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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: May 2008

Virginia becomes first state to limit the number of dogs at breeding kennels

 

RICHMOND--Virginia dog breeders may not keep more than 50 dogs over the age of one year after January 1, 2009.

Virginia on April 23, 2008 became the first U.S. state to limit the size of dog breeding kennels. At least 30 states considered "puppy mill" bills of various sorts during 2008 spring legislative sessions, with several others believed likely to pass as the May 2008 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.

Introduced by Spotsylvania state representative Bobby Orrock, and amended by recommendation of Governor Tim Kaine, the Virginia bill was pushed by the Humane Society of the U.S. and the Virginia Animal Control Association.

The bill received a boost from a five-month HSUS investigation that discovered more than 900 active dog breeders in Virginia, only 16 of whom held USDA permits to sell dogs across state lines. HSUS released the findings on November 1, 2007.

The next day, responding to a tip from Virginia Partnership for Animal Welfare and Support, of New River Valley, Carroll County animal control officers raided Horton's Pups, of Hillsville. Licensed to keep up to 500 dogs, proprietor Lanzie Carroll Horton Jr. reportedly had more than 1,100, including about 300 puppies. About 700 dogs were taken into custody. Horton was charged in January 2008 with 14 counts of cruelty, 25 counts of neglect, and one count of failing to update his license.

Allegations of puppy milling made news again in Virginia on March 11, 2008, when Suffolk County impounded 38 small dogs from the kennels of Eugene Gordon Lynch, 74. Licensed to keep 50 dogs, Lynch actually had about 90, said acting Suffolk County animal control chief Harry White.

Fifty larger dogs were left at the scene, wrote Veronica Gorley Chufo of the Newport News Daily Press.

"Investigators found a large amount of American Kennel Club and Continental Kennel Club paperwork and proof of 70-some vaccinations," Chufo reported.

Lynch was charged with 103 counts of failing to provide adequate care, 31 counts of failure to vaccinate, 10 counts of failure to license, and one count of failure by a dealer to provide adequate care, police spokesperson Lieutenant D.J. George told Dave Forster of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

Publicity about the Horton and Lynch raids and the earlier HSUS findings built on the exposure of Bad Newz Kennels, the pit bull terrier breeding business that fronted for the dogfighting activities of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Vick, who leaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy in 2007, is now serving a 23-month sentence at the U.S. penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Vick is to return to Virginia to face state felony dogfighting charges on June 27, 2008.

State charges are also pending against co-defendants Tony Taylor, Quanis Phillips, and Purnell Peace. Taylor, who turned prosecution witness, was released from federal prison in March 2007 after completing a two-month sentence. Phillips and Peace are due for release in February and April 2009.

If Bad Newz Kennels had only bred dogs, it might have been permitted under the new Virginia law. Sixty-six dogs were found on Vick's premises in Surry County, including 53 pit bulls, but many of the dogs may have been under one year of age. Forty-seven pit bulls and all of the non-pits were eventually transferred to shelters and sanctuaries.

Whether the ceiling of 50 adult dogs set by the Virginia law will actually restrain problematic breeders is unclear from recent law enforcement history.

Of 28 dog breeders brought before U.S. courts during the first four months of 2008 for allegedly neglecting animals, in cases known to ANIMAL PEOPLE, 17 had fewer than 50 dogs total, and 22 appeared to have fewer than 50 adult dogs. Among them, they had 870 dogs. Three had between 100 and 200 dogs, three had between 200 and 300, and only Horton had more. The six breeders other than Horton with more than 100 dogs each had a combined total of 1,179 dogs, only marginally more than Horton had by himself.

Breeders argue that would-be rescuers are responsible for more animal neglect and suffering than puppy millers, with relatively little regulatory supervision.

Breeders, for example, must be federally licensed to move animals across state lines; nonprofits are exempted. USDA-licensed breeders are subject to inspection; shelters, sanctuaries, and shelterless "rescues" are not, no matter how much money they handle in donations and adoption fees.

Rescuers counter that far fewer animals would need rescue if breeders were not constantly producing more, but self-described rescuers are involved in neglect cases at least as often as breeders, and those operating under nonprofit umbrellas--albeit not always with complete federal and state credentials-- are handling comparable numbers of animals.

ANIMAL PEOPLE received information about 104 individual dog-and-cat hoarding cases that were before U.S. courts during the first four months of 2008, about half of them involving people who claimed to be rescuing, plus eight cases of prosecuted mass neglect at shelters and sanctuaries. The latter eight cases involved more than 200 dogs and more than 1,500 cats, leading to some Internet use of the term "rescue miller" by breeders asserting that rescuers should be brought under the same regulatory regime.

Much of the debate over bills to restrain "puppy mills" pertains to the definition of a "puppy miller." Animal advocates, regulatory agencies, and breeders all claim to oppose "puppy millers," but tend use the term to mean different things.

To animal advocates, a "puppy miller" is often anyone who breeds dogs for profit, including backyard breeders whose operations are too small to be covered by the new Virginia law. The primary issue is often stopping breeding, to slow the flow of cast-off dogs into animal shelters.

To much of the public and in law enforcement jargon, a"puppy miller" tends to be a "factory farmer" of puppies, operating on a large commercial scale. The primary issue is protecting public and animal health, within an agricultural context.

To people in the dog breeding industry, a "puppy mill" means a substandard breeding facility, no matter how small. The primary issue is selling sick & inbred dogs, who give all breeders a bad reputation.

Large commercial breeders producing thousands of dogs per year may deny being "puppy millers," while pointing toward some of the same backyard breeders as animal advocates.

The earliest mainstream use of the term "puppy mill" that ANIMAL PEOPLE has discovered at NewspaperArchive.com was a December 1953 warning by an Illinois pet columnist to "Beware of these so-called puppy mill places where they buy and sell puppies." But the term "puppy mill" appears to have morphed from the pre-World War II use of the term "doggy mill" in similar warnings--and "doggy mill" already had the same divergent meanings by the mid-1930s that "puppy mill" has today.

Circumstantial evidence hints that the original "doggy miller" was 19th century major league catcher Doggy Miller, who bred hunting dogs in the off-season, allegedly neglected his debts and family before an early post-career death attributed to alcoholism, and may have neglected his kennels too.

Miller's baseball career overlapped that of Humane Society of Central New York founder Orrin Robinson "Bob" Casey, a professional player from 1876 to 1885. A frequent orator on behalf of animals, Casey appears to have been perhaps the first to denounce "doggy millers." He died in 1936 while examining a neglected horse.