On January 28, 2007 Lisa Peterson, communications director for the AKC appeared on Animal Wise Radio to talk about an article that appeared on the AKC web site relating to Minnesota Senate File 121. Here is a transcript of that interview. If you would prefer, listen to the audio by clicking the play button on the control at the right.
Mike Fry : Hi. This is Mike Fry.
Beth Nelson: And this is Beth Nelson.
MF: And you are wisely tuned to Animal Wise Radio that is, of course, as always, streaming, blogging and podcasting at animalwiseradio.com.
Well, if you go out to the Internet and you do a Google search for puppy mills one name will keeps popping up over and over and over and that is the AKC or American Kennel Club. For years there has been kind of a growing chasm between animal welfare organizations and the AKC, which is sometimes perceived as, you know, enabling or perpetuating large-scale puppy mills. And that seems to, you know . . . fuel has been thrown on that fire this week when the AKC came out publically opposing Minnesota Senate File 121, a bill that would, for the first time, allow the State of Minnesota to regulate puppy mills.
BN: And we have to thank our guest for coming on the show today. We have with us Lisa Peterson who is the director of communications for the AKC to talk a little bit about this article that was posted about Senate File 121.
MF: Um. Tell us about. . . ah, Lisa, first of all, welcome to Animal Wise Radio . . .and then, can you explain to us, you know, what your position is, what the AKC is saying in this article on their web site. I mean, I have to say that my email inbox is just being overflowing with people griping and complaining about the AKC at this point.
Lisa Peterson: Right. Um. Hi Mike. Hi Beth. How are you? I'm glad to be on your program today. Um. I just want to give a little background, however, when you do discuss the word puppy mills, um, again, a puppy mill is um, ah, a kennel that, say, does not have the correct standards in which to raise the dogs.
MF: Well, actually, that's not typically the definition of "puppy mill" that we use here. We have been talking about puppy mills for years on the show. We typically describe a "puppy mill" as any commercial producer of puppies. Um. Just like a steel mill is a commercial producer of steel, we use the definition of "puppy mill" to be any commercial producer of puppies.
LP: OK. Well, that's your definition. Well, as far as commercial kennels, um, you need to know that the American Kennel Club is the only registry - purebred dog registry - that does have an investigations and inspections department. And we are the only registry that has a care and conditions policy that has been in effect for over 10 years, and any breeder that registers dogs with the American Kennel Club does get inspected by us and does have to care and provide welfare for their dogs.
MF: That's great. How many members does the American Kennel Club have in terms of breeders that are registering animals with your organization?
LP: Uh hu. Well, the American Kennel Club is actually a club of clubs. There are no individual members. And a breeder uses our registry service purely voluntarily. So there are no individual people but there are some who are members - who are members of our member clubs across the country, responsible breeders who belong to the parent clubs of each of the 153 breeds that we recognize.
MF: But, I am trying to get to how many breeders are out there registering. You must have some sense of that number.
LP: Well, we register litters and individual dogs. And, in 2006 we registered about 400,000 litters and about 900,000 individual dogs.
MF: OK. So when you talked about your inspection group - out of those 400,000 litters, how many inspectors do you have to inspect those 400,000 litters?
LP: Well, so not all of those 400,000 litters fall under our inspection protocol. Our protocol is if you produce seven or more litters per year, then inspected by us and we do have 14 field inspectors and we do close to 5,000 inspections annually.
MF: So you said any breeder who has more than seven litters, you said they are going to be inspected. But I don't see how that is conceivably possible when you only have 14 inspectors to deal with almost 400,000 [litters].
LP: Well, just like I said, the 400,000 does not represent all of the commercial breeders. It represents a mix of our hobby breeders, our one time breeders, and the commercial sector.
BN: Well, here is something where I come to this a little bit confused because as I read SF 121, its really about what looks to be pretty basic humane standards. And when I saw that the American Kennel Club was coming out against it, um, I read the statement, I read the article posted out on your web site, and it does say that you strongly support humane treatment of dogs, and the fact is that here in Minnesota we know that we have a growing and serious problem with puppy mills that are not humanely treating the animals and so the whole act of putting together this Senate File 121, and writing this bill, is an effort to promote humane treatment of dogs. So, could you just address that sort of general concepts of 'why come out against something that seems to be promoting . . .
