Mandatory Spay/Neuter Laws

[IronHorse]

I really like the idea of banning pet store sale of puppies. It won't solve the problem by any means, but unlike most of the other proposals I don't see how it could do any harm either. As Rosanne says, I can't think of any good reason to permit dogs to be sold this way. Almost by definition, good breeders don't consign pups to pet stores.

 

I agree

 

I am sure the pet store/high-volume breeder complex has powerful lobbies, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be worth trying to pass a law like this. Can anyone see a reason why it would be a bad thing to do, or would have bad results?

 

Fly in the ointment I see here is, What about the high volume internet pet stores?

I have no statistics and doubt any exsist at present but seems to me that this is a thriving business and my guess is that it already exceeds the sale of pets from static pet stores.

It would not be much of a problem for pet stores to make the jump to online stores in order to circumvent any law preventing in store sales of pets, in fact it may be more profitable for them to do so by not having to maintain in store inventories,logistics and facilities to showcase live specimens.

I would think that the sales of pets via the internet would also need legislation,which means even more laws and infrastructure which translates into cost.

[Rosanne]

Well they govern sale of porn to minors over the internet, why not just ban sale of all live animals over the internet too? That doesn't seem like a very responsible thing to do no matter what you're selling. . . be it dogs, crickets, snakes or cows....

 

Or at least make retail sales of animals illegal. You can't stop people from privately selling anything through email, but if they aren't allowed to advertise their wares it'll at least limit it. Of course then you have to define the difference between a store and a breeder, which gets tricky. . .

 

It's all very complicated and rather insane.

[Guest pax]

Well they govern sale of porn to minors over the internet, why not just ban sale of all live animals over the internet too? That doesn't seem like a very responsible thing to do no matter what you're selling. . . be it dogs, crickets, snakes or cows....

 

Or at least make retail sales of animals illegal. You can't stop people from privately selling anything through email, but if they aren't allowed to advertise their wares it'll at least limit it. Of course then you have to define the difference between a store and a breeder, which gets tricky. . .

 

It's all very complicated and rather insane.

 

 

'Cause there are those of us who sell animals as responsibly as possible, and do a good job of it.

 

And unless you're raising all your own food animals, you take part in it.

[OurBoys]

"How would a puppymill sell all their pups to individuals?"

 

Newspaper ads. Some are so bold, I've seen ads that lists 4-5 different breeds. Do you think they should be considered a legit breeder? And for the average pet owner, if you see a breed for $600 in a pet store and the same one for $200 in a newspaper ad, which one do you think John and Mary are going to buy for little Billy?

 

And, IMO, if not selling to pet stores actually worked, there would not be a number of animals killed every 3 days in the county animal shelter in a county that has that restriction. If the pet stores aren't selling the animals, where are they coming from?

[Rosanne]

"How would a puppymill sell all their pups to individuals?"

 

Newspaper ads. Some are so bold, I've seen ads that lists 4-5 different breeds. Do you think they should be considered a legit breeder? And for the average pet owner, if you see a breed for $600 in a pet store and the same one for $200 in a newspaper ad, which one do you think John and Mary are going to buy for little Billy?

 

And, IMO, if not selling to pet stores actually worked, there would not be a number of animals killed every 3 days in the county animal shelter in a county that has that restriction. If the pet stores aren't selling the animals, where are they coming from?

 

 

But my point is that John and Mary in my neighborhood don't live close enough to any puppymills to buy their pups there. Yes, the mills can sell SOME of their hundreds or thousands of pups every year to a local customer base, but that's going to saturate very quickly and if there's no stores to sell their wares to and cover transport costs and "dispose" of the dogs, then the mill probably will end up out of business.

 

Perhaps your county has too many backyard breeders and mills for that to be effective, but I live in Montgomery County PA, which is a VERY developing county very close to Philadelphia, with lots of high-end real estate being constructed along with big business, and if stores didn't sell pups in this area, I highly doubt people are going to drive all the way out to lancaster to buy a dirty pup from a barn, when they could go to a local shelter and feel good about themselves.

