Discussion: Will New Rule Help Puppy Mill Dogs?

A change proposed to the Animal Welfare Act will affect dog breeders who sell via the internet.  Breeders who own more than 4 intact bitches would be required to open their breeding facilities, which in many cases is a person’s home, to the public or to USDA inspectors.

Do you think this proposed rule will protect puppy mill dogs?  How do you feel about opening your home to strangers who contact you online about a puppy?  Remember Bobbie Jo Stinnett?

USDA Grim Reaper Inspector on the Job

Dear Cruel MoFos of the World,

My outrage-o-meter is seriously overloaded.  Like the needle is shaking in the red zone and little puffs of smoke are seeping out accompanied by the occasional spark.

Please knock it off.

Seneca Co, NY:  A puppy miller with a disturbing track record of problematic USDA inspection reports (pdf) was told by a USDA inspector at the June 29th inspection to address the issue of Brucellosis in his kennel.  When the inspector came back on July 15, the puppy miller, David Yoder, informed the inspector he had indeed dealt with the contagious disease situation:  by putting his dogs, 5-6 at a time, into a whelping box, Rube Goldberg’d into a gas chamber via an exhaust pipe and a 3 horse power farm engine.  He couldn’t stay to monitor what level of suffering the dogs endured while being gassed because, you know – there were fumes and stuff and the puppy miller got a headache.  So Mr. Yoder left them to die in view of the main kennel dogs who also suffered from the fumes.  He came back after a bit to remove the bodies and put the next batch in for killing.  In all, Mr. Yoder killed 78 dogs and 15 puppies in this manner.

OK, now we come to the really outrageous part.  (You didn’t think that was it already I hope?)  The USDA inspector typed up the report noting “This method of euthanasia should not be used again”, and mentioned that the remaining dogs had so much shit piled up in their cages, it wasn’t falling through the mesh floor anymore.  The report was filed and tra-la-la, business as usual.  Until:

Mary Anne Kowalski, a board member of the Seneca County SPCA, said she was not aware of anyone from the USDA reporting what she believes is a clear case of animal cruelty to local authorities.

[...]

Kowalski, who discovered the report of the gassing on the USDA website while updating her files [on September 13], said she was stunned at what she read. “I just lost it,” she said.

Kowalski said she reported the incident to the sheriff and district attorney in the hope that cruelty charges will be brought against Yoder.

Mr. Yoder’s wife commented to an area newspaper:

Barbara Yoder said today that USDA inspectors had urged them earlier to euthanize their dogs because they had contracted brucellosis, a bacterial disease that can also be passed to humans.

She said the USDA inspector “scolded” them for not having put the dogs down sooner.

Cruelty charges for the Yoders?  Perhaps (investigation pending).  For the USDA inspector?  *tumbleweed*  *howling wolf*

Convicted Puppymiller Not Having a Heavenly Time in the Slammer

Pennsylvania:  I’m not going to attempt to cover all the details of the case against Almost Heaven Kennels which resulted in the owner, Derbe “Skip” Eckhart, being sentenced to 6 to 23 months in jail on cruelty and related charges this year.  Bill White of the Morning Call has been covering the story for years.  I plucked some details from a couple of his columns to give you a taste of Almost Heaven.

A whistleblower who worked at the kennel for several years explained that Mr. Eckhart instructed her to sell puppies, no matter what she had to do to make the sale.  She went along with this practice of lying to customers, knowing it was wrong, because she says she wanted to get as many dogs as possible “out of that hellhole”.

The scheme basically went like this:  A customer would make an inquiry for a certain breed and/or age puppy and she would fill it, regardless of whether the kennel had the type of puppy requested.  She would make up birthdates to make older pups seem younger, fabricate breeds to match the customer’s request, and then start writing in phony vaccination and deworming dates on a false veterinary record.  The customer would plunk down the selling price (roughly $1000) and off they go with the exact puppy they were looking for.  If any potential buyers attempted to perform due diligence and ask to see the parents of the puppy, she was prepared:

She said she would keep a fake mother and father dog cleaned up and available — friendly dogs she had obedience-trained — to show prospective buyers. “It was always a lie,” she said. “The whole thing was a lie.”

The rest of the 800 animals reportedly lived in appalling filth.  Mr. Eckhart was ordered by the court at one point to stop accumulating dogs – an order he violated – and even tried changing the name of the kennel and listing his assistant as the owner on the website.

At trial, Mr. Eckhart’s attorney had an answer for everything.  The kennels were filthy because authorities had locked Mr. Eckhart’s employees out during the raid, preventing them from cleaning.  The dogs in the worst shape at the time of the seizure were rescues who had arrived only days before.  Basically, Mr. Eckhart is a hero who just can’t say no to helping any dog in need.  He’s guilty of having too big a heart.

