Lancaster New Era Lancaster, Pennsylvania
January 23, 2002, Wednesday
Lancaster, Pa.- Area Breeders, Critics Keep Clashing over Raising Puppies
By Ryan Robinson

Are puppies companions or a commodity? Depends on whom you ask.

Dogs are dollar signs for large commercial breeders. A few say raising dogs is no different from raising cattle. Animal rights advocates, on the other hand, contend that humans owe dogs, their pets, special treatment above that afforded livestock. State and federal regulations take a middle ground. They require that all dogs receive special conditions of care, but they do not include things like walking, petting or bathing dogs. A dog spending its entire life in a cage, for example, is legal.

The pet-versus-livestock question is central to the debate about how well dogs are and should be treated by breeders. The issue has long been contentious in Lancaster County, where some terrible cases of animal cruelty by dog breeders have occurred.

"I believe that as a society we have domesticated the dog and the cat and in doing so now have a responsibility to treat them as domestic animals and not livestock," said Maggie Weidinger, the president of the Humane League of Lancaster County. Johnna Seeton, a lobbyist for 16 years with the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network and a state Dog Law Advisory Board member, echoes that sentiment. "Puppies are love, not livestock," she said. "The socialization of puppies is one of the best things you can do for a dog."

But in Lancaster County, which has more licensed commercial dog breeding facilities than any other Pennsylvania county, not every breeder looks at the product as one deserving frequent pats on the head. Ken Brandt, a lobbyist for the commercial dog breeders, said most "have concern for animals as much as anybody else. They make up a respectable part of their community." Most breeders are from the county's Plain sects, says Brandt. It's a group that has found itself the target of so-called "puppy mill" critics. The owner of a mid-size kennel along Lynwood Road near Ronks holds a view opposite of the one held by Weidinger and Seeton. "Dogs are the same as cows," the farmer said, requesting his name not be used. "Why don't you hear about cow mills? Cows are confined, too." There is little difference between the animals as far as how they should be raised, he added.

A New Era investigation found that his point of view is held by a minority of dog breeders here. Most fall somewhere in the middle. They abide by the law in kennel maintenance and treatment of their dogs but do not provide much human interaction beyond cleaning pens and feeding and watering the animals. Breeders report the puppy business is thriving with good profits for wholesalers and retailers, due to a consistently high demand for puppies of many breeds. Breeders are providing the public with what it wants, they said. In 2000, county breeding kennels sold an estimated 17,700 puppies for an average wholesale price of about $ 225.00, according to Bureau of Dog Law figures and breeders' estimates. That's nearly $ 4 million.
Pet shops up and down the East Coast then resell the dogs for an average of $350 to $400 a pup, breeders said.

In 2000 the county had 250 licensed dog kennels, although 33 of them are boarding or non-profit kennels. Most of the remaining 217 licensed kennels are dog-breeding facilities that sell an estimated nearly 18,000 puppies a year to pet shops and dealers. Included among these are 45 large kennels that each sell an average of 260 puppies a year. No other county in the state comes close to those numbers. Bucks has 103 licensed, commercial dog kennels not counting nonprofits and boarders; Chester has 94, and Berks, 68. Every establishment that keeps, harbors, boards, shelters, sells, gives away or transfers at least 26 dogs of any age in a year is required to buy a Pennsylvania license to do business. It is unknown how many unlicensed kennels exist in the county.

Despite state licensing, breeders say they know of some problem kennels that treat dogs cruelly. There is a wide spectrum of breeding situations in the county and the condition of some "puppy mills" is a serious problem, according to Dr. Jeff Steed, a veterinarian at the Manheim Pike Veterinary Hospital, 1669 Manheim Pike. "The poor ones with no ethics are breeding for the sake of making a dollar and not to improve the breed," said the Pennsylvania Veterinarians Association's representative on the state Dog Law Advisory Board. "There are a lot of puppies from certain puppy mills that have overgrown jaws, umbilical hernias, retained testicles -- genetic problems as a result of not culling out the dogs that have those traits."
Steed said veterinarians do not often see dogs with severe problems. But there are frequently animals with parasitic problems due to kennels' inadequate health management practices. And, the problems are difficult to correct when the kennels' puppy census is high.