 

There is no perfect solution, but internet aside, perhaps a ban on selling in-person from retail stores might help. Most pet stores I know that sell dogs don't actually make the majority of their money off of it. They are not puppy stores, after all. If selling pups became illegal I think my local Diane's or John's Pet Store would probably just stop selling pups. Would it cut down on the number of dogs in shelters? Maybe. I don't know, but it just might help cut down on puppy mill business. AND if puppy mills ARE forced to advertise online perhaps it would become easier to find and prosecute them as such...

[OurBoys]

I'm not saying not having pet stores is a bad idea. I'm just saying that alone, IMO, doesn't work. But on the other side of the coin, if pet stores aren't allowed to sell, where are people going to get their pets? If a pet store is the only place an average individual can purchase a pet, would that decrease the numbers in shelters?

[Sue R]

I like the idea of no dog/cat sales in pet stores (what about rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, etc.?) but I wonder if the downside of that would be an encouragement of the backyard breeder? Cute little puppies, maybe pretty cheap, advertised in the local paper, parents on premises, just a short drive from your home...

[Dixie_Girl]

The way I see it, pure-bred breeders are the biggest prob. The mutts out there are the result of pure-bred this mating with pure-bred that. Most of these are oops breedings due to carelessness or just not giving a dang. They are the ones that are taken to the shelter, sold/given away at store parking lots, in the paper, etc. 99% of the time they are impulse aquisitions. And 4-6 mos. later will end up in shelters or worse. BYB, puppy mills, are the pure-bred breeders I am talking about. Those BYB and puppy mills are ACK registered dogs. They bring in more more money if they are papered. Why isn't ACK, who "claims" to be concerned with the welfare of the dog breeds, cracking down on people turning in 500 registration requests a year? Oh, yeah, the money.

 

I think the saying, "Money is the root of all evil", did not mean individuals aquiring money. I think it means when the Golden Gate bridge was proposed, the local guvment told the people, vote for this, we will only charge a toll untill the bridge bond is paid, and yet it is still a toll bridge. Why? No one wants to give up the money. The guvment tells us all the time cigarettes are bad. They make rules and raise the taxes. They won't outlaw them for the same reason prohibiton was rescended. They lose all that money. ACK would lose money so they do nothing.

 

If you really want to do something, it needs to be a grassroots, town by town, community by community indeaver. Hold car washes, bake sales, put flyers up for donations, find a vet that will give a discount, then offer free s/n to anyone in the county. Be prepared with folks who will volenteer to pickup/dropoff animals.

 

There will never be the "right" legislation for this prob. People have to be educated. They have to want things to change. Puppy mills should be outlawed simply due to the nature of their breeding practices and the usual lack of care.

[Dixie_Girl]

I hate my mouse!

[Eileen Stein]

How would a puppymill sell all their pups to individuals? I think that's unlikely as it would require them to open up a retail front (no one's going to want to buy a pup from a dirty cage in dirty barn), incur advertising costs, etc.

 

Unfortunately, and hard as it is to believe, people DO buy pups from dirty cages in dirty barns. In my experience, half the people who complain about the horrible conditions they saw at so-an-so's puppymill end up by saying, "I just couldn't leave this adorable little puppy there to suffer, so even though I hated to buy from that guy, I had to buy her. So I'm writing to you so you can do something to put him out of business."

 

Banning sale of dogs in pet stores is not going to shut down puppymills altogether, especially if they can still sell over the internet. (Now if we could fiture out a way of preventing that, we'd really have something.) But it does remove one of the puppymillers' important marketing routes, and therefore would at least cut into their sales and make it harder for them. (All puppymill products are not sold through pet stores, but virtually all pups sold in pet stores are puppymill products.) And my guess would be that pups bought through pet stores are more likely to be relinquished than pups acquired in other ways, both because they are more likely to be impulse purchases (to buy a puppy from an internet website you at least have to go looking for one; OTOH you're exposed to the pet store pup just walking through the mall with your kids), and because you don't have the support you'd at least have a chance of getting from direct contact with the breeder. But the main attraction of the idea for me is that I can't see a downside. Seems to me if there is demand for pups that a pet store would otherwise fill, it's at least as likely to be filled through a Shelter Adoption Day as by BYBs increasing their output. I suspect most BYBs don't want to breed any more than they already do.

