LOS ANGELES -- Caring for up to 100 dogs and cats on any given time is all in a day's work for Kim Sill. She's made it her life's mission to stop people who are mass producing pets and selling them.

She was instrumental in changing laws in L.A. County that required all pet stores to only offer dogs, cats and rabbits that were rescued. 

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"Most people had no idea that the cute little pet shop dog in the window was a mass produced dog and that the mamas and daddies have those cute little puppies were being bred and breed and bred and not being cared for," said Sill.

As an animal rights advocate, she started her nonprofit Shelter Hope Pet Shops in 2011, to provide people with an alternative to buying animals that came from backyard breeders and puppy mills at pet stores.

“We've rescued over 6,500 animals in this one location” said Sill.

She has another Shelter Hope in Santa Clarita, and a third in Sacramento.

Earlier this year, L.A. County passed an ordinance that forbid pet stores from selling mass produced pets and requiring them only to offer rescued animals for adoption.

The L.A. City Council is now considering another ordinance that would restrict pet shop permits from being issued unless the business obtains its dogs, cats and rabbits from an animal shelter operated by the City or County of Los Angeles.

That would mean rescue pet shops like Sill's couldn't take in dogs and cats directly from individuals. She says that would be devastating for so many animals that never make it to the county shelters.

But Sill says that the regulations she wants fought for had been turned upside down by illegal rescue groups. Many of these groups pretend to provide rescue to pets for adoption, but are actually selling mass produced animals that are oftentimes sick and un-cared for at exorbitant prices.

"What happens is you go into a pet shop and they're asking between $1500 and $3,500 for a dog and calling it a rescue. Wake up - that is not a rescue dog,” said Sill.

She goes on to say that most real rescue organizations will ask for a donation of about $200 to $500 which helps cover the vaccination shots, spaying or neutering, medical bills, food and overhead for caring for the dogs or cats until they're adopted.

Sill spent seven years chronicling her journey to save animals and protesting against puppy mills and pet stores that do business with them.

She made a film in 2015 called Saved in America that shined a light on abuses in the pet industry that was championed by some pretty high profile people.

Sill legitimately receives a lot of animals from individuals who bring in pets that are old or sick or have been found abandoned. With the new county ordinance, she would be prohibited from taking in those pets.

“We want the public to be aware of what is real and what is not a real rescue dog,” she said.

So she says her fight to stop animal abuse and rescue animals continues with the hope that love for our four-legged friends will prevail.

For more information: shelterhopepetshop.org