Blog  >  USDA Announces Landmark Rule to Crack Down on Online Puppy Mills

USDA Announces Landmark Rule to Crack Down on Online Puppy Mills

September 10, 2013 • Rescue

Breaking News!  Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture is announcing a monumental victory for puppy mill dogs and those who advocate on their behalf. The rule will subject thousands of unlicensed puppy mills that sell dogs over the Internet to federal inspections and regulations for the first time. This rule is expected to improve the welfare of tens of thousands of animals across the country. The Humane Society of the United States has been pushing for this change for more than two decades.

See more information in an exerpt from FIDO’s friend Humane Society of the United States CEO Wayne Pacelle’s blog below:


"Tens of thousands of dogs suffering in substandard, filthy, and overcrowded cages for years on end will finally get the protection they deserve as a result of a rule the U.S. Department of Agriculture will formally adopt today. This change, a long-held aspiration for The HSUS, the Humane Society Legislative Fund, and the Doris Day Animal League, is decades in the making and will extend federal oversight to thousands of puppy mills that do business online.

Of the dozens of puppy mills that The HSUS has assisted in closing down over the past five years, the vast majority were selling puppies online and escaping any federal oversight because a loophole in federal Animal Welfare Act regulations exempts Internet sellers. Because large-scale dog breeders who sell animals to pet stores are regulated, but breeders who sell directly to the public are not, there has been a massive migration of breeders to the latter sales strategy within the last decade or so. If they could sell dogs and escape any federal oversight, why not get in on that act and continue to cut corners on animal care?


The HSUS, HSLF, and DDAL pointed out that it was fundamentally unfair that people involved in the same underlying business enterprise (breeding dogs to sell for profit) would face entirely different regulatory standards. It was a circumstance ripe for fraud and misrepresentation. Internet sellers of puppies often displayed images of puppies frolicking in open fields. In reality, the dogs were languishing, crammed inside feces-encrusted cages, receiving no protection from the elements and no veterinary care whatever. And until the legal standard was modified, the federal government couldn’t take action because none of these mills required federal licensing and inspection.


Due to pressure from The HSUS and DDAL, the USDA’s inspector general looked into enforcement of the rules governing dog breeding, finding appalling abuses of the dogs, deficient exercise of authority by USDA where it had authority, and identification of this glaring gap in the law that allowed Internet sellers to evade any federal oversight whatever. It was that OIG report, combined with our advocacy efforts in Congress and with the Obama administration that finally compelled federal action."

Read the full blog article from HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle here

 

Related blog posts

Comments
Comments