Their big eyes stare longingly at pet store customers. Tails wag as fuzzy paws pat at the glass. "Pick me," they seem to say.

Customers crowded around the dog and cat enclosures June 19 at the Petland store in Lake Saint Louis. Signs advertised "rescue animals available today." Behind the glass, the puppies and kittens appeared healthy and playful.

But on the sidewalk in front of the store's parking lot, a half-dozen animal welfare activists spent their Father's Day afternoon protesting Petland, holding signs claiming that the store buys its animals from puppy mills.

"This is an industry based on deception," said Leanne Fritsch, one of the protestors' leaders.

The University City animal rights activist has spent three years protesting pet stores that buy dogs and cats from breeders that Fritsch considers "puppy mills."

"These breeders have hundreds of breeding pairs of dogs," she said. "They are treated as livestock. Their only purpose is to pump out puppies. But the stores do not tell you that. If more people knew where their puppies were coming from, I don't think most people would buy them."

The local Petland owners say the store does not buy animals from puppy mills.

The protestors, who do not have a group name, began picketing Petland every Sunday 10 months ago, Fritsch said. Many of the same protestors helped shut down six St. Louis area pet stores in three years, she said. One of the most publicized was Missouri Puppy Expo in St. Peters, which closed last August after protests sparked media coverage.

Petland sells pet supplies plus a variety of animals, including dogs, cats, fish, birds and reptiles. The national chain has four locations in Missouri. The locally owned Lake Saint Louis store is the only Petland in the St. Louis area.

"We do not want to close this store," Fritsch said, standing outside Petland. "If it does close, I won't cry about it. But that is not our goal."

The goal, Fritsch said, is to convince Petland to stop selling dogs and cats. Instead, the store should work with shelters and rescue groups to offer animals for adoption, she said. Pet supply chains PetSmart and Petco use this model.

Tom Killmade and Jeffrey Hartmann co-own the Lake Saint Louis Petland, which celebrated its fourth anniversary June 23. Killmade said the store has drawn protests off and on since it opened.

"What the protestors don't realize is that it actually helps our business," Killmade said in an interview Wednesday. "It is like free advertising. We've had customers come in and tell us they didn't even know there was a pet store here until they saw the protestors on the sidewalk."

Killmade said his store already works with shelters and animal rescue organizations, obtaining animals that would otherwise be destroyed. Killmade said the store during the last month has offered 35 puppies and kittens rescued from euthanization. Killmade said he has personally been active in dog rescue for most of his adult life.

Fritsch said she doubted that all of the animals Petland identified as "rescued" in fact came from shelters or legitimate rescue groups. She and other protestors said they have tried to find out where the rescue animals came from, only to receive vague and conflicting answers.

"If some of them are really rescues, that's great," Fritsch said. "But that does not change the fact that they also get puppies from puppy mills."

Fritsch said she considers a legitimate breeder to typically have a few breeding pairs and sell direct to pet owners. These breeders do not sell to pet stores or ship their animals to retail outlets, she said.

Killmade said a typical layperson does not want to drive into the country to personally meet a breeder, where they would be able to select from only one breed at a time, he said.

Killmade said his store does not buy animals from puppy mills. He acknowledged that he and the protestors disagree on what constitutes a "puppy mill."

"We define 'puppy mill' as a substandard breeding facility, not by the number of puppies being raised there," Killmade said. "If it is clean and wholesome, the animals are cared for, they see veterinarians regularly, then it is not a puppy mill."

Dave Sacks, national spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said federal regulations do not limit the number of animals per breeder.

"If you are a bad breeder, one animal is too many," Sacks said.

Sacks said he does not like to use the term "puppy mill." Instead, he sees every breeder as either compliant or noncompliant with federal regulations. If they are compliant, they are in good standing. If they have problems, they will be monitored or penalized, he said.

The USDA regulates pet breeders under the federal Animal Welfare Act, a set of care standards governing the commercial sale, exhibition and transportation of animals.

