Here is a article about the dog auction in Berlin.
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Puppies for sale: Pet shop brokers head to Holmes
T-R photos/Jim Cummings
Puppy 151 waits to go to auction at Buckeye Dog Auction as the auction is under way outside the door.
By ZACH LINT,T-R Staff Writer
BERLIN – If it weren’t for the incessant yelping of 313 dogs who were confined in stacked cages in a room closed off to the auction block, it may have appeared to an outsider as just another run-of-the-mill day at the Amish Flea Market.
In the last year-and-a-half, the Buckeye Dog Auction has grown into anything but run-of-the-mill.
Some breeds are able to fetch more than a few thousand dollars, while others can net hundreds of dollars for the seller.
The auction and the subsequent success of local breeders has convinced others to forsake Bessie for Fido. Apparently, there’s more money in dogs than cattle.
Meanwhile, Pam Maurer of New Philadelphia is outraged about the proliferation of what she calls “puppy mills” in Holmes County.
“I have sleepless nights because of it,” Maurer said last week.
“I can’t stand what’s going on, and so little can be done.
“There are legitimate breeders out there and there are others who treat them like livestock or something other than the pet or companion animal that they are meant to be.”
In a Reader’s Viewpoint published in September, Maurer pointed to the more than 400 licensed kennels in Holmes County and criticized the breeders for raising large numbers of puppies for profit in cramped, unsanitary quarters hidden from the public’s view.
But Ervin Raber of Millersburg doesn’t see it quite like that.
Raber is the co-founder of the Buckeye Dog Auction. He also runs a large kennel with about 50 breeding females and 12 male studs.
His operation has been inspected and even the president of the Holmes County Humane Society, Karole Butler, gave it high marks.
“Puppy millers – that’s a big controversy going on right now,” Raber said. “I am currently the president of the Ohio Pro Dog Breeders Assn. and in our opinion there is no such thing as a puppy mill.”
Raber said some of the opposition facing the dog breeding business comes from people who believe that every dog should be born in somebody’s kitchen and raised in their backyard.
“The thing that they understand the least is that these kennel dogs were born and raised in a kennel environment,” he said.
“They have never been a house pet, so it’s not stressful for them to be confined among 20 others and be used as breeding stock.”
Many local breeders look to the Buckeye Dog Auction as an opportunity to improve their stock and turn a quick profit.
The auction house takes in a $10 registration fee for every dog to go on the block and a 10 percent commission on the sale. Raber said mixed breeds will sell for as little as $25 while a purebred female Cavalier King Charles Spaniel might sell for more than $5,000.
“It takes a special license from the state of Ohio and we go through an auction firm for our auction license,” Raber said. “I have nothing to hide.”
Buyers can look over the dogs prior to the start of the auction and can compare registered tag numbers to the ones listed in the auction’s catalogue.
“Every animal is vet-inspected on premises and anything AKC (American Kennel Club) -registered also is inspected at the time,” Raber said. “We have four eyeballs watching us from every direction to make sure we do things right.”
The auction at Berlin came about after Raber and his son made several trips to a similar one in Missouri when they began their breeding business. Breeders from New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Indiana frequent the auction since Raber started it at Berlin nearly two years ago.
The upcoming two-day auction starting Nov. 25 promises to be one of Raber’s largest of the year.
“We usually sell 150 top dogs on Friday and another 250 on Saturday,” Raber said. “The top dogs have to have all their shots and meet some stricter requirements.”
Raber said he tries to hold about 10 auctions per year.
The auction group and OPDBA sponsor seminars for area breeders to learn how to improve kennel conditions and breed quality. One lecture featured a friend of Raber’s who houses more than 2,000 dogs in his Missouri kennel.
“We have a representative from the Hunt Corp., biggest broker in the states, coming to be introduced to breeders,” Raber said of an upcoming seminar on Nov. 17.
“We need to keep new blood pumped in as it grows and we need new avenues for it.”
Raber said the meeting should expose bigger and better business opportunities for area breeders.
“That’s the hub of the business – to produce puppies and sell them at 8 weeks old to brokers or pet shops,” he said.
Raber said he likes dealing with pet shop brokers.
“It’s a cut and dry thing,” he said. “They give you a check and you never hear back from them.
“It’s not a thing where Tammy Johnson’s dog in Cleveland got a heart murmur and wants you to pay for it. If there is a problem with a pup we do have to replace it.”
Raber and his colleagues do fear backlash from animal rights groups.
“There were situations that needed help and we’ve cleared a lot of that up already in the last two years,” Raber said. “The days of stacking cages on top of one another and having feces fall to the lower dogs are gone.”
Other breeders who attended Raber’s auction in mid-October said they feared fanatical “rescue groups” and didn’t want to go on the record.
“In the past, not so much here, but in Pennsylvania and Missouri and some areas, (rescue groups) have taken dogs and been real nasty,” Raber said.
“That’s the reason I run the auction through a post office box in Walnut Creek.”
Holmes County Dog Warden Joe Patterson said complaints about puppy breeders are down this year and credited an agent from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for helping to inspect kennels over the last two years.
“I don’t care much about what people think in our county, but if it wasn’t for this agent we’d be in worse shape than we are now,” he said, adding that he used to get frequent complaint calls from tourists who saw what they thought was mistreatment of an animal when they went on a tour of an Amish farm.
But over the last year, Patterson said the number of complaint calls has dropped off despite the spike in the number of kennel licenses.
“These kennel operators are getting to the point where they know how to go out around the public eye,” he said. “They have the pet store people come directly to them to buy whatever dogs they need at their pet stores.”
Patterson said he’s even heard of cases where the Internet is starting to be used by local breeders.
Holmes County Humane Society President Karole Butler said she’s seen enough to be concerned.
“The community knows little of the problem in this county,” Butler said. “We actually get more e-mails from tourists who come and see signs and pet shops with the ‘Amish puppies for sale.’”
She said Ohio only has two USDA kennel inspectors.
Butler said when she tells local residents that there are more than 400 kennels scattered throughout Holmes County, they are astonished.
“It is a well hidden practice and you only see the cute little puppy side of it,” she said.
Tuscarawas County Dog Warden Karen Slough can relate.
“If they’re just cranking out the puppies and that’s how they’re mistreating them, there’s not much we can do,” Slough said. “Sometimes what’s legal and what’s ethical is not always the same thing.”
There is no limit on the number of dogs a kennel can have and there are loose requirements on how cages must be maintained.
“The law addresses food, water and shelter, but there are degrees of abuse and neglect,” she said.
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