Barking Up The Wrong Tree – Part 4
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Puppy Farming
By Atilla Marton
Luckily there are more and more animal protection campaigns trying to raise awareness about puppy farming and its effects, presenting it as something that must be fought against. Educating ordinary people about the existence of puppy mills and the damage they cause is really important. But is this information sufficiently complex and detailed enough to present the whole picture? Moreover, is it clear and obvious who we are really fighting against? What is a puppy mill exactly? Why does it have such a dangerous effect on society?
Terminology
Initially let’s start with defining what we are really talking about. The term ‘puppy farming’ has similar explanations depending on your source. The Oxford Dictionary describes it as ‘an establishment that breeds puppies for sale, typically on an intensive basis and in conditions regarded as inhumane’. The Kennel Club says ‘a puppy farmer is defined as a high volume breeder who breeds puppies with little or no regard for the health and welfare of the puppies or their parents’. Wikipedia gives the information that a ‘puppy farm is a commercial dog breeding facility that is operated with an emphasis on profits over the welfare of the dogs bred, with substandard conditions of care often the norm’.
The repetitive elements are: health, sale for profit, large numbers of litters. These descriptions seem obvious and easy to comprehend. Now that we know the definition, let’s see if we can adapt this to real life and real situations.
If you want to fight a phenomena, a situation or a behavior, you initially have to declare these things are wrong. It can be declared by society, an authority, a kennel club having control over the breeder or even a court ready to give a sentence. Are the currently existing definitions sufficient to enable a consistent judgement to be made about the circumstances in which a litter is born?
Whether or not someone can be defined as a puppy farmer is about the difference between being a responsible breeder or someone producing dogs on the dark side. In real life, in real situations that have already happened, you need to decide: did that person do something wrong or not?
Where to Draw the Line
When animal welfare situations related to breeding are revealed, most of the time it is obvious to many if it is harmful and bad. We all see pictures of premises with unquestionably bad hygiene, dogs in bad or even extremely bad health, and bitches clearly used purely as uteruses in unbearable and shocking circumstances. These situations are not hard to define as animal cruelty. (Especially if the law in that country has legislation for this sort of situation.)
But the situation is not always so clear-cut. And when you (or someone else, like the authorities, or a committee of a kennel club) need to decide, based on a consideration of the available evidence, whether a particular person has committed a crime based on the law, you need to be careful.
We say that puppy mills neglect the health of the dogs, including the health status of the parents. Health can be divided into direct and indirect factors as there is not only the health of the animal itself but also the conditions, the environment the dog is living in.
And even in the case of direct animal health, things are not always plain and simple either. A dog is in a healthy condition not only when you can’t see any visible problems with the skin, fur, or body parts, but a healthy dog means it does not transmit inherited diseases or sicknesses regardless of whether any symptoms are currently showing; it is one that has had all the vaccinations it needs, and good food that supplies everything its body needs. But additionally, the place where the dog is kept is also vitally important.
Animal cruelty is obvious when the whole premises where dogs are kept is like a sewer. But what about when dogs are bred in a small flat? How many of them can be properly kept in a healthy condition then? Who decides? Who establishes the limitations? And what if the flat is small, but the breeder makes sure that the dogs have plenty of exercise out of the flat to ensure their good health?
Inherited disorders are not a simple thing either. Genetics are always tricky. As science has no exact and detailed knowledge about how genes really work and what sort of anomaly appears and why in any particular litter, how can a breeder predict or guarantee anything 100%? Meanwhile, there are also many kinds of infections that you cannot avoid, whatever you and your vet do, regardless of how much you pay.
As you see, too many elements are involved and need to be considered with regard to the question of health. It is not enough to say that all dogs—puppies and the parents—must be healthy. In which situations can you say that the health of the dog is the responsibility of the human and place the blame on them?
Regarding the number of litters, as well as puppies and dogs kept, there are some vague definitions that state that a puppy farmer is someone who keeps a large number of dogs for the purpose of breeding.
But again, how do we define what a large number actually is? Who decides what is a big number or a small number? And actually, if I can afford to run a really big ranch, and I establish a kennel with its own air-conditioning system, and attach a spacious run for the dogs and can afford to employ three people to take care of the dogs, well, does that make me a puppy farmer as I am keeping a lot of dogs?
Certainly, the definition of number of dogs should be precisely defined when it comes to how many litters and how often a bitch can bear. Saying that it is unacceptable to have too many dogs is just not good enough.
The other main attribute of puppy farmers according to definitions is the profit. Puppy farmers produce puppies for financial interest. If you think again in plain and simple terms, you can say that anyone who ever takes any amount of money for any puppy is a bad person because they don’t care about the puppies, and only money matters.
It always costs money to keep dogs. This is forgotten most of the time and people often don’t realize just how much a dog can cost, and they would probably be shocked. You have to feed them; you have to buy this and that; you need to pay for the vet in case of any health issues. So, to keep a dog costs money. Just like having a litter costs money. When someone is a responsible breeder, that person spends a huge amount of money not only on the welfare of the parents, but for the puppies as well. Just check the cost of a DNA test.
