This article originally appeared in the May 25, 2012 issue of Dog News and is reposted here by permission of the author.
Proposed APHIS Rule Changes Will
Affect Hobby Breeders
Carlotta Cooper
On May 10, 2012, APHIS (Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service), part of the United States
Department of Agriculture, held a conference call with stakeholders
to announce new regulations that they planned to add to the Animal
Welfare Act which covers how animals are bred and kept in the United
States. The regulations apply to people who breed dogs, cats,
rabbits, and other pets and domestic animals.
You
can listen to the conference call here,
Or you can read the transcript of the conference call here.
In order to understand the proposed new
regulations you need to be aware of the fact that hobby dog breeders
(and other small breeders of pets) have long been considered in the
same category as “retail pet stores.” This is because we sell
directly to the public at retail, instead of selling puppies
wholesale. The idea with a “retail pet store” is that you don't
have to be inspected by APHIS because your buyers have the
opportunity to inspect you. If things were not in good shape where
you have your puppies and dogs, your buyers would report you. For
USDA inspection purposes, this means that we have not had to be
inspected by APHIS. The same is true of retail pet stores. You
should also know that rescue organizations have also been considered
in this same “retail pet store” exemption category because they
sell their puppies and dogs one at a time, on a retail basis, and not
wholesale. However, the new regulations proposed by APHIS would
remove this exemption from hobby breeders and rescues.
Background
If you are wondering what prompted
these proposed new regulations, or if APHIS has the authority to make
these rules, here is a little background.
In the 1960s Congress passed the Animal
Welfare Act. It was originally set up to ensure better care for
animals in laboratories but it was later expanded to provide better
care for dogs in large breeding facilities. Under this act the USDA
and APHIS have regulatory authority to make rules regarding the care
of animals. When they change the rules they do not have to go back
to Congress or the president for approval. When there is a proposed
rule change, the new rules are posted for public comment and, after
consideration, the rules are changed, accepted, or in some cases
dropped.
HSUS and other animal rights groups
have been pushing to expand regulation to include hobby breeders for
15 years. The Doris Day Animal League (DDAL) and PETA pushed for
changes in the rules in 1997. DDAL sued the USDA to force them to
license and inspect hobby breeders. The lawsuit continued for
several years and the USDA eventually prevailed, leaving the “retail
pet store” exemption intact. There were also legislative attempts
to create laws that would have included hobby breeders in
inspections: the Puppy Protection Acts of 2001 and 2003, PAWS in
2005, a Senate Amendment as a rider to the Farm Bill in 2007, “Baby's
Bill” in 2008, and PUPS in 2010 and 2011.
Now the USDA and APHIS, following an
Office of the Inspector General's report in 2010 that showed they
were not adequately inspecting wholesale commercial dog breeders,
have come back with proposed rules that will not significantly affect
wholesale breeders. One of the recommendations in the OIG report was
to look at people who sell large numbers of puppies online, or
“Internet sellers.” These sellers often do sell puppies without
a buyer visiting their premises. However, there is scant evidence
that this is a huge problem or that large numbers of buyers are
dissatisfied with their purchases. In fact, one of the problems with
the proposed new rules from APHIS is that they have done little or no
research about the problems they claim they are trying to fix. They
have not identified how many new pet owners actually have any
complaints about dog breeders or other information they would need to
know before coming up with new rules.
The Proposed Rules
You should know that the proposed rules
will affect anyone who sells any dog or cat during the course of a
year. They will also affect other species such as rabbits,
guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, domestic ferrets, and others for use
as pets. Dog breeders currently don't have to have kennels that are
Animal Welfare Act-compliant: with waterproof surfaces, separate
food preparation areas, floor drains, and always being available for
inspection. And we are not fined by APHIS if we have too many
issues.
However,
if the proposed rules are adopted, there will be new requirements in
order to be a “retail pet store” if you are a hobby breeder or
rescue:
1.
You will have to have every single one of your puppy buyers
physically enter your home (which is considered to be your “store”).
They have to physically visit your premises at least once for each
sale. You cannot ship dogs, meet buyers at shows or rest areas, or
at a McDonald's to deliver a puppy unless that buyer has already come
to your home at another time *for that same sale*. In this case
there are no restrictions on the numbers of dogs (or cats, etc.) that
you can keep.
This
may be the most practical way to handle the proposed rules for most
hobby breeders in order to comply but it certainly won't be easy for
you OR for your buyers. If you are caught selling even ONE dog
without the buyer coming to your home, you would lose your exemption
and have to become USDA-licensed and subject to inspections. If you
have a breeder friend across the country and you often swap puppies,
you will have to physically visit their home for each puppy you buy.
It doesn't matter that you have known each other or co-bred litters
together for 20 years. There must be a new visit for each puppy
purchased.
OR
2. You can keep
four or fewer breedable females (APHIS currently has no definition
for “breedable females”) and sell only the offspring of your own
females raised on your premises. If you choose this option you can
ship dogs, meet people at rest areas so they can pick up a puppy, and
so on. However, the four or fewer breedable females you own does
include bitches co-owned with others, as the rules are understood at
this time.
