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Originally Posted by yorkiekist   Seems like with all the mills busts going on, the laws we ALREADY have are working. Why do we need more? |
Special Features | Special Features The USDA – understaffed and ineffective
The commercial pet trade is regulated (though, many would argue, not closely enough) by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS). The USDA is responsible for administering the Animal Welfare Act, which requires breeders, brokers and dealers to provide minimal basic care to their nimals. Anyone who breeds pets for the wholesale trade or sells stock to other breeders must obtain Class A licenses, while brokers and dealers are required to obtain Class B licenses. This does not apply to breeders who sell directly to the public.
The majority of these factory farms are concentrated in Pennsylvania and the Midwest – Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma. Missouri, which has more mills than any other state, is by far the worst – a “black hole of despair,”
Under the Animal Welfare Act, breeders must provide nutritious food, clean water and housing that is kept dry and cleaned of waste. They must also provide adequate veterinary care and observe their animals daily. But the regulations still allow for keeping dogs in cages, albeit with “sufficient space to allow each dog and cat to turn about freely, to stand, sit and lie in a comfortable, normal position, and to walk in a normal manner.”
How big is that? The USDA-APHIS has a formula. Each dog must be provided with a space calculated by dividing the mathematical square length of the dog plus six inches by 144. The dog must also be given just six inches of space above his head. So, a dog who is 40 inches long can be given just 14.69 square feet of space (roughly the size of a bathtub).
Are the regulations enforced? Well, the USDA-APHIS is understaffed and, by most accounts, ineffective. According to USDA spokesman Darby Holladay, between 115 and 120 inspectors enforce the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act. Holladay added that there are 15,000 licensees and registrants under the Animal Welfare Act alone, but he told Best Friends he couldn’t comment on whether or not he thought the agency was understaffed.
Those 120 inspectors are responsible for monitoring not only thousands of breeders, brokers and dealers, but zoos, circuses and research facilities as well.
The USDA levied more than $1.5 million in fines in 2005-06, and the agency’s general counsel listed scores of complaints on alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act. If animals are in extreme danger, the USDA works with local agencies to confiscate the animals. Holladay said, “We do that quite often.”
But although commercial breeders who violate the Animal Welfare Act can receive a civil penalty of up to $3,750 per day per violation, a glance at USDA inspection reports shows that some puppy millers have been able to tally up violation after violation, and still keep operating.
“There’s such a lack of enforcement and so much recidivism,” Wilkins said. “They’re not being watched and regulated.” Fry agrees. “If the USDA were to levy those fines, they would have all the resources they need to regulate that industry.”
Take the case of Gary McDuffee in Morrison County, Minnesota. Despite a five-year history of USDA violations, Morrison County commissioners still issued McDuffee a new conditional-use permit for a facility that could hold up to 500 adult dogs plus any number of puppies. Previous violations included cages that were too small, cages that were deteriorating and contained sharp and dangerous materials, failure to clean animals’ enclosures, failure to label shipped animals as live cargo, and use of expired or outdated drugs or medications.
The McDuffee case drew nationwide attention and put the puppy mill issue back in the headlines. Animal welfare advocates, including those with Fry’s organization, plan to appeal the ruling. Best Friends supporters have contributed $20,000 to help with the appeal.
Holladay says the USDA does try to educate its license holders and bring them into compliance. But Fry says some breeders just aren’t getting it. “You’d think after five years of noncompliance,” he said, “they’d realize educating them wasn’t working.”
Not only is the USDA lax in its regulation of commercial breeding operations, but it has actually poured money into them.
The USDA has loaned the Hunte Corporation, a large Missouri-based dealer and the largest wholesaler of puppies sold in pet shops, more than $4 million in recent years for expansion and upgrades. Hunte, which has grown 35 times its original size since 1991, is involved in the transport and sale of animals to 300 pet stores around the world.
Puppy mills and pet stores depend on each other. It’s estimated that 90 to 98 percent of dogs sold by pet stores come from puppy mills, according to a Best Friends study. The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council estimates that 3,700 of the nation’s 11,500 pet stores are selling dogs from puppy mills – about 300,000 to 400,000 puppies per year.
Only half the dogs bred at puppy mills even make it to the pet shops. The other half die from the mills’ squalid conditions, hypothermia, starvation or the horrors of transport.
AKC
The American Kennel Club name alone conjures up images of the crème de la crème of canines proudly prancing around a show ring with their handlers. Surely they all came from the finest of dog lines, their parents pampered and cared for by their loving owners.
Think again.
“The AKC makes between $20 million and $30 million a year off dog registrations,” Fry said. “A large percentage of that is from puppy mills. It’s a cash cow. Without those registrations coming in, they would take a serious loss in income.”
According to the AKC’s 2006 audit report, the AKC made more than $33 million from registration fees, accounting for almost half of the registry’s $72 million in total revenues that year.
Lisa Peterson, AKC’s director of communications, said the AKC does inspect breeders. She said breeders who produce four to six litters a year are randomly selected for inspection. Breeders who produce seven or more litters a year are inspected every 18 months. If they pass two inspections in a row, they get one inspection cycle off and then go back on the rotation. Peterson said the AKC, which has 14 inspectors, conducted about 5,000 inspections last year. “When our inspectors go in to inspect,” Peterson said, “breeders have to meet our standards of care for dogs.”
The AKC has fined and suspended breeders who use their registry who have been convicted for cruelty to animals (the average penalty is 10 years and a $2,000 fine) or who have failed to comply with the AKC’s Care and Conditions Policy, which usually brings a one-year suspension and a $1,000 fine, according to AKC documents.
Yet the AKC has consistently come out against state legislation that would require the most basic care standards, such as Minnesota’s Senate File 121 and House File 1046, as well as Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell’s efforts to strengthen that state’s dog laws.
“We oppose any legislation that takes away the right of the owner to determine what’s best for their pets,” Peterson said.
Money – and lots of it – keeps puppy mills in business. Breeders, animal brokers, pet stores, veterinarians and even the American Kennel Club (AKC) make big bucks from all those puppies. In 2006, the AKC registered 870,000 individual dogs and 416,000 litters. At $20 per dog and $25 per litter (plus $2 per puppy), that’s well over $30 million.
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