What is better, to spend a smaller amount and after that charge money for the pups, or to not really care about it because it is too expensive and then advertise your pups really cheap or even for free on the internet? The health of newborn puppies also costs a lot! In such a situation, how could you decide that the only aim of the breeder is to gain profit? And would you label him or her as a puppy farmer who causes serious animal welfare issues just for asking for a payment?
There is a wide variation in conditions and even small things can make a difference. To decide whether someone is a puppy farmer or not, we need to carefully and thoroughly investigate each individual case. But even in spite of this, it is still important to make that decision somehow based on a complex system of descriptions (mostly of a legal sort) to deal with this matter.
What Really Matters
It is important to both educate the public about the consequences of puppy farming and to have effective and precise legislation to fighting against this issue.
If you consider everything I’ve described above, you can see that generally many more facts must be taken into consideration. In some situations it is sufficient if only one of the described elements are fulfilled to see that there is a disregard for animal welfare. But most of the time, it is a little bit of everything.
The operation of puppy farms is absolutely harmful for society and one of the most serious problems in animal welfare and protection.
To breed dogs requires a great deal of everything. All the physical, biological and mental needs of the dogs must be fulfilled. They need enough space to move, proper nutrition, socialization, and effective medical care. It is a complex issue to maintain and achieve a healthy environment for a dog.
We see the unbalanced nature of the situation emerge when the well-being of dogs takes the back seat. It can happen because the person breeding dogs either fails to learn about how to do things properly or is only concerned with profit.
When financial gain is exclusively the most important purpose, this triggers cutting such costs as nutrition and vet care. The main point regarding the financial question of breeding is not if the breeder asks for money, but what the funds are used for. Is it for the family budget exclusively? Or is it for covering all the costs that were incurred to ensure the well-being of the bitch and the pups, and the rest goes to the family budget? That is where truth can be found.
If the main objective is to gain some extra income, or to produce dogs like manufactured goods, that is not in the best interest of the dogs. That is the reason why puppy mills are bad. Turning dogs into products only neglects their well-being.
You can’t stop or completely avoid genetically inherited diseases, but you can carry out tests and reduce the risk. You can’t guarantee that the body of the pup is strong, well-developed biologically, and won’t get any infections. But if you neglect hygiene and many other related elements, then you increase the risk dramatically. If you do not transport the pup in your car from the breeder, but put them into a van or a truck together with some other dozen dogs, it is very likely they will suffer or even die on a long journey. A puppy can be mischievous or have behavioral issues, but if it gets no attention in the early period of its life, it will definitely be badly socialized.
Dogs in puppy mills are never treated like normal dogs with attention to biological and mental needs, and due to this fact they can potentially be carriers of several health issues. They are treated like non-living products to be marketed.
Steps to be Taken
Sadly, home breeding has the same attributes and causes the same harm. When a mating happens by accident or because it is just ‘fun’ to have cute little fur-balls at home, so let’s have a litter, the lack of routine and proper knowledge is very likely to cause the same problems as comes from the majority of puppy farmers.
These facts should be made public, especially by those who plan to buy a puppy. It is not only the choice of breed that matters, or the home the pup will enter, but the source of that puppy is every bit as important. It needs to be emphasized that source matters: how and where a puppy was raised and cared for is crucial. Puppy millers rarely want to the public to know the environment where the pups were born and raised. That is a very significant attribute.
These dogs are usually easy to buy with little possibility of tracking them back to the breeders. The price is usually low, but not always. You can buy pups on the internet or pick one up in a pet shop. Often even a pedigree is no guarantee—any document can be forged.
So if you decide to buy a purebred dog, what is the most secure way? Call the breeder and do a check on him or her, together with the total environment: the building, along with the medical and the psychological environment where the dog was born and reared.
It is indisputable that authorities also should fight this sort of puppy production-line breeding. For the legal fight, proper regulations are needed. Meanwhile as I have already explained, it is essential to define terms precisely. However, distinguishing between home or professional breeding and puppy farming is not easy at all. Superficial rules can have harmful consequences.
If someone breeds dogs and wants to do it properly, responsible breeding ought to be promoted and encouraged instead of being punished. A poorly written regulation or law can punish those who are not the target of it.
In the battle against the overpopulation issues that puppy mills trigger, it is essential to identify those whose activities are proper and just. After that you can enforce laws to punish the bad actors, and impose fines and criminal penalties if needed. But if you don’t set up the defining criteria carefully and precisely, those who intend to operate responsibly will also get penalized. Then you might ask quite logically: why on earth should a breeder waste time, money, and effort to do everything the right way when he or she gets bullied, punished and dragged through the mire?
Besides destroying morale and enthusiasm by penalizing those you shouldn’t, you just make puppy farmers stronger. Puppy farmers must be condemned by society and disciplined by law. So often no distinction is made in anti-abuse campaigns between puppy mills and recognized breeders. It is important to undermine the activity of puppy farmers through education and regulations against them targeting their ‘businesses’.
It is obvious that the activity and operation of puppy farmers are not easy to detect, they are off the radar most of the time. Only the end result can be seen. It is essential to finally realize in the many debates between the breeder society and the animal welfare society that these parties ought not be working against each other. They have a common enemy causing massive damage: irresponsible breeding.
Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=97576
Posted by ralbee
on Feb 5 2016. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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