They jury, on the other hand, found Mr. Eckhart guilty of cruelty and failure to comply with the cease and desist order.  He began serving his sentence in May.  On day four, Mr. Eckhart assaulted a prison guard.  His lawyer has an explanation for that, too:  His client was detoxing from all the prescription drugs he’d been taking.  In fact, Mr. Eckhart doesn’t even remember what happened, seeing as he was in such a fog and all.

Now, after serving just a few months of his sentence, Mr. Eckhart wants out.  He feels he should get probation, his sentence was too harsh, blah blah blah.  The judge is set to make a ruling on the request in future.  If denied, Mr. Eckhart will seek release on bail, pending an appeal of his conviction.

Mr. Eckhart’s attorney described him at trial thusly:

”He’s the last bastion of hope for animals that have nowhere to go.”

*sniff*

I’ll be interested to see if the judge decides to keep the Bastion in prison.

Thank you to Heather H. for alerting me to this story.

More Misguided Pet Breeding Legislation

The IL Senate has passed a bill that is supposed to protect consumers with regard to pets sold in pet stores:

In Illinois, the legislation requires pet shops to post information on or near the cages of dogs and cats that includes: the name and address of each animal’s breeder; a record of all veterinary conditions and treatments; and any known information regarding congenital or hereditary defects of the animals’ parents.

Is this really going to help protect consumers?  Let me fill out the information for one of the 47 puppies I’m selling to a broker this afternoon:

Name and Address:  Mary Bad-Breeder, PuppySunshineville, USA

Veterinary conditions and treatments:  Veterinary health certificate issued today.

(That is to say, my Vet gave this puppy a health certificate declaring he showed no signs of communicable disease and was too young for a Rabies shot at the age of 5 weeks when I prematurely removed him from the dam to turn over to the broker.  The puppy may have had some other condition before that but I won’t be listing that here because I didn’t want to pay the Vet to come out and look at him.  Therefore, no record.)

Known info on hereditary defects of parents:  N/A

(That is, the parents may be defect free or may have every defect listed in the vet school textbooks – I don’t know because I don’t pay for those kinds of screenings.)

So the consumer sees a puppy from Mary Bad-Breeder who was issued a health certificate by a Vet a few weeks ago (which probably misleads the buyer into believing the puppy is therefore healthy) and the parents have no known congenital defects.  Sounds like a winner!

Again, we don’t need new legislation for pet breeding.  We have laws already on the books and the framework in place to enforce those laws.  What we need is to fill in that framework with solid material and get the job done.  Maybe, after we’ve been doing a good job at it for awhile, we might find a need for legislative changes.  But how can we possibly know that now, when we’re failing to even pretend to have a handle on licensed pet breeders in this country?

USDA Inspections – Not

Warning – There are extremely graphic photos of animal cruelty at both of the links below.

As many of us have been saying for years, the USDA has been falling down on the job with regard to licensed dog breeder inspections.  Raised by Wolves has a first look at a report (pdf) the USDA has released in which they audit their own inspection practices.  They basically give themselves an F.  Minus.

Excerpts:

• AC’s [Animal Care's] Enforcement Process Was Ineffective Against Problematic Dealers.
• AC Inspectors Did Not Cite or Document Violations Properly To Support Enforcement Actions.
• Although APHIS [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service] previously agreed to revise its penalty worksheet to produce “significantly higher” penalties for violators of AWA [Animal Welfare Act], the agency continued to assess minimal penalties that did not deter violators.
• APHIS Misused Guidelines to Lower Penalties for AWA Violators.

You get the idea.  And while this isn’t news to many of us who have recognized the results of the deficiencies in the USDA inspection process for years, I for one have often blamed the lack of funding which results in too few inspectors, lack of follow up, etc.  Now I’m seeing that there appears to be rampant corruption within the agency, whether that be intentional or due to ignorance I neither know nor care.

The failings here are not simply a lack of funding.  They are a systemic rot within the agency characterized by negligence – criminal negligence in this layman’s opinion.  As a taxpayer, I expect far better from my government.  The rot needs to be gutted from the USDA inspections process and replaced with solid material.  For starters, any inspectors who saw the suffering dogs depicted in the cruelty photos and did not take appropriate action as per their job descriptions need to be 86′d.  And I’m betting there are more that need to go.