Breedable Females
As mentioned, APHIS currently has no
definition for “breedable female.” In the May 10 conference call
this issue was raised and APHIS officials said it would have to be
addressed. They urged people to comment on the matter (along with
many, many other issues that were raised). It seems likely that a
breedable female will be considered a bitch that is intact and over
four (or possibly six) months of age. It is not known if there will
be an upper age limit. You will probably have to provide paperwork
to prove a bitch has been spayed.
It does not matter if you do
not intend to breed a bitch, or if you help rescue and you do not
breed that particular breed, or if you are keeping a bitch for a
friend or family member, or if you are keeping a bitch for one of
your puppy owners who is on vacation, or if she is at your home while
you are showing her for someone else. The word used in the
regulations is “maintained.” If you are feeding her, she counts
and she would put you over your four bitch limit.
The proposed
regulations also contain wording about bitches maintained “in
concert” with other people. This is probably a reference to
co-ownerships and it likely means that a co-owned breedable bitch
will be counted against all owners who co-own her.
If you believe that a bitch is sterile
but you have no paperwork from your veterinarian for a spay for her,
she will probably be counted as a breedable bitch.
Wording in
the proposed regulations also states that you can “sell only the
offspring of your own females, raised on your premises.” This
means that you cannot sell a stud fee puppy or any “puppies back”
from a bitch you sold.
Impact
As you can tell, these proposed
regulations will affect nearly every hobby breeder, whether they
breed for show, performance, hunting, or to produce quality pets. If
you have more than four bitches, or you ever have more than four
girls on your property, as so many of us do, you will have to
re-think how you manage your breeding and how you maintain your dogs.
You will have to have a visit from every single buyer at some point
during a sale. For some breeders, this is too dangerous. They have
good reason to fear animal rights fanatics who are opposed to
breeding. Others worry about their personal safety, especially if
they live alone. And other breeders have legitimate concerns about
allowing visitors into the house when they have younger litters.
Many breeders may decide to give up
breeding altogether, or cut down to the point where they cannot breed
or compete in any meaningful way. You have to imagine that the
effect on AKC registrations will be very damaging. This is a body
blow to dog breeding in the United States if these proposed rules are
put into effect.
Enforcement
How will the proposed rules be
enforced? HSUS, the ASPCA, and other animal rights groups were quick
to ask this question during the conference call. APHIS said that
they had a wide range of ways to enforce the rules. Some of the ways
that APHIS may enforce the rules include complaints from puppy
buyers, tips from animal rights zealots, and calls from other
breeders and perhaps co-owners. AR-leaning vets may report a
breeder. And APHIS could obtain information about who is shipping
puppies from airlines. Basically, APHIS doesn't have to catch every
breeder who breaks the rules. They only have to catch a few people
and scare the rest into compliance.
AWA Requirements
These are *proposed rules*. They are
not part of the USDA's regulations – yet. But APHIS is quite
serious about putting these rules into effect. We are currently in
the comment period for the rules. We have until July 16, 2012 to
make comments objecting to the rules and urging APHIS to reconsider.
So, here is what you can do.
1) Comment
A 60-day comment period began May 16 when the
regulations were published
to the Federal Register. Go
to
To read the regulations for yourself,
click on the PDF icon next to VIEW DOCUMENT.
When you comment you should be
respectful. Tell APHIS how the change in rules would affect you and
your breeding program. Ask APHIS to withdraw the proposed
regulations. These regulations are intended to regulate large
Internet breeders but no studies have been done about large Internet
kennels to see how many there are or find out what kind of problems
there might be. The government says there have been complaints from
consumers but they can't say how many complaints there have been.
These proposed regulations would catch thousands of caring, devoted,
ethical hobby breeders in their net and could put an end to many
breeding programs. These rules would be especially harmful for rare
breeds and breeds with smaller numbers.
Remember these are *proposed
regulations*. They are not a law passed by Congress that has to be
voted on. But they would seriously impact the nation's economy.
They would also impact APHIS's budget. This is tremendous
over-regulation of the worst kind and it will make it much harder to
find a good dog and more expensive to buy one.
These
regulations would also effect rescues. They would be subject to
exactly the same rules that would harm hobby breeders. Anyone who
wanted to adopt a rescue dog would have to visit the actual place
where the dog was being maintained, even if that was a foster home if
the rescue did not have an actual building of its own. If the rescue
had more than four unspayed females in a year, they would be subject
the same rules as hobby dog breeders and would need to become
USDA-compliant. They would not be able to meet new owners
off-premises to give them their new dog. Rescues need to comment on
these proposed rules, too.
3) Send a copy of your comment to
AKC at doglaw@akc.orgdoglaw@akc.org.
AKC is collecting comments and will make comments to APHIS based on
what they hear from dog breeders.
It's vitally important that
you comment on these proposed regulations and tell APHIS how they
will affect you and your ability to produce healthy, happy dogs.
This is the most serious threat to dog breeding that we have ever
faced. Please comment now to stop these harmful regulations.
My thanks to Sharyn and Walt Hutchens,
Margo Milde, Susan Wolf of SAOVA, and Donna Fefee who did so much
of the heavy lifting to decipher these proposed regulations and make
them more comprehensible to the rest of us.
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