Dogs in most kennels are probably not seeing a veterinarian until someone adopts the animals, he added. The worst case he was involved with was in Mount Joy in 2000. The state seized 70 dogs from Charles Carr's kennel, many suffering from eye, ear and skin infections. Carr pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals and received one year of probation and a $ 750 fine. He did not get his dogs back. They were taken to the Humane League of Lancaster County along Lincoln Highway East, often the last stop for abandoned animals. It pays farmers to breed the best possible traits into their animals. But the demand for puppies makes some breeders concentrate on volume more than quality, according to Steed. "There will always be people who object to dogs being bred in large numbers," Steed said, "but breeders wouldn't be doing it if there wasn't a market for them."

State dog law enforcement director Rick Burd said demand for different breeds of dogs depends somewhat on popular culture. After the movie "101 Dalmations," dog buyers clamored for the black-spotted puppies. When Taco Bell used a chihuahua in an advertising campaign, demand for that breed skyrocketed. Anne Irwin is president of the Federated Humane Societies of Pennsylvania and a Dog Law Advisory Board member. Irwin said some people go to pet shops after not being able to find a puppy at their local Humane League. There is even a growing market today for mixed-breed puppies. Local Humane League Executive Director Ed Mowery said homes for puppies can be found quickly, but there is another side to the "demand" for dogs. The Humane League took in 3,055 dogs last year. Of them, 1,631 were later adopted, 577 were sold and 682 were euthanized when a home could not be found for them.

So what is the solution to eliminating the commercial breeding operations that don't measure up? Enforcement of existing laws, not creation of new ones, according to people on both sides of the issue. Al Myers is manager of the government relations division of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. He said the Farm Bureau fully supports the current state dog law. "Regular inspection needs to take place," he said. "Current laws are adequate." Current standards are appropri ate and adequate but only if they are properly enforced, and that is no easy task according to Steed. "The sheer manpower required... inspectors probably can not single out every bad situation," he said. State dog law enforcement director Rick Burd says, however, that Lancaster County's commercial kennels are inspected more often than the rest of the state and the numbers back him up. In 2000, the state inspected the county's 217 licensed commercial kennels 488 times and handed out 162 citations. The other 1,235 licensed commercial kennels across the state were inspected 2,021 times, he reported. Across the state in 2000, the Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement stripped eight kennels of their licenses and another eight kennels voluntarily closed their doors. Some have charged that the Department of Agriculture has had a bias towards kennel operators in conducting its inspections. "We definitely do not show a bias," Burd said. "It does not benefit the department not to do the law enforcement correctly." He said more inspections and prosecutions are being conducted than in the past. Officers are also revisiting more kennels because of specific complaints. "We want kennels to be proper," he reiterated. "We want the kennels to sell healthy puppies to the public. People are still going to violate the law. We have DUI laws but some still drink and drive."

Burd said the current number of officers is adequate to police the dog kennels. Irwin says she has seen a big difference in the last 10 years, with more inspections, citations and prosecutions of bad kennels. "There is an interest for agriculture and the Department of Agriculture to have a clean image," Irwin said. "The image of mistreated dogs in kennels is totally at odds with the picturesque image of healthy animals on a farm." Seeton noted that the attorney general's office has stepped up its enforcement of the Puppy Lemon Law, which requires breeders to refund money for dogs returned with health problems. The attorney general's office also has closed down certain kennels that did not comply with regulations.

"Everyone has come a long way," she said. "But there is always room for improvement."
Improvement in conditions at kennels is not enough for some animal rights groups. In the last few years, they have intensified efforts to shut commercial breeding operations altogether.

Hearts United for Animals, a national no-kill shelter and animal welfare organization, has a petition on its Web site. Signers agree not to visit Lancaster County's tourist attractions until all commercial kennels that breed dogs without considering their health or that provide substandard care are eliminated. Addressed to county and state officials and legislators, the petition states that "it is morally and ethically wrong to keep dogs in wire cages for their entire lives, breeding them over and over until they die." In July, the animal welfare group placed leaflets on vehicles at local tourist attractions urging a boycott of stores, hotels and restaurants. "The animal rights side is making mountains out of molehills, saying things are far worse than they actually are," Brandt said. "Yes, there are folks who don't treat their animals properly, but the law comes down hard on them." Seeton said activists target Lancaster County for their campaigns because there are more kennels here than in any other county on the East Coast, not because kennel conditions here are worse than anywhere else. A Pennsylvania proposal, Senate Bill 808, would apply civil penalties to kennels cited for failure to meet the state's requirements for commercial kennel operations. Fines and suspensions or revocations of licenses would be doled out for each violation starting with the third infraction. The bill is currently in the Senate Agriculture and Rural Affairs committee.