 

Another advantage of this approach is that it would be a vehicle for raising people's consciousness about the fact that not all breeders are of equal quality, something that most of the public (including the sponsors of AB 1634) just plain don't seem to realize. That would be a good thing in itself.

 

Bill, I've never been clear on exactly what your local humane society does. If it's getting pups from overburdened shelters somewhere else and bringing them to your neck of the woods where demand exceeds supply, I don't see any problem with that, even if they're paying some kind of fees or expenses to that other shelter. OTOH, if they are actually buying litters of pups from breeders (just an inconceivable, sickening idea to me -- why don't you write an op-ed piece about it and blast them out of the water?) then I think the law should be drafted in a way that would include them as a pet store, non-profit status or not. But even if for some reason that couldn't be done, I think that's a very, very unusual situation, and probably not a reason to reject an attempt to ban commercial pet shop sales.

 

Does anyone actually KNOW for a fact of any jurisdiction that has outlawed the selling of dogs in pet stores?

[Eileen Stein]

I don't know about other states but in NC, puppymillls are illegal.

 

Puppy mills should be outlawed simply due to the nature of their breeding practices and the usual lack of care.

 

One big problem with outlawing puppymills is the difficulty in defining them. I'd be surprised if NC had really made puppymills illegal, but if they have, I would be interested in having a look at how their law is written.

[OurBoys]

Thank you, Eileen. You have educated me. Apparently, I had just visited the right pet stores in the other county I use to live in.

 

After you posted your questions, I called the county's customer service dept at 311 (I didn't know they had one until I googled animal laws). I found out it is not illegal in that county to sell dogs in pet stores there. In fact, the lady I spoke with informed me that's where people buy their pets from (the mentality.....).

 

As far as the puppymill laws, if any and how they are written if there is, I'm still waiting on some replies back from some emails I sent out. What I did find out is if a puppymill is found and busted apparently the person who operated it can go to court and if they can prove it's not a puppymill, they can get their animals back.

[IronHorse]

My opinion on this whole matter of MSN laws is why waste energy and resources atempting to further a law that has already been tested in numerous communities nationwide with the results basically being dismal failure?

From the data I have reviewed regarding implemented MSN laws the outcome of the majority results have been the opposite of the intended legislation.

 

If we are going to invest OUR tax dollars into programs to decrease the pet overpopulation exsisting in this country then why not invest them into programs that are in place that DO work?

1. Education.

I doubt it can be argued successfully against that over the last 2 decades the numbers we are seeing of animals being euthanized has seen a dramatic reduction.

I would attribute this to increased awareness and actions due to education.

Personally I would be in favor of spending more of our tax dollars towards education via school,television, internet and any other means that reach the most numbers of listening ears.

 

2. Low cost or free spay/neuter programs.

From what I know these are quite successful but sorely underfunded.

I would be in favor of subsidizing such programs with tax dollars.

Perhaps offering incentives to Vets offering such operations.

 

3. Perhaps offering States funding that would allow for additional staff/field agents to enforce laws already in place with regard to puppymills, BYBs and pet breeders in general? At least make them comply with exsisting laws.

I believe that here in Missouri the dept of agriculture (which is the agency resposible for overseeing dog breeding operations) has a total of only 3 or 4 agents to deal with the operations associated with breeders who are in compliance,,far to under staffed to have much time to investigate or look for illegal operations in a state well known for an abundance of puppymills.

 

 

I just do not see how investing resources into such a boondoggle of a Law that is proving to be as counterproductive as MSN is would accomplish anything other then to enrich the unethical and deplete the ethical,not to mention pi$$ing off the already over taxed and over "nanny" government citizen.

 

If we can afford to spend 10 billion dollars per month to fight a war in Iraq I certainly think we can fork up some change to help solve this problem.

[borderlicious]

"How would a puppymill sell all their pups to individuals?"

