Banning the Retail Sale of Puppies From Commercial Breeders

Most animal advocates work toward a world where shelters are truly that: A temporary place to stay until a new home can be found. Shelters wish that the outflow of animals matched the intake so that they would never have to kill an animal for space but, sadly, that is not the case. Nationally, about half of all animals that enter shelters die there. In Philadelphia, we are doing somewhat better than that but still roughly 30 percent of the animals that entered the animal control shelter last year died there. That amounts to about 9,000 dogs and cats killed by shelter staff to make room for the steady stream of new animals arriving. But, that does not have to be the case. Statistics show that if even a minority of the people who obtain their pets from breeders or other sources instead chose to adopt their new pet from a shelter, every shelter could be no-kill (which generally means saving at least 90 percent of the animals, since some will inevitably need to be euthanized for behavior or health reasons). Nationally, shelters euthanize about 3 million animals every year and about 17 million new pets are brought into homes so, clearly, there is plenty of demand out there that, if redirected to a shelter, could bring the killing of healthy animals to an end.

In addition, Pennsylvania has historically been the home of one of the largest numbers of puppy mills in the country. In 2008, Pennsylvania kennel regulations were amended to require better housing and care for commercial kennels, reducing but not eliminating the puppy mill problem. One challenge is that the standards can only affect kennels that apply for a license and many breeders either keep their numbers of animals on site just below the threshold that triggers the license requirement or they simply never seek a license and attempt to operate under the radar. Conditions in these facilities can be horrific for the dogs that must stay in cages and get little or no vet care or any type of socialization. Because they don’t want buyers to see their facility, they don’t screen or often even deal personally with their customers, instead seeking other outlets to sell their puppies.