Distinguishing Responsible Breeding Operations from Puppy Mills Franklin D. McMillan, DVM
Drawing the Line: Distinguishing Responsible Breeding Operations from Puppy Mills Franklin D. McMillan, DVM When Oprah decides to put her weight behind a cause, you can bet your bottom dollar on that cause mobilizing a concerned public into both outrage and action! And with the pre-show publicity being extraordinarily high, her recent show on ‘Puppy Mills’ was undoubtedly seen by far more than the estimated 8 million viewers per episode her show normally attracts. This all adds up to a tremendous amount of harmful publicity for ‘commercial dog breeders’ of all stripes. Since the very first use of the term “puppy mill,” responsible breeders have been on the defensive. “We despise that word!” writes Editor-in-chief of The Kennel Spotlight Jim Hughes in the August 2007 issue. “It has a preconceived image about it,” he points out, “We all know what that image is – filthy, dirty and diseased.” Sharon Munk, writing in the same issue, added that when discussing types of breeders choosing the right words is important, as only this “separates those who are doing a good job, those who are concerned with animal welfare, those who are licensed and following the law from the true sub-standard facilities.” Norma Bennet Woolf, from the online magazine Dog Owner’s Guide, goes one step further. She contends that the public’s confusion over any distinction between ‘proper and improper’ breeding facilities is not just the result of simple happenstance or a matter of inadequate information, but rather an intentional objective of Animal Activist groups, who are “deliberately blurring the lines between responsible breeding operations and real puppy mills.” As she explains it, “Activist groups use emotional rhetoric and pictures of dirty kennels and sickly dogs to imply that most or all breeders will subject their dogs to abusive lives unless they are regulated.” Frank Losey, in the December 2007 issue of the Spotlight, writes that the blending together of the two types of breeders has been instrumental in allowing Animal Protection groups to “defame the thousands of responsible and caring breeders throughout the U.S. who truly care about the welfare of their dogs and puppies.” And nothing illustrates the painting of all dog breeders with the same brush as clearly as the recent episode of “Oprah,” during which it was stated by both Bill Smith of Main Line Animal Rescue and Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of HSUS, that “Ninety-nine percent of puppies sold in pet stores come from puppy mills.” A clear point of separation In all forums—publications, websites (e.g., www. canismajor.com/dog, www.pijac.org), and by motivating pronouncements at breeder gatherings, such as by auctioneers at dog auctions—great effort is continually being made by professional breeders to shed the label of “puppy mill” not only as an unfair and inaccurate label for themselves, but also for the horrific kennels that are turned into feature stories on nightly news exposés as well as mass-appeal shows such as “Oprah.” Mr. Hughes speaks for many in the pet industry when he writes that the term “puppy mill” should be abandoned altogether and that “We prefer to use the term ‘sub-standard kennel’ or ‘sub-standard facility’ because that is what most people are talking about when they use the term puppy mill.” (The Kennel Spotlight, August 2007) This creates dual goals for the professional kennel industry: (1) Replace the term “puppy mill” with “substandard kennel,” and (2) Draw a clear distinction between good and substandard kennels. The second goal is often accompanied by the assertion that the respectable breeders want these bad operations closed down as much as anyone else, because they sully the reputation of good breeders as well as that of the commercial breeding industry as a whole. For example, On the Dog Owner’s Guide website, Ms. Woolf states emphatically that responsible breeders are “incensed at the existence of substandard kennels.” Mr. Hughes is clear on this point: in a response to a letter to the editor in the December 2007 Spotlight that was highly critical of the breeding industry, he writes “I want the less than 5 percent of our kennels that meet your allegations of ‘no health care, standing in urine and feces, enduring heat, rain and severe cold’ shut down! Nobody wants to see an animal abused. If a person willfully inflicts pain and suffering on a defenseless animal, I would gladly see him behind bars.” On the legal side, the “puppy mill” matter is not just a problem of public perception and labels. There is also a prominent and growing legal realm. Laws are being drafted in many states with the objective of placing greater, and sometimes drastic, restrictions on the professional breeding industry. This has caused many to ask “why the rush to re-write so many state and city laws with much more stringent requirements?” While purported to be aimed at the breeding facilities that provide inhumane care to their breeding animals, the bills, writes Ms. Woolf, “often target responsible hobby and commercial