 

Internet. How easy is it for some schmuck to buy a cute puppy from across the country and have it arrive at their local airport within a few days? And how easy is it for the puppymiller to clean up each puppy in time to take cutesy photos of it, all wrapped up in feather boas and silk flowers?

 

If the selling of puppies in pet stores is banned, then sites like www.puppyfind.com will grow tenfold.

 

My brain is scattered and I have nothing productive to add to this thread, but I wanted to say thank you to those who have contributed! It's been an interesting read.

[Rosanne]

I think IF they made a move like banning puppy sales in stores, it would be very useful to, at the same time as the ban takes effect, put out a grass-roots tv/billboard ad campaign explaining briefly WHY it was done, and promoting shelter adoptions. They'd almost have to, as I think a lot of the buying public doesn't understand why buying a living animal at the mall is wrong...

 

I would venture a guess, though, that at least half the people who buy pups at stores weren't really LOOKING for a pup to begin with. . . so it might prevent those people from getting one at all, at least until they think they are ready to get one, even if they do go to an online miller. It's not like we don't already have online millers now, masquerading as responsible breeders. However, if one goes online and searches for "border collie puppies", it's not JUST millers that would pop up, and much as AKC/Conformation breeders are the antithesis of working BC's, at the very least they usually check their puppy buyers and don't breed dozens of litters every year, so if somoene is searching for a BC puppy online and ends up contacting a random website, at least they have a chance of getting at least a brief education or even a useful slap in the face. . .

[painted_ponies]

Well, whether banning pet store sales of puppies would shut down puppy-millers or not, it ought to be done. I worked in a pet store (small locally owned) briefly while I was in undergrad. I was the fish and reptile person, but of course wound up helping with the puppies as well. I was shocked to find out that parvo, coccidia, and giardia are pretty much constant problems. I'll bet every pet store in every mall in America has at least one litter of pups dying in a back room at any given moment. (They also have at least a half dozen lost, loose snakes pretty much anytime, but that's another story. )

 

Although it's an ill wind that blows nobody good. I decided to marry my DH because, after I cancelled our second or third date, he showed up, at the pet store where I was pulling an all-nighter, with a pizza in one hand and a VCR and movies in the other. He stayed up all night with me, giving IV fluids to a very sick litter of mini poodles. All of whom survived, BTW.

[Guest WoobiesMom]

What do breeders here think of a limit on litters per year? Would that be a way of targeting millers without impeding the legitimate breeders? What do you think a reasonable limit would be for one property?

[bcnewe2]

I’m not for MSN.

 

IMO the only ones that will be affected are the ones that already do what is morally right in the first place. The ones that don’t still won’t, but maybe we can educate their children so we can stop the spiral from going down so quick.

 

How about a relatively small breeding tax if you want to register your puppies?

 

Don’t most puppy mills somehow provide papers and most byb's who think their dog is that special one that should be bred will be acquiring papers for the pups. At the very least to make their pups worth more.

 

Let’s say 50-100$ per litter or even per puppy.

 

We here seem to know the dangers of over breeding but I think it is a subject that the general public doesn’t know much about. Where do they get their info from? TV and the likes.

 

Let’s spend that extra money on pet overpopulation education. Advertisements and programs to increase general public knowledge.

I don’t expect the schools to absorb this cost, they can’t even keep music programs or P.E. in their annual budgets. New money has to be allocated. Remember when gambling was going to help our schools? Let’s get some of that money! Other tax monies could be much better spent in the same manner.

 

If we can't stop the breeding lets at least have it help us educate the general public.

Let the byb and puppymillers help to educate themselves out of business or at least cutting down on the demand of the puppymill dog.

 

A good breeder will absorb the cost if he wants to continue breeding registered dogs. It wouldn’t be that much if you were only breeding in limited amounts. It might make for a few more unregistered good or bad dogs but that’s the price of trying to educate. I don’t think it’d make for more dogs in general but registered ones might decline a bit.

 

Let’s make it advantageous to have your puppy S/N. Reduced vet care for SN pets, free vaccinations, with tax breaks or federal funding for the vets that agree to do this. More tax dollars spent on increasing free or low cost mobile animal clinics to help get the job done.

