world for what it is, instead of what I expected it to be.
Us vs. Them
Here’s the quiet part I didn’t have words for back then. To target something, you first have to stop seeing them as someone. The breeder becomes “the puppy mill.” The family behind the kennel becomes a case number, a screenshot, a name on a list. Once that happens, almost anything you do to them feels justified, because you aren’t doing it to a person. You’re doing it to the enemy.
That woman had been a name on a list to me, too. I had helped build stories just like that one. I just never had compassion or patience to hear someone else.
I think this is one of the most human failures there is, and it exists everywhere. Something in us craves a clear enemy. It feels good to be on the ‘right’ side, and even better to watch someone on the ‘wrong’ side get what’s coming to them. It lets us skip over our own flaws by looking down on someone else’s. I know, because I did it.
Dehumanization never announces itself. It arrives quietly, wrapped in good intentions, and from the inside it always feels like righteousness. I’m not comparing a Facebook post to the darkest chapters of history by any means. But the instinct underneath is the same one and it lives in all of us- even me.
I got into this work because I believe animals deserve to be seen as more than products. I can’t hold that belief and, in the same breath, decide that the people I disagree with deserve to be seen as less than human.
So why did I still hit send?
Because seeing someone’s humanity doesn’t mean looking away from their choices. That business was moving a lot of puppies without the oversight the law requires, and the dogs in that pipeline deserve someone paying attention. Accountability is part of this work. It always will be.
The difference isn’t whether I act. It’s how. This time there was no thrill and no audience waiting. Just the facts, sent to the people whose job it is to look at them, and a moment spent picturing the person who would open that letter. Would they be brought into compliance, or would the government come and take their dogs? We never know the outcome of our complaints until after the fact.
But progress in this work rarely looks like a takedown, even when the headlines say otherwise. It looks like a records request that takes eight months to come back. A database entry that finally shows the whole picture. A conversation with a breeder that doesn’t end in a headline, but does end in a kennel that’s doing better next year than it was this year. Or even conversations with policy makers or regulatory agencies about how data can shed light on the issue in helpful ways.
None of that feels like justice in the moment. It feels slow, and sometimes it feels like compromise. But it’s what actually changes outcomes, and I’ve learned to be wary of shrugging off progress while demanding perfection.
That pause after I hit send was never on my radar, but now I think it might be the most important part of this work. The pause and the consideration for the impact of our actions will always help keep us focused on the fixing the system and not the fighting the people.
Compassion that only flows in one direction isn’t compassion. It’s just another way of choosing who matters. And the ones we decide are worthy of it are usually the ones who look like us and think like us.