breeders” as well as the substandard breeders. It is quite understandable that respectable and upstanding breeders don’t want to be penalized for the misdeeds of a few “bad apples” in the bunch. There are two reasons for this problem, both noted by Ms. Woolf on her website. First, as she points out, “Lawmakers who write bills aimed at preventing puppy mills leave the definitions up to those who lobby for laws.” This, of course, leads to laws being written with a heavy skew against the breeding industry. The second reason is related to the first: the lack of a clear definition of “puppy mill.” As Ms. Moore aptly puts it: “How do we evaluate those bills and make sure that substandard kennels are cleaned up? First we have to define ‘puppy mill’.” An obligation and opportunity With the public having the widespread perception of there being no meaningful difference between all puppy breeding operations, that is, that all breeding operations are “puppy mills,” the only way that the public is going to understand and accept a claim of a difference is for there to be, in the public’s mind, a clear-cut and unambiguous distinction. And clarity is not just an issue for the public; any laws drafted that will selectively target the substandard kennels will require, as do laws regulating anything else in society, clear and precise definitions to eliminate confusion and errors in enforcement. This is no small matter. Many breeders regard even reasonable-sounding legislation targeting “only” substandard kennels as merely a foot in the door for animal activists to pursue their real agenda: shutting down all dog breeding operations. Because of the potential truth in this belief, establishing this distinction between respectable breeders and puppy mills is the ‘one and only way to construct a figurative brick wall to any creeping of legislation into attempts to prohibit humane breeding operations.’ Quite simply, there are no possibilities for activists to legitimately argue the case for closing down humane breeding operations, because after all, humane treatment is the objective of such legislation and so once that is achieved, no additional laws are of any need or usefulness. Hence, as long as the responsible breeders can differentiate themselves from the irresponsible breeders, then there would be no justification for legal restrictions. This presents the commercial breeding industry with both an obligation as well as a golden opportunity. The ‘obligation’ is to help draft laws with language precise enough to ensure that the “bad guys” are punished and the “good guys” are not. They need to construct the wall to block any more restrictive legislation. The ‘opportunity’ is to educate the public in clear-cut, easy to understand terms so that people won’t continue to harbor the shocking images from the sensationalized “puppy mill” busts as representative of the entire industry. Most importantly, drawing a crystal clear distinction between respectable commercial breeding operations and puppy mills and denouncing these “puppy mills” is an absolute necessity for the industry to maintain any trust and credibility with the public. As an example, Mr. Losey, in his Spotlight article, points out that the step taken in 2006 by the Missouri Pet Breeders Association (MPBA) to publicly condemn substandard kennels “created invaluable credibility for all responsible breeders throughout the U.S.” As a final perspective on the public’s perception of the breeding industry, Mr. Hughes voices his concern (The Kennel Spotlight, October 2007) that animal activists are driving public opinion based on entirely false notions. Recounting a story of one Arkansas kennel whose owners were surprised one morning to have a local deputy arrive to confiscate their dogs and to file animal abuse charges against them, he writes “They were being accused by the local humaniac group of not taking care of their dogs in the manner in which these so called ‘animal activists’ had been brainwashed into thinking was the right way to do it.” For this reason, as well as all the others above, it needs to be clearly spelled out exactly what is the right way to do it. So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work. Drawing the line……. First, we need to quickly dispense with some wellentrenched myths. Myth #1: The Animal Welfare Act, and the USDA’s inspections and enforcement of the Act, provides animals with adequate legal protections against mistreatment, poor and even inhumane care, harm, and suffering. The truth: While the AWA requires that the care of primates includes the promotion of psychological well-being, no such requirement exists for dogs. Accordingly, dogs—a highly social species with well established emotional needs for social companionship—can live in extreme emotional deprivation and suffer while under care that is in full compliance with the AWA. In addition, other psychological needs also well documented by scientific research such as mental stimulation and a sense of security and safety can cause suffering when left unmet, which also occurs entirely outside of the jurisdiction of the AWA. On the basis of