Making Puppy Mills Great Again

[douglas9]

Many Americans applauded President Trump’s vow to slash government regulations – that always sounds great in the abstract – but it may be less popular when it means gutting rules that addressed puppy mill abuses, says JP Sottile.

Is Donald Trump trying to make puppy mills great again? Actually, that’s a trick question because puppy mills were never great. In fact, puppy mills are one of the uglier bits of scumbaggery to emerge from a burgeoning pet industry that has, according to the American Pet Products Association, ballooned from $17 billion in 1994 to nearly $63 billion in 2016.

About $2.1 billion of that total is “live animal purchases,” and the people who butter their bread by breeding animals fall under the regulatory purview of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

Right now, there are an estimated 10,000 dog breeders nationwide, and the USDA’s minuscule budget of $28 million annually means they only keep tabs on a small fraction of them. As a result, there are fewer than 3,000 officially “regulated” breeders. Falling into that sizable gap between “regulated” and “unregulated” are thousands of facilities ignominiously known as “puppy mills.”


https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/16/making-puppy-mills-great-again/

[douglas9]

1. Amid outcry, some animal welfare documents are restored to USDA website

Some of the animal welfare documents that were abruptly purged from an Agriculture Department database early this month were restored Friday, days after animal rights groups filed a lawsuit to make the records public again.

The documents that were restored to the database include inspection reports for research institutions and certain federal labs that work with animals. Similar reports on the treatment of animals by zoos, breeding operations and animal transporters — which represent the vast majority of facilities that the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service oversees — are still unavailable.

The database is maintained by APHIS, in accordance with the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act.

In a statement, APHIS noted that reports on some enforcement actions — when the agency moves against violators of animal welfare law — are available on the website of the USDA’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/02/17/amid-outcry-some-animal-welfare-documents-restored-to-usda-website/?utm_term=.94b17aeceb31

[Sunlei]

2. USDA regulations are weak as hell anyway. The decades old commercial breeders know how to

have the inspected part of their breeding business up front and the un inspected part on 'other acreage' far from any inspection eyes.

[Citrus]

3. Breeders...

Last edited Wed Feb 22, 2017, 01:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Nearly all regulated breeders are those who breed animals for lab "supplies". Estimates range upward of 100,000 dogs alone used in experiments annually. Most die and must be replaced, so that gives an idea of how profitable it is to breed dogs for research labs. Cats, rabbits, and a host of other animals suffer the same horrific fate.

Pet breeders as a whole, nationwide, are virtually unregulated. Puppy and kitten mills are largely hidden. So-called "responsible" breeders are ignored by virtue of their claim of being responsible. The fact is that all breeding must stop, and it has to begin with "lab animals" because they suffer. They suffer in ways you and I cannot imagine. (And yes, there are ample alternatives!) As for "pet breeding", we should adopt one until there are none. Millions of pets are killed each year for just one reason -- they are homeless. There's something truly demented in that.

As Trump his Insanity Battalion continue destroying every rule and regulation they can find, we must be vigilant. It's impossible for one person to fight it all, so find your passion, find your place in the resistance, and join in.

[Edited to add the "one" regarding the reason pets are killed.]

[Stonepounder]

4. Don't shop - adopt!

If you want a pet, go to your local shelter. If you want a particular breed, check out rescue. There are rescue organizations for nearly every breed. We started out with one dog. We bought him from a reputable 'kitchen breeder'. We now have five, and our first one was the only one we bought. The rest are rescues and we wouldn't have it any other way.

[Citrus]

5. YES!

Adopt one until there are none. Good for you, Stonepounder!