 

I wonder if this could all be done with the same amount of money that they would need to increase funding to put a MSN law into some kind of action.

 

PETA has huge backing from major influential people. Lets hire some of their press people to help turn this into as big a success as they seem to be. Or hire the same people who do the cool Target commercials, or the awesome anti-drug commercials. (Don’t you love the one that has the dog and the pot smoking owner in it)

Let’s make it a bigger mission or new law, so to speak, to educate all we can.

 

We don't outlaw smoking but I think the numbers are actually on the decline in the amount of new smokers (could be wrong but I think I heard that somewhere). I think this is education finally doing its job.

 

Since I can't do all that I would like, I'm doing it one person at a time. Hopefully it's a snowball effect. However slowly it goes.

Kristen

[OurBoys]

Kristen,

 

You're probably right when you said the schools can't absord the cost.

 

What about if anyone wants a pet, they have to take a paid class in pet responsibility. After passing a test, they can get a certificate for purchase and all money collected can be spent on TV, billboards or whatever means of education??? The certificate can also be used for medical discounts with vets?

[Guest WoobiesMom]

What about if anyone wants a pet, they have to take a paid class in pet responsibility. After passing a test, they can get a certificate for purchase and all money collected can be spent on TV, billboards or whatever means of education??? The certificate can also be used for medical discounts with vets?

 

Gah! Can we make that mandatory before parenthood as well? If only there were a parent license that required some education ahead of time!

[OurBoys]

Gah! Can we make that mandatory before parenthood as well? If only there were a parent license that required some education ahead of time!

 

 

Isn't that the truth!!! I was in Petsmart one day to purchase something and the lady behind me told me she didn't want my dog near her boy. He was allergic to them!!! So you brought your boy in here because......?????

[IronHorse]

What do breeders here think of a limit on litters per year? Would that be a way of targeting millers without impeding the legitimate breeders? What do you think a reasonable limit would be for one property?

 

I am not a breeder but my answer to this would be.

 

Such a regulation as this would only be detrimental to the good breeders and puppymillers are not know to follow the laws or regulations.

 

The term "legitimate breeder" is misleading.

Not being that familiar with other states regulations regarding what constitues a "legitimate breeder" I will cite Missouri policy.

 

The State of Missouri conciders Dogs as livestock and the Breeding,,sale and distribution of such as a viable source of revenue which generates several billions of dollars annually.

In order to be a "legitimate breeder" in the state all that is required is compliance with the regulations and laws in place and overseen by the Missouri Dept of Agriculture.

There are a GREAT many "Legitimate breeders" in Missouri who put HUNDREDS of litters on the ground annually.

Does this make them "good" breeders? Certainly not in my book!

From a standpoint of commerce,,well they are very good at what they do,,,,,,producing thousands and thousands of puppies for commercial purposes each year.

 

Heres a small personal eyewitness account.

Two years ago my wife and I were made aware of legitimate pickup location that takes place at a regular prescribed time and location in SE Missouri.

This paticular pickup was during august at a roadside truckstop parking lot,gravel surface,,100% exposure to the sun.

We arrived at 1 pm in the afternoon and parked where we had full view of what was taking place.

The air temp at the time was 102 degrees,,not so much as a breeze blowing.

Two large enclosed box container trucks were parked side by side with a single open door open in the back which revealed a center walkway lined on both sides from top to bottom with small metal conpartments like so many PO boxs.

Directly outside were two stainless steel heavy tables set up with stainless steel basket scales on one end and a person sitting to the side with a clipboard and paperwork.

There were 17 various transport vehicles present when we arrived,,pickup trucks,box vans,trucks with stock trailors, passenger cars with their trunks tied down with assortments of typical pet carrying crates stacked in the bed as well as hillbilly rigged wire cages, even saw some useing cardboard vegetable boxes.

There was a line of 6 to 8 people at any given time waiting to weigh in their "product"(crates,boxes and cages full of puppies on the ground exposed to the heat beside them) and recieve what I assume was their payment voucher.