all current research in animal emotional well-being, virtually no scientist in the fields of animal neurobiology, psychology, or behavior would consider the provisions of the AWA pertaining to dogs, even if fully enforced, to be adequate protection against numerous common emotional sufferings that the higher animals, such as all mammals, are capable of experiencing. Myth #2: Breeding practices that “preserve and protect the integrity of the breed” or “enhance the breed” ensure that individual animals are well cared for. The truth: the well-being of a breed, involving such factors as genetic diversity, often does not translate to the well-being of the individual animal. Furthermore, there are many cases of “enhancing the breed” that actually hurt the individual animal, such as the disease-prone shortened muzzles on the English bulldog and back problems in Dachshunds. Conversely, if the well-being of the individual animal was placed above the well-being of the breed, there is no conceivable way that the well-being of the breed would, or could, be adversely affected. Myth #3: Current law is an ideal line for separating respectable breeders from puppy mills. The truth: The laws only pertain to the worst. That is, they draw lines at the lowest possible level of acceptability and they say ‘absolutely nothing about truly good standards.’ Laws define the border where the barely tolerable crosses over to the intolerable. No one who wants to do well for the animals they care for would—or should—be operating near the area where the law comes into play. Consider, for example, your family doctor. In providing good quality medical care to patients’ day in and day out, how many times does he (or she) worry about whether what he is doing crosses some legal boundary? Most doctors are not even aware of many of the laws regulating medical care because their work never comes close to those boundaries. The absolute minimal quality of care that stays within the legal limits is not good care, it is legally (that is, barely) acceptable care. The law shouldn’t be a concern to anyone who provides truly good care for their animals. Accordingly, standards that exceed legal requirements would be the goal for the breeding professionals who want to distinguish themselves from puppy mills. It simply isn’t going to be acceptable to a concerned public that the sacrosanct line which distinguishes the good from the bad is the legal distinction. That is no more acceptable than claiming that your teenage son is a good boy because he has never broken the law. Try getting every parent of a teenage boy to buy into that! Professional standards to be proud of! To draw a clear line distinguishing respectable breeders from puppy mills, it is necessary to specify standards of care which respectable breeders, not puppy mill operators, stringently hold themselves to. If meticulously crafted, these standards would then paint a clear and comprehensible picture for the public as well as be able to serve as a template for laws designed to prohibit puppy mills—and nothing other than puppy mills. The standards of care for any living creature, whether it is a kennel, a zoo, a circus, a racetrack, or anything else, are based on the needs of the animals. The first type of needs – the physical needs – are familiar to everyone, and include adequate quantities of clean, fresh water, sufficient balanced food, a clean living space, and protection from the elements. Hygienic upkeep of the animal’s hair coat and cage flooring that is non-traumatic to the animal’s feet are additional clear-cut physical needs. The standards that respectable kennels will hold themselves to, will be specifically outlined, with such detail as the specific temperature range that dogs will constitute proper housing. The one physical need that is more difficult, but essential, to delineate is health. However, to simply assert that health is a physical need and leave it at that does not account for the fact that responsible breeders have clearly decided that some health problems should be given proper medical attention and some, for example, dental disease and progressive blindness, do not need treatment. This truism is evident from the large numbers of dogs sold at respectable auctions by respectable breeders that have these health disorders and are receiving no medical care. In drawing the clear distinguishing line between respectable breeders and substandard kennels, breeders will have to detail in writing exactly which medical disorders should be properly treated and which ones need not be. In this way, and only in this way, will it then be possible to identify a ‘puppy mill’ on the basis of possessing dogs that have a medical condition that responsible breeders do not allow to go untreated. The second type of need is the emotional, or psychological. The needs in this category most familiar to respectable breeders are those involving the immature animals – the puppies. As good breeders are well aware, during the puppies’ developmental stages, primarily between 4 and 12 weeks of age, they require significant social interaction with other dogs and humans