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Reporter: … tell us about puppy mills?

Jorja Fox: Well, probably a lot of things. I think that puppy mills - it’s a very easy issue. You know, if people were more aware, if they knew more, it would be a given issue. Just because we used to put asbestos in our walls, and we used to put lead in our paint, and it was a great idea at the time, doesn’t mean it’s still a great idea. Puppy mills are places where, all they do, month after month, year after year, is breed dogs to sell to pet stores. And most of these dogs are kept in very, very cramped cages their entire lives, they never see the sun, they usually have diseases, they have one job that they do. And, of course, because they’re dogs, they do it really well. I mean dogs, I think we all know, love humans and love to make humans happy and will do whatever it takes to please the person that they’re living with. The conditions are awful. As soon as dogs aren’t valuable anymore, they’re put down, often they end up at the bottom of lakes. I mean it’s really a sad, tragic story.

Reporter: How- “why” are you such an animal advocate?

Jorja Fox: I wish I could put that into logical terms. I’ve always been an animal lover. I grew up in a very small town. I grew up on the ocean. The people that live in the small town were very - the environment was necessary for everybody’s survival, it was a fishing town and it was a tourist town. So it was very important, even in the early 70s when I was growing up, that if we didn’t care for the place that we lived in, everybody’s job would go away. So that’s connection number 1, that we were all connected. Similarly, I think more than ever, now the wild places on earth are getting smaller and smaller and I think that it’s all time for us to have a little bit more compassion and to protect those places. Not only because animals are really cool and funny and beautiful and gorgeous and magical, but because if we don’t protect those spaces, we’re not going to have a space either. We don’t survive if they’re not surviving.