To operate legally, all dog and cat breeders must receive a USDA license. USDA inspectors make unannounced visits to the breeders' facilities, noting any Animal Welfare Act violations. The inspectors give breeders deadlines to fix any noted problems.

Sacks said the vast majority of breeders comply with the regulations. If they do not, they can be fined and have their license suspended or revoked. The USDA issues a monthly news release highlighting its enforcement actions. All inspection reports are available online at www.aphis.usda.gov.

Within the last year, the USDA has pushed to become more strict with enforcement, Sacks said. Fines have increased and the department has added more inspectors.

"The system works," Sacks said.

Killmade and the protestors seem to agree on one thing — they believe the system is broken.

Killmade said breeders with multiple violations routinely are allowed to continue operating year after year. He said animal welfare activists should shift their energy away from protesting retail stores and instead focus on pressuring government leaders to find ways to step up enforcement of existing laws regulating breeders.

Killmade said Petland management personally inspects the breeders they use to assess how they treat their animals.

"We hold the breeders we work with to very high standards that significantly surpass any laws on the books — laws that are not even being enforced," he said.

Tracy Pona, a protestor from St. Charles, said Petland could not personally inspect all the breeders it uses because at least three of them are located outside Missouri.

Pona launched the current protest effort against Petland last September. Pona said a personal experience last year inspired her to fight puppy mills. Through a rescue group, Pona adopted a dog that had spent eight years in a puppy mill. The dog's jawbone was rotting, causing great pain. Finally, Pona had to have the dog euthanized.

"It really pissed me off," she said. "That is when I started this."

Pona disputed Killmade's claim that the store does not buy from puppy mills. The protestors compiled a list of 18 breeders that they say are Petland suppliers. They obtained the breeder names by posing as Petland customers and asking employees for information on where the store obtained its animals.

The list includes breeders with multiple Animal Welfare Act violations during the last two years. It also includes breeding operations with 100-300 dogs. Five of the breeders are located outside Missouri.

Killmade verified that some of the breeders were current or past Petland suppliers, but said he did not recognize some of the names on the list. He said Petland had stopped using one of the listed breeders due to repeated code violations.

Killmade defended some of the larger breeders, saying the animals were well cared for and lived in clean facilities.

Pona said a breeder with 200-300 dogs was still a puppy mill, no matter how "clean" it was.

Animal welfare activists maintain that Missouri is the "puppy mill capital of the nation."

The Better Business Bureau, in a 2010 study, reported that Missouri has 30 percent of the 4,000 dog breeders licensed by the USDA nationwide. The bureau reported Missouri has four times as many USDA-licensed breeders as Nebraska, the next highest state.

Anti-puppy mill sentiment helped animal welfare supporters score a victory last November when voters approved Proposition B, a statewide initiative to tighten regulations on commercial dog breeders. The law sought to restrict breeders from having more than 50 female dogs. It included provisions for increasing dogs' living space and requiring veterinary care.

But state legislators in April voted to overturn Proposition B. Instead, lawmakers embraced a compromise bill that eliminated the restriction on breeding more than 50 dogs.

Dayle Barrett, a Petland protestor from St. Peters, said he was disappointed that Gov. Jay Nixon signed the compromise bill into law instead of vetoing the Legislature's attempt to overturn Proposition B.

"What's the point in voting?" Barrett said. "We won this. We worked hard at it. Then they just said no, we're not going to do it."

Wentzville Alderman Nick Guccione, Ward 3, joined the Petland protestors last year after his attempt to enact local puppy mill legislation failed. Guccione proposed a bill that would have banned the retail sale of dogs and cats in Wentzville, but the bill failed to win support from other aldermen. It died without coming to a vote.

Guccione said he became interested in animal welfare issues 20 years ago after visiting a puppy mill that bred shar-pei dogs, stacking them in small, wire cages.

"The mother was like a little factory," he said. "Breeding, breeding, breeding; that is all she was there for. I've seen cattle breeders who treat cattle before slaughter with more compassion than these dog breeders treat their dogs."