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Originally Posted by wildcard  Just to be clear, my argument is not based on a hypothetical "slippery slope" argument. In Illinois, the initial regulation of breeding dogs involved breeders with more than 8 intact bitches (whether they were bred or not). A kennel license and inspection was required but the housing requirements were not so strict that a hobby breeder could not easily comply. That was later lowered to 6 intact bitches. The current legislation that is proposed involves 3 intact bitches (although I do believe they have discussed keeping the number at 6) but the kicker is that the housing requirements mean that anyone with more than 2 breedable bitches (and the bill says this means any intact bitch over 4 mos of age equals breedable even though it would not allow any breedings until the bitch is 18 mos) would be required to provide indoor/outdoor runs for their dogs of a particular size. Meaning if you had 3 intact bitches, regardless of whether they are actually bred or not, they have to housed in an enclosure where they have at will indoor/outdoor access (your backdoor to your fenced in yard is not good enough even if you are there all day long to let them in and out), and if I am remembering correctly they can't share runs.
Incrementalism is a reality, not something myself and others are conjuring up to scare people. Just ask my mentor who has been breeding papillons for 30 years in a responsible, caring, scientific way-- if the Illinois bill passes she is going to have to either take out a second mortgage to build a kennel or she will have to sell, give away, or spay all but two of her bitches. It is ridiculous. I never, ever want to see that happening in my state. |
First of all, we are not discussing the Illinois law; I haven't read that, so I can't discuss its points. We are talking about the Indiana law. Many of us want to do something about the puppy mill situation, and we would like input from people who are good breeders, but all I see is a lot of misinformation and redirection.
However, your example is exactly what I've been worried about. Perhaps in Illinois good breeders stayed out of the initial drafts of the bill, and just voted, "No" so they left it up to commercial breeder to mull it over and then came up with what they thought was a suitable bill, and it passed, hurting the home breeder, I'm well aware this has happened in other places. It's so easy to mislead the home breeder, and they have no real lobby that protects them, and many are influenced by whatever propaganda the commercial breeder spouts. So my point in the beginning of this thread is to address which part of the bill would hurt the home breeder, and all I got was a lot of BS.