Rep. Ed Whitfield on the Puppy Protection Act

Since the passage of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) in 1966, and its subsequent amendments in 1970 and 1985, Congress has demonstrated its commitment to ensuring that appropriate care, handling and transport are provided to puppies bred in commercial breeding establishments. It has charged the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with licensing and regulating breeders who mass produce puppies for sale to pet stores.

The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) estimates that 3,500 to 3,700 of the approximately 12,000 pet stores in this country sell dogs and cats and that those stores sell as many as 400,000 puppies each year. In addition, hundreds of thousands of puppies are sold directly to the public, increasingly over the Internet. Americans can simply type any breed into a search engine and find breeders who will ship a puppy to their home. Currently, breeders who mass produce puppies and sell them directly to the public are not regulated by the USDA, leaving a gaping hole in coverage under the AWA.

One of the significant problems associated with USDA enforcement of the AWA is the lack of resources available to the agency. This very concern is one of the strongest reasons why I introduced the “Puppy Protection Act,” H.R. 3484, which will give USDA the authority to focus on repeat offenders and put them out of business. This provision is our “three strikes and you’re out” rule and it’s a much needed tool for the agency.

In addition, nothing in the Animal Welfare Act regulates the number of times in a given year a breeding female can be bred. In a recent article (from The Ontonagon Herald – upper peninsula of Michigan), a breeder was seeking a loan to expand his business explaining that the ultimate goal was to have 300 breeding females and 60 males on the property, with each female having two litters per year. The puppies would then be sold at $400 per dog. Initially, they planned to sell to pet shops but want to sell through newspaper ads and on the Internet. The “Puppy Protection Act” would ensure that, while these puppies are sold through pet stores, the females could only have three litters in two years, reducing the burden on these animals.

More than 58 million homes in this country consider a dog part of the family – and yet approximately 5 million dogs and cats are still euthanized in our shelter system each year due to the lack of good homes, the inability for the dog to socialize with people or other dogs, or simply because a family moved to a “no-pets” building. For those Americans who elect to purchase a purebred puppy, the “Puppy Protection Act” will further protect animals raised in commercial breeding facilities and sold through pet stores.

Published in the Summer 2004 Animal Guardian.

First elected to Congress in 1994, Ed Whitfield is serving his fifth term as U.S. Representative for the 34 counties of Kentucky’s First Congressional District. In addition to sponsoring the Puppy Protection Act, he has championed the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which bans the slaughter of horses for human consumption.