Are Puppy Mills Legal in the Us

Drafted by Patrick O`Donnell (D-Long Beach), the Assembly`s bill protects 485 animals and consumers and sets an important precedent for the rest of the country. The bill was passed by the CA Legislative Assembly on September 14. To date, 36 jurisdictions in California — including the cities of Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco — have issued similar orders, and the signing of AB 485 makes California the first state in the country to enact a nationwide ban on the sale of dogs from puppy mills to pet stores. When puppy mills and backyard breeders flood the market with animals, they reduce the homes available for animals from reputable facilities, shelters, and rescue groups. Every year, more than 150,000 cats and dogs come to shelters in Washington State – 6 to 8 million animals come to shelters across the country. Unfortunately, only about 15% of people with pets in the United States have adopted them from a shelter or rescue group, leaving behind so many deserving pets. Step 1: Please take your puppy to a vet as soon as possible if you have not already done so. Save all recordings and receipts. One way to counter puppy mills is to support advocacy groups that promote legislative solutions to strengthen the Animal Welfare Act. Supporters also urged the USDA to adopt its own rules, especially if legislative efforts fail. In return, the USDA can take steps to work with puppy mills to improve their operations. The most surprising thing for many people is that puppy mills are legal.

Since most puppy mills are not illegal, we need the public`s help to stop consumer demand for their “product.” You can help the HSUS stop puppy mills by getting your next dog from a shelter, rescue group, or human and responsible breeder that you have carefully reviewed personally. If you have purchased a puppy and would like to report problems to HSUS, please complete the Pet Seller Complaint Form. This form allows us to closely track the data and make sure we have as much information as possible to help us in our fight against puppy mills. Large breeders supply pet stores with puppies. If you buy a pet on the Internet, from a puppy broker or in a pet store, the dog is likely to come from a puppy mill. No responsible breeder would sell a dog or cat to a pet store, broker or on the Internet. Responsible breeders care about the well-being of their animals and want to welcome them into loving and carefully selected homes. Responsible farmers also track the health of the animals they sell to capture any genetic diseases they need to be aware of when making future breeding decisions. Consumers should also be careful when large breeders pose as “saviors.” For more information on how to make informed decisions when choosing a new pet, visit our adoption pages.

We also have information on how to find a responsible breeder. The preemption laws of Arizona and Ohio suggest that USDA-licensed breeders are somehow different from puppy mills. But the reality is that many puppy mills are licensed by the USDA. At the federal level, breeders are regulated by the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), a law that sets out basic care requirements for the millions of animals that live in roadside zoos, puppy mills and research laboratories across the country. But the standards for a breeder to be a “USDA-approved” facility are minimal, and many USDA licensed breeders still have hundreds of dogs on a relatively small property living in metal cages with little human interaction. In addition, the USDA has a miserable record of ensuring that facilities meet even the most basic requirements of the AWA. Unfortunately, some purebred dog registries and kennel clubs (which often receive registration fees from puppy mills) have lobbied hard against these changes – and they`ve even recruited other groups in the animal use industry to help them. Scaremongering is used by those who benefit most from a lack of regulation in the pet industry to scare small farmers into mistakenly believing that the proposed laws will apply to them. This strategy has led some small breeders and local kennel clubs to reject bills that would only affect the worst and largest puppy mills. Under most laws, the dog owner is offered a refund, another puppy, or a refund of the vet`s bills up to the puppy`s purchase price within a certain period of time. But faced with a sick or dying puppy, most people choose not to return the puppy, but to focus their efforts on rescuing the animal.

A common fear is that the seller will simply destroy the puppy instead of investing the money and time in restoring the health of the animal. If the puppy dies, most families are not willing to risk the grief of another sick puppy from the same seller, so providing another puppy is not an acceptable option. We ask responsible breeders to join us in these efforts to change the conditions for dogs stored in a puppy factory in a life of misery.