in order for their brains to develop properly and lay down the neural network for a lifetime of positive social interactions. No respectable breeder would dispute this well-established emotional need. Lesser known, however, are the emotional needs of the breeding animals. Thousands of scientific studies have documented the psychological damage when emotional needs are not adequately fulfilled, especially adequate social companionship in social species of animals, from rodents to dogs to human beings. There is now a scientific consensus that housing dogs alone, without adequate social interaction with other dogs, is emotionally detrimental. In addition, much research has accumulated that shows that emotional pain and suffering may be worse to animals than physical pain. The first experiments proving this, involved separating dogs from their human companions and seeing if the dogs would walk across a painful electrical grid to rejoin their companion. And the dogs did, reliably, over and over again for as long as the experimenters kept separating the dog and person. This showed that dogs will choose to accept physical pain in order to relieve their emotional pain from lack of companionship. We know that emotional damage from unmet emotional needs occurs, sometimes severely, in many dogs kept in breeding kennels. This is readily evident in the wide array of psychological derangements—some reversible and some not—exhibited by many of the dogs seized in raids of substandard kennels. Such emotional harm shows up in the form of highly abnormal behavior, such as relentless spinning in circles, extreme fears and phobias of normal life events, excessive aggressiveness, and the inability to form normal social relationships with people and other animals. As an example of the standards for well-being, the following list offers the types of attention to specificity that are necessary: Physical well-being of breeding animals Physical health: specify the disease conditions that respectable breeders will permit to go untreated, treated without seeing a veterinarian, and partially but not fully treated. Specify the diseases that respectable breeders are expected to have treated to the degree that the animal is not troubled by them. Grooming and body hygiene: specify how frequently dogs in the facility will be bathed and de-matted. Housing: Delineate the temperature range permissible for dogs to live in. Because various factors determine temperature tolerance, break the specifics down by weight and/or breed. Specify acceptable types of flooring. Specify how many times per day the dogs’ living space will be cleansed of bodily waste materials. Design standards for minimum size of living space provided for dogs in respectable kennels. Emotional well-being of breeding animals Social needs: Specify the minimum amount of time per day that every dog of breeding age must receive positive human interaction, in the form of play, gentle handling, and walks/exercise. Grooming does not count toward this time. Specify the minimum amount of time per day that every dog of breeding age must receive playtime with other compatible dogs. Mental stimulation needs: Specify the amount of time per day and the methods for providing stimulating activity for the dogs. Note: The amount of time devoted to play when meeting the social needs can be counted as stimulation time. Physical and emotional well-being of puppies Puppies should receive appropriate medical care, protection from temperature extremes, and reasonable protection from stress, daily gentle handling and socialization with humans starting, at the latest, upon reaching 3 weeks of age. The minimum age when puppies should be separated from their mothers should be in accordance with the most current research on canine social development and the recommendations of board-certified veterinary behaviorists. A reasonable proposal: Current scientific research on animal psychology and neuroscience gives professional breeders the ideal tools with which to not only draw that clear distinction between their breeding operations from those found in a “puppy mill,” but also the tools to operate a breeding operation that they can be proud of. Using the most up-to-date research and knowledge, the difference between respectable breeding kennels and puppy mills can be fully supported with the following definition: A puppy mill may be defined as any dog breeding operation where the scientifically confirmed physical and emotional needs of all animals in the operation are not adequately met. This standard, used as the base foundation for the crucial separation of the two types of breeding operations will be “drawing the line” in all its meanings: the line where responsible breeders rise above substandard breeders, the line where the commercial breeding industry maintains trust and credibility in the public’s eyes, and the line to protect responsible breeders from legislation that may ultimately deprive them of their livelihood.

Franklin D. McMillan, DVM is the author of Mental Health and Well-Being in Animals and Director of Well-Being Studies at Best Friends Animal Society.