This is a hard one for me. The reality of puppy mills in Pennsylvania is horrible. If you go through licensing records and find a high volume breeder, you are likely to find multiple additional high volume breeders within a short distance run by other members of the same family. Sales practices routinely border on fraud. Puppies bred in kennels producing 500-1000 puppies per year are sold through the classifieds as home raised. This used to become apparent when you received AKC papers and pedigrees. However, now all of the breeders register their dogs through the "ACA" in direct response to the AKC's program to inspect high volume breeders.
The laws that have been proposed in Pennsylvania would have done little to improve the situation in puppy mills and would have put small home-based breeders out of business. In fact, only the puppy mills would have the resources needed to comply. Unfortunately, laws mean nothing without enforcement. Facilities breeding hundreds of dogs per year may only be inspected every several years. Fines, when they come are generally so small that they pale in comparison with the profits to be made.
I'm not sure that the answers lie in new laws or regulations. The first step is to improve enforcement of the laws that exist. When that is done, it may become apparent that more changes are needed. However, until the enforcement is there everything else is meaningless except to keep smaller hobby breeders from competing with the bog boys.
I do tend to think that some truth in advertising laws would be a good idea. It seems to me that sellers of dogs should have to identify the actual breeder of the pups and some details about the breeder's operation. This might include number of dogs bred by breed, ages, health clearances, pedigrees, and number of litters whelped by females, etc.
The reality is that the demand for puppies exceeds the supply of quality dogs. Buyers do not have the knowledge to make judgments about the likely health or temperaments of the puppies they are buying, and both puppies and pet purchasers will suffer from the consequences of bad breeding and socialization.
I do not believe there are any real "cures". Even now litters are being advertised here and on WRC by experienced competitors where the sire is a known EIC carrier, the dam has at least one parent that is a known carrier, but the dam does not appear to have been tested. There is no way to regulate "good breeding" and, while 30 day or six month guarantees for genetic soundness may provide an appearance of protection, they actually do nothing.
Recently a vet friend of mine had a couple come in with a new puppy (a Cavalier) they had just purchased for $1800. The pup was missing two toes on a rear foot. She pointed this out to them and said that the lameness would cause gait problems that would be likely to cause future hip and foot problems. The couple was already in love with the pup but sought to contact the breeder. No calls were answered or returned for three weeks. At that point the breeder told them that the time period for having the pup examined had expired and the guarantee was void. The vet wrote a letter indicating when the exam was performed and detailing her own efforts to reach the breeder directly without success. After a year, the situation is still unresolved. The couple still has the dog who has had a number of serious problems. The breeder continues to avoid all communication when possible and denies any responsibility at all. While we all accept claims that we are a litigious society, this couple never sued. I suspect that they are in the majority. The breeder they have been dealing with is reportedly a pure hobby breeder who shows her own dogs and would not be covered by any of the puppy mill laws.
But this is a really bad bill. There is an alert that's going through email lists that I'll put into a second post.