This report reinforces my thought that there is no point – and indeed it would be counterproductive – to add new breeder laws to the books.  We are not getting the job done as things stand.  Let’s correct that before we talk about piling on more laws regarding pet breeding.  We have the framework in place to get these tasks done but we are severely lacking in execution.  I would think that’s a fixable problem.  It’s called accountability.  USDA inspectors need to do their jobs, not just cash the paychecks we provide for them every week.

Food Animal Cruelty – Standard Fare or No?

Editorial:  Is HSUS trying to guilt us into going vegan?

That piece got me thinking.  When I see the HSUS commercials showing images of cows being treated cruelly at a slaughterhouse, I think of that in terms of something unusual.  Similarly, when I see images of filthy dogs in dank cages, I think, “That’s not how most breeders take care of their dogs”.  Of course I’ve known a lot of dog breeders so I feel confident in my assessment there.  But I really don’t know any slaughterhouse operators.  I just sort of assume that most people in animal agriculture are normal, compassionate folks doing a job.  Am I wrong?  Could I walk into just about any slaughterhouse and secretly film hours and hours of cows being treated inhumanely because that’s the norm, not the exception?  Or do I have the context right – that this kind of thing is an aberration?  What’s your take?

More on 98 Dogs Seized in NC

Background here.

Some specifics on the seized dogs have emerged:

Two Chihuahuas will require surgery. One has a busted left eye socket, which has left the dog blind. The other has a puncture to her side that allows air to leak from her lungs.

A 10- to 12-year-old greyhound is missing much of her lower jaw and nearly all of her teeth from poor dental care. The dog is pregnant. A shelter veterinarian said the dog shouldn’t have been bred after age 2 or 3.

An adult Weimaraner is malnourished to the point where the outline of his ribs and hip bones could be seen through his skin. Officials said the dog weighs about 40 pounds, but should weigh about 75 pounds.

Other dogs have dozens of ticks — more than 30 on one greyhound; mammary tumors; bloody diarrhea; heartworms; missing teeth; bruising; and open wounds.

This in contrast to the kennel’s web site claims:

On its Web site, Rush Kennel bills itself as “North Carolina’s No. 1 dog kennel,” a place where Weimaraners, Labrador retrievers and other breeds frolic in a fenced play yard before the day ends with a massage, pool bath and pedicure.

18 complaints against the kennel are on file with various agencies.  Among the complaints:

A Winston-Salem woman who purchased two poodles last May. One died from worms two days after purchase. The other was diagnosed with glaucoma.

A South Carolina woman who said she went to purchase a Weimaraner puppy from the kennel. She asked to see the dog’s parents and but was told “that it wasn’t allowed,” and also told she could not see where the dogs were kept.

A man who reported the puppy he picked up from the kennel in January was infected with worms and parasites, and very underweight. The man said he called the kennel to request copies of X-rays and veterinary records, but an employee refused and became defensive before hanging up on him.

A woman who purchased a Weimaraner puppy in 2003. At 22 months the dog developed a “terrible cough, began to appear thin and began to tire easily.” The dog was diagnosed with “multiple heart defects and congestive heart failure.” The dog had to be euthanized. The woman wrote that a cardiologist told her the dog’s conditions were hereditary and “a breeder should not have bred a dog with the defect.”

A New York woman who said the Yorkshire terrier puppy she bought in June 2008 arrived at her residence “obviously sick, urinating on itself, lethargic, and “it smelled bad” and “it was not moving.” The woman said she received no medical records with the dog and took it to a veterinarian, where the puppy died.

Apparently local AC officers would regularly ferry discarded dogs from the kennel to the local shelter – 40 – 50 of them in the last 8 – 9 years.  The shelter director, Marsha Williams:

“We would have to treat them for whatever illness or other problems they had,” she  said. “They were not in very good shape when they were brought in to us. She said they were tired, like they were too old or she didn’t want to breed them anymore.”

So apparently local animal control, the shelter, the Better Business Bureau and the State Department of Agriculture were all aware of potential problems at this kennel but nobody ever did anything.  NC does have animal cruelty laws on the books but it looks like in this situation, nobody could be bothered to enforce the law.

And now, the HSUS is using the opportunity to again push to get their “puppy mill bill” passed in NC.  Authorities are not enforcing the laws already on the books, why would we add more and where will the funding for enforcement of this new law come from?  It makes no sense to me.  Failure to enforce existing animal welfare laws is not a logical stepping stone to creating new laws.

98 “Healthy” Dogs Seized in NC

I don’t care if you have 1 dog or 98 dogs – you gotta do it right.  Now nobody’s perfect and I think it’s reasonable to allow for some variations in quality of care so long as the basics are consistently met – sufficient food, clean shelter, affection, exercise and discipline.

