Negative Consequences of PUPS

Negative Consequences of PUPS

Carlotta Cooper

Recently I was reading Steve Dale’s excellent online article “Why Are Puppy Mills Allowed To Operate?” at PetWorld. The article isn’t quite what it sounds like. The article is actually about the new PUPS legislation and why it may not be a good idea.

Steve explains that we all know there are some problems with bad breeders. That’s not new information. He discusses the report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) which found problems with the way that inspections of some commercial breeders were being carried out: repeat violations ignored, penalties waived, inadequate documentation, first-time violators given a pass sometimes; and in some states a lack of inspectors.

The report goes on to recommend that APHIS, which carries out the inspections for the USDA, be able to immediately confiscate animals that are dying or seriously suffering, and to better train their inspectors to document, report and penalize wrongdoing.

That seems to be an appropriate response to the findings in the report. But, as Steve Dale reports, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-ILL) and others have introduced legislation called PUPS (Puppy Uniform Protection and Safety Act) which they say would close a “loophole” which allows breeders to operate online.

As Steve Dale writes in his article, there are a number of problems with the PUPS bill. PUPS would “make life tough for responsible breeders.” These are people who generally operate from their homes. If you drive these breeders away then the prices of purebred dogs rise and some breeds could disappear. In fact, show breeders could be included among these people who breed from their homes.

Instead, Steve and many other people advocate enforcing the laws that we already have for commercial breeders instead of creating new laws. In fact, there are approximately 100 inspectors for about 5000 commercial breeders and the PUPS bill does not suggest any new funding or inspectors for APHIS. If many more home and hobby breeders would be inspected under this bill it’s hard to imagine how the inspectors would be able to do a good job with their inspections if they are stretched thin now.

Although the stated purpose of the bill is to close the so-called “Internet loophole” that allows the sale of dogs over the Internet, I’ve been very concerned about the “ownership interest” provision in the bill.

The bill defines a High Volume Retail Breeder as follows:

•S 3424

‘‘(B) HIGH VOLUME RETAIL BREEDER.

— The term ‘high volume retail breeder’ means a

person who, in commerce, for compensation or

profit—

‘‘(i) has an ownership interest in or

custody of 1 or more breeding female dogs;

and

‘‘(ii) sells or offers for sale, via any

means of conveyance (including the Inter-

net, telephone, or newspaper), more than

50 of the offspring of such breeding female

dogs for use as pets in any 1-year period.

(And in the bill a four-month-old female puppy is designated as a breeding female.)

Consider what this definition means to a show breeder who co-owns bitches with other people. You may have one or two bitches yourself. You may or may not have a litter. It doesn’t matter. If your friends who co-own bitches with you have litters, no matter where they live in the United States, and they sell those puppies, then those puppies will be counted toward a fifty puppy total for you because you have an “ownership interest” in the dams.

If your co-owners sell a total of fifty or more puppies then you would be considered a high volume retail breeder. This means that you would have to become USDA-licensed and inspected under the PUPS act. If you keep dogs in your home (and I’m sure all of us do), your home would have to be inspected by USDA-APHIS inspectors. I’m also sure that you would not pass inspection. Not because you don’t have a lovely home, but because it does not meet Animal Welfare Act guidelines: you cannot hose down the floor and walls of your home; the surfaces of your home are not impervious to moisture; you cannot disinfect your home at high temperatures; and so on.

What this means is that you could not keep and raise dogs in your home if you had to be USDA-licensed under the PUPS act.

That is why PUPS is harmful to people who breed and raise dogs in their home.

For decades we have been co-owning dogs with each other in order to protect them and supervise their breeding. Now co-ownership can mean that we would be labeled high volume retail breeders and have to be USDA-licensed. It could mean that we would not be able to breed and raise dogs in our homes.

I don’t have statistics on how many breeders co-own bitches. Only the AKC could provide that kind of data. However, I think it’s estimated that the Fancy makes up about 20 percent of the core constituency for the AKC and perhaps 20 percent of their registrations. I think it would be reasonable to guess that a large number of that core constituency engages in co-ownership. (Three of my four adult dogs are co-owned and I co-own several dogs that I’ve sold to others.) No, they wouldn’t all be at risk of becoming high volume retail breeders but many certainly would be.

When replying to comments following Steve Dale’s article one person suggested several times that those of us who are show breeders should be willing to give up our hobby and reduce our breeding for the sake of passing PUPS. I don’t think he ever quite grasped the concept of “hobby” as opposed to breeding as a business.

I think what many people fail to realize is that those of us who breed dogs for show and as a hobby are the very people who are producing dogs of the highest quality in this country. It’s all very well to say that we should be willing to breed less, embrace PUPS, get rid of those awful bad kennel operators. But every time Congress tries to pass a law to get rid of bad breeders they include provisions that would hurt show and hobby breeders — the people who are breeding quality dogs, donating to canine health research, keeping breeds alive. If show and hobby breeders are driven out of breeding or forced to cut back, it hurts all purebred dogs in this country. It hurts dog owners and the consumer who wants to buy a dog. If there are fewer show and hobby breeders producing dogs, the quality of dogs in the U.S. will inevitably decline as a result of PUPS.

Instead of creating new laws like PUPS, which will hurt dedicated breeders, the USDA should be encouraged to better enforce the laws that are already on the books. There are simply too many negative consequences to PUPS which are not being considered by the people supporting it.