The people behind the project
About TheLaineyProject
We are Tom and Jaimie, a family in Connecticut. We have three kids, three French Bulldogs, and more history with this issue than we ever intended to have.
The dogs
Charlie
4 years oldThe steady one. The first night Lainey came home, Charlie went to her immediately — calm and certain, like she already knew this was right. She has always been the most grounded dog in the room and she has never once been wrong about a person or another dog.
Stevie
3 years oldThe enthusiast. Stevie taught Lainey how to play with toys — patiently, persistently, in the way that only another dog can. She is the reason Lainey now destroys every toy in the house within forty-eight hours and considers this an achievement.
Lainey
2 years oldThe reason this project exists. She came from a commercial breeding facility in Iowa via a Connecticut animal clinic that rescues mill dogs. She had already had multiple litters. She didn't know what a treat was. She hops like a baby goat when she runs, makes gremlin sounds when excited, and has one floppy ear that never got the memo. She is currently somewhere near one of us as this is being written.
Charlie and Stevie came from a breeder we have known for years and trust completely. Having all three dogs in the same house is what made us want to build this. We know what right looks like. We know what wrong looks like. The difference is not subtle.
We've been living with this since 2008
In 2008 we bought our first dog — a Chihuahua named Madison Grace. Maddie. We thought we did everything right. We asked questions. We asked to meet the parents. We asked about health testing. We were told everything we wanted to hear. We found out later that the person we bought her from was buying puppies from a mill pipeline down south and bringing them north to sell. We had been lied to, completely, while asking exactly the right questions.
Maddie had some health issues throughout her life. She was with us for thirteen years. We loved her completely. She passed away in 2021.
We also rescued a Chihuahua named Mason in 2009. He was about a year old when he came to us, and he was with us until last year.
We had always kept a space open for a dog in need — particularly a mama dog. We knew enough about how commercial breeding works to know that the dogs who spend their lives producing litters are the ones who need homes most and find them least. When a Facebook post appeared from a local animal clinic that had rescued five French Bulldogs, we applied the same day. Lainey came home with us that week.
TheLaineyProject is not the work of people who stumbled onto this issue. It is the work of people who have been buying from mill pipelines unknowingly, rescuing, asking the right questions and getting lied to, and watching what all of that looks like over the course of a dog's life — since 2008. We finally had enough. So we built something.
What this project is
TheLaineyProject is a searchable database of known puppy mills and the stores that source from them, a directory of responsible breeders, and a place to support the rescues doing the real work. All mill data is sourced from public USDA records and verified reports. We link to every source.
We are not a nonprofit yet. We are not a big organization. We are two people in Connecticut, with three kids and three French Bulldogs, who got tired of the gap between what the industry says and what the public records show.
Named for a survivor
Meet the dog who started all of this
One floppy ear. Gremlin sounds. A baby goat hop. And a history that made us angry enough to build something.
Read Lainey's story