In Pleasant Garden, NC, authorities were receiving complaints from people who had bought puppies from a local breeder operating under the name Rush Kennels.  Buyers reported their dogs had multiple health problems sometimes resulting in death.  So the sheriff’s office conducted an undercover investigation and bought a puppy from Rush Kennels.  That puppy was diagnosed with multiple health problems and ended up dying.  This week, authorities seized 98 dogs from Rush Kennels.  Two of the dogs required emergency surgery:

“There were some that had been over utilized as breeders and actually had parts of their internal organs that were hanging out.” [Sheriff BJ] Barnes said.

Here is a photo of one of the seized dogs (more photos here):

The owner of Rush Kennels, Sheila Rush, [Note:  Check out Sheila Rush on "Wife Swap"] and a dog caretaker, Robert Landreth, have not yet been charged because the sheriff’s office is still gathering evidence, but they say animal cruelty and fraud charges are likely.

Landreth, who works at Rush Kennel, told FOX8 that the seized dogs were healthy and that Rush is working with her attorney to get her dogs back.

That Weimaraner is not “healthy”.  For starters, he is emaciated.  Compare to a side view of a random Weim I found online who is in normal, healthy weight:

Oh and any dogs with guts hanging out – they do not fall under the “healthy” category either.

Update:  Both Rush and Landreth have now been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty.  Read more and see another “healthy” dog’s photo here.

This Seems Wrong

Regarding a MN puppy mill investigated by a Boston TV station and others:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its final decision and order, stated that [Kathy] Bauck is “unfit” to be licensed because she operated her kennel in a criminally improper manner.

And by “criminally improper” they mean:

[...] emaciated dogs, sick dogs and others being dunked in a tub of diluted but toxic insecticide that is only supposed to be used on swine.
[...]
The government is revoking Bauck’s license to deal dogs based on her conviction of animal cruelty and torture in March 2009. The year before, she pleaded guilty to practicing veterinary medicine without a license. Both times Bauck spent time in jail.

OK so this all sounds pretty bad. And my first reaction was “Thank goodness the government finally did something to help these dogs!” But:

Bauck will still be allowed to keep her animals because they’re considered her personal property.

And she can continue selling dogs online since the USDA doesn’t regulate that. But she has to wait 2 years before re-applying for a USDA license so I guess that’ll learn her. As for the dogs, well we can always hope the Boston TV station, the animal activists, the U.S. justice system and the USDA are all wrong and Ms. Bauck really takes great care of her pets.

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men

How an elaborate plan to prosecute animal cruelty in PA fell victim to politics:

On Oct. 7, a group of animal-welfare advocates and a veterinarian flew to the auction in southeast Ohio on a jet owned by a friend of a board member of Main Line Animal Rescue, based in Chester Springs. Their goal: Find sick animals among the nearly 400 purebred dogs from Pennsylvania that were to be sold by kennels downsizing or going out of business as a result of the state’s more stringent kennel law.

After a veterinarian picked out 12 dogs she believed to be in the poorest health, the animals were purchased and brought back.

[...]

Cari Thomson, the vet who went to the auction, said that she had later examined eight dogs and that six had severe periodontal disease and several had serious skin and ear infections.

She said their conditions had constituted “gross neglect.”

Main Line Animal Rescue racked up $30,000 in vet bills treating the 12 dogs, founder Bill Smith said.

The attorney for the dogs’ breeders denies any allegations of cruelty and states the dogs were given a clean bill of health by a Veterinarian prior to auction.

Enter the political posturing:

The Pennsylvania SPCA charged six, all in Lancaster County, with animal cruelty.

Now those charges have been dropped, in a spat between the Lancaster County prosecutor and a PSPCA lawyer.

District Attorney Craig Stedman said the PSPCA had dropped the case after meeting Dec. 21 with one of his deputies.

Sue Cosby, executive director of the PSPCA, said Stedman had told her that, after a review, he decided he could not prosecute the cases and recommended that the PSPCA drop them.

Without his support, Cosby said, the organization had no choice, even though she believed the evidence supported the charges.

[...]

“They kept us out of the loop and surreptitiously filed charges,” Stedman said in an interview Wednesday. “Bill Lamb is not a member of law enforcement and not a special prosecutor. The best way to handle cases is to work with our office. We’re the legal experts.”

And so, one jet plane, several animal advocates, and $30,000 later, we have a plan to prosecute cruelty and no results. I’m glad 12 dogs were saved from auction – which is a terrible way to sell a dog to my mind – but I can’t help wondering if the extensive resources utilized in this failed scheme could have been used more wisely.