As each person reached the front of the line the guy at the scales would promptly reach into whatever container held the pups and grab one out,give it a quick inspection, barking the sex,breed and color to the person filling out the paperwork,then plopping it onto the scale and relaying the weight to the paperwork person,,if the critia didn't meet their requirements it was promtly handed back to the owner,who for the most part would shove it into an empty cage which they all seemed to have handy.

If the pup "passed" this intial inspection and weigh in then it was passed from the weigh in guy to the guy standing in the back of the truck who took it and placed it into the approperiate metal box inside the truck.

None of this procedure was done with what I would call a gentle hand.

I saw pups dropped from 6 to 8 feet onto hard metal and gravel,,I saw pups picked up by legs,tails,I saw pups tossed,not placed but TOSSED into open crates and cages often times onto other pups already inside.

I saw two people who were apparently pissed off because their pups didn't meet the "critia" throw several cages full of pups into the beds of their trucks as though it was nothing more then a bad bale of hay to be disposed of.

My educated guess of the hundred or so of Puppies we witnessed were in the 6 to 8 week old age.

They ranged from Dauchunds to Danes in breeds.

In the two hours we sat and witnessed this procedure no fewer them 35 different vehicles hauling puppies showed up.

These people all were quite familiar with each other as they stood around chatting and laughing as though it was just another day at the sale barn.

The only reason I stayed as long as I did was I wanted to watch and time how long it took for a guy with about 25 to 30 Border Collie pups who happened to pull in right after we parked to cycle through this process,it was right at two hours,,the pups were in 3 wire cages that sat on the tailgate of his truck in the full sun the entire time until it was his turn to weigh in his "product"

The air temperture had reached 104 degrees when we left this sickening scene.

These were all "Legitimate" breeders,buyers and transporters,,all perfectly legal and licensed to do what they were doing in the state of Missouri.

 

I am not a man prone to crying but I will tell you this,,after leaving this scene my wife and I went to a nearby state park where we sat and cried until there just weren't any tears left.We were ashamed to be Missourians at that time.

It makes me cry now just to recall the scene.

I took pictures documenting what we had witnessed,I don't look at them,they mean nothing,,the pictures burned into my brain mean alot, they are a constant reminder to me to do what is in my power to enact positive change in my home state.

Education,public awareness, better laws that are enforceable a resounding YES.

 

It is my believe that Mandatory Spay/Neuter laws would do nothing other then to drive such pratices underground.

Remove the market and the puppymill industry dies.

[OurBoys]

IronHorse,

 

That really turned my stomach by just reading it. I would have cried too. And those were the poor animals that didn't make it to the shelters.

[Guest WoobiesMom]

OMG IronHorse, that's awful. I only use the term "legitimate" for lack of a better one. Do you think a law that placed limits on the number of litters allowed would give the states/counties/whatever something to use to sanction the puppymillers? If AC shows up and can count, say 35 litters at a property, when the state limit is maybe 4, and the fines are hefty and per puppy, wouldn't that at least help a bit to cut into their profits and their business? Yes, they do operate underground for the most part (maybe not in MO) but from what I understand the most that governments have to use at this point is the conditions they find and not necessarily the numbers. If limiting the # of litters was another tool in their arsenal, maybe it could be incorporated as part of a multi-faceted approach to the problem.

 

Just thinking out loud.

 

How to classify a proper, legitimate breeder seems to be the big fly in the ointment for this type of legislation.

[Lenajo]

You don't have to classify anything to fix this. You don't even need new laws.

 

You need to have the current laws, the ones against cruelty, neglect, sanitation, roaming....enforced!

 

I just read Nicholas Dodmans DVMs new book - in the first chapter it says that 50% of ALL PUPS BOUGHT OR ADOPTED will be abadoned in the first year. Its not a case of nobody wanting puppies, it's a cause of people not wanting dogs.

 

That's your second sword against the problem. Stop this problem...how? I have no idea. I do know that legislating morality has proven impossible so far. So can you teach it? We all need to try. Can you lead by example? Sure you can. One person, and one dog, at a time.