Pennsylvania legislators are coming together to take one more step in the direction of protecting dogs used for commercial breeding purposes and also protecting consumers from purchasing sick or genetically defective dogs. Senate Bill 44, nicknamed Victoria's Law after a German Shepherd dog who was bred for 10 years by a commercial breeder despite carrying a genetic defect she likely passed on to dozens of puppies has a long and bipartisan list of co-sponsors. It seems that the time may finally have come for a statewide ban on the sale of commercially bred puppies in retail stores. Victoria's Law covers not only puppies but also cats and rabbits.

So, why is this necessary? Are all breeders bad? To be sure, not all breeders are puppy mills, but breeders who sell their puppies to pet stores through wholesalers generally are. A decade or so ago, Pennsylvania was known as “the puppy mill capital of the East.” Much has been done to try to eliminate the worst abuses of the industry but the clandestine nature of dog breeding (particularly in rural areas) and the anonymity afforded by the internet has kept the business of puppies sufficiently profitable to continue to attract people who are not in it for the love of dogs.

Puppy mill is not a defined term in the law but it is generally used to refer to breeders who value profit over the health and well-being of their animals. They breed in large numbers—often multiple breeds—provide substandard housing and veterinary care and provide little to no quality of life for the breeding dogs. They are happy to place dogs in pet stores or sell them anonymously online because what matters is the price fetched, not ensuring the best possible home for the dog.

In contrast, many breeders produce only the number of puppies they can properly care for, they provide appropriate veterinary care and vaccines to their animals, treat the dogs as family, socialize them to people and other dogs and keep the parents for life. Those breeders generally don't sell in pet stores or online. They value their puppies and want to ensure that they go to appropriate homes. They want you to return the dog, at any time, if you can no longer care for them.

Over the years, there have been many efforts in Pennsylvania to pass legislation addressing the problem of unscrupulous commercial dog breeders. Back in 1997, Pennsylvania first passed the “Puppy Lemon Law” (also known as the Dog Purchaser Protection Act), which tried to accomplish through the back door (limited civil liability) what at that time could not be accomplished through the front door (imposing stricter standards on commercial breeding kennels). The Puppy Lemon Law imposed civil liability on breeders if the puppies they sold became ill with a contagious, parasitic or infectious disease or died within 10 days of purchase. It also imposed transparency requirements on dog sellers, requiring them to disclose the health history of all puppies they sold.

Progress continued under the leadership of then Gov. Ed Rendell, when, in 2008, Pennsylvania's Dog Law underwent a major retooling that resulted in the outlawing of some of the worst practices for housing and caring for breeding dogs. In the ensuing years, the number of “commercial kennels,” defined as kennels that sell or transfer more than 60 dogs over the course of one calendar year, precipitously declined. At the time the law was passed, there were about 350 commercial kennels licensed in Pennsylvania (of course, the number of those operating without a license is unknown). Many operators elected to go out of business rather than incur the expense necessary to come into compliance with the law. Largely as a result of the stricter standards imposed by the 2008 law, as of 2019, there are just 86 licensed commercial kennels in Pennsylvania.

But, unscrupulous breeders who provide little or no care for their breeding dogs still exist in Pennsylvania. One reason for that is the lack of funding for the Bureau of Dog Law's kennel inspectors whose job it is to enforce those stricter regulations. They are not funded through the state budget but rather receive their funding largely through fees charged for dog and kennel licenses. Both dog owners and kennels are required to obtain licenses but the fees are very low and compliance rates are abysmal. Each county has a different way of administering the dog license scheme and many do not have the updated technology necessary to make compliance easy for dog owners. The result is a large percentage of dog owners either not knowing their dog requires a license or simply not purchasing one because it is not brought to their attention. For kennel licenses, fees range from $75 to $750 annually, not nearly enough to cover the cost of ensuring compliance with the law. In addition, many breeders do not apply for a license at all. Backyard breeders do not use genetic testing to ensure their puppies will be born healthy, they sell under-aged puppies without the proper vaccines and certainly are not interested in taking lifetime responsibility for their dogs if a time comes when a purchaser is no longer willing or able to care for one of their dogs. So, bad breeders continue to exist in part because the Bureau of Dog Law does not have the budget to support the full complement of inspectors necessary to fulfill its mission of inspecting licensed kennels and investigating and cracking down on unlicensed ones.

And unlicensed breeders are a huge part of the problem. According to the Humane Society of the United States, there are approximately 10,000 puppy mills in the United States producing more than 2,4 million puppies each year. Of those 10,000 mills, only around 2,000 to 3,000 are licensed by the USDA. Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), see “The Humane Society of the United States Urges State Legislature to Override Gov. Christie's Veto of Anti-Puppy Mill Bill,” (May 2, 2017). The large percentage of breeders operating under the radar in barns, back yards and garages makes it impossible to reduce the suffering of breeding dogs simply by mandating certain standards of care be maintained in order to be licensed. It also makes it difficult for prospective dog owners to tell whether a puppy for sale was bred in a healthy environment or came from a cruel and abusive one.

Retail pet sale bans are gaining momentum as a means to both eliminate the suffering of breeding dogs that are not being properly cared for and to encourage adoption of homeless animals. Victoria's Law follows similar successful efforts in California and Maryland as well as the passage of local ordinances banning the sale of commercially bred dogs in retail stores in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Retail sales bans have already survived constitutional scrutiny in several jurisdictions, as in Park Pet Shop v. City of Chicago, 872 F.3d 495 (7th Cir. 2017; Perfect Puppy v. City of East Providence, 98 F.Supp.3d 408 (D.R.I. 2015); Puppies N'Love v. City of Phoenix, 116 F. Supp. 3d 971 (D. Ariz. 2015). If Victoria's Law passes, Pennsylvanians would still be able to purchase a puppy from a breeder, just not through a pet store. The idea is to provide transparency and eliminate the middleman so that the purchaser and the breeder can check each other out and ensure a healthy puppy is matched to a home that will be a good fit. At the same time, the law would help to eliminate large scale breeding and wholesaling of puppies to retailers as if they were a commodity like cars or computers. Of course, the hope is also that more people will turn to shelters and rescues to adopt and open their homes to animals who have been waiting in kennels and cages for someone to adopt them. Thousands of animals still die in Pennsylvania shelters every year because there are not enough adopters, especially those willing to take older animals or “pit mix” dogs.

Significant progress has been made toward ending the killing of animals that can be saved in Pennsylvania shelters, but there is more work to do. Victoria's Law represents an additional step forward in the path toward that goal while at the same time reducing the suffering of breeding dogs, cats and rabbits.

Penny Conly Ellison is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, teaching animal law and ethics, and a member of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania SPCA.