LP: Sure. I mean, obviously, we do support the humane treatment of dogs, um, which includes, you know, proper care and feeding, clean water, clean living conditions, you know, appropriate training behavior . . . all that, all those wonderful things that responsible breeders should do with their animals. But the reason we came out against this bill in particular is because we feel it creates a greater bourdon on those responsible breeders.
MF: Well, I am curious-
LP: For example, the number of dogs that you consider you to be a breeder and not a hobby breeder is less than six intact breeding bitches.
BN: No. It's more than six.
MF: More than six.
LP: No. The bill says less than six. So that would be five.
MF: Have you read the bill? I am curious if you have read the bill?
LP: Yes. I have the bill right here.
BN: I am sorry. We are going to have to disagree on this. I have the bill in front of me. On line 119 it says "possesses six or more adult intact breeding animals. So, it's six or more.
LP: So what I am saying is that a hobby breeder is one identifies as one that owns five.
BN: And hobby breeders are not under the same . . .
MF: Hobby breeders are specifically exempted from this bill.
LP: But the way they are exempted is troubling to us because if you go further down the bill, under local "Government Authority" it certainly says that a local unit of government may enact more stringent regulations governing facilities. So, a local town could come out and say, "You can only own ONE intact female."
[Cross talk]
MF: But, you understand. But, even if this bill doesn't pass, any local municipality is able to do that anyway. That has nothing to do with this bill. That's just standard language that is put into any State bill, because a local municipality is always able to pass more restrictive legislation. And that. . . this bill does not change that.
LP; That's true, but how do you come up with . . .
MF: Well, why are you using that as an excuse to oppose this bill when that is the law of the land now?
LP: Well, to use that as the threshold for what makes a hobby breeder, um, you know, there are many very responsible hobby breeders who own more than that number of intact females.
MF: But I can tell you there is an awful lot of people who have six or more cats who . . . look at it, I mean, you understand this from the dog World. I'm going to tell you about the cat world. A cat can produce 3 - 4 litters of kittens per year. If you've got six intact females and you breed them every cycle and they average six kittens per [liter], that is a LOT of cats to be caring for. Um, we have got to take a quick break. But coming up, I want to get more into, what are the specific issues in animal care relating to this bill. To me, this sets a very low bar, a very low standard for breeders to meet. I run a nonprofit animal shelter and my care for animals at our facility far exceeds the standards required for commercial breeders in this bill. I cannot even imagine anyone wanting to come out against this. We will be back with more of this conversation right after this. . .
[commercial break]
MF. Hi. This is Mike Fry
BN: And this is Beth Nelson.
MF: And you are wisely tuned to Animal Wise Radio that is streaming, blogging and podcasting at animalwiseradio.com. And, ah, we are going to dive right back into this conversation with Lisa Peterson from the American Kennel Club. She is trying to explain to our listeners why the AKC would oppose legislation that would, for the first time, allow the State of Minnesota to regulate large-scale puppy mills in our State. . . and kitten mills, for that matter. Um, welcome back to Animal Wise Radio.
LP: Thank you, Mike.
MF: I want to get back to . . . we have sort of gotten off on a little side track, because we are really talking about this article that was posted at the AKC web site, talking about the AKC's opposition to Senate File 121 and I guess, I am curious. . . this piece that was written by the AKC seems to have . . . to be long on opinion and very short on substance or facts. So, I am curious to know if there is any real data to support, you know, many of the claims that you make here, like claiming that Senate File 121 would be quote unquote "unenforceable" in your opinion. Do you have any data to back that up?
LP: Well, just looking through the bill, to me things that I would be the socialization section of the bill. Um. You know, It says here that adult animals must be provided daily socialization by positive physical contact with human beings. It's just pure arbitrary.
MF: OK.
LP: I mean, who determines what "positive contact" is? And, you know, who is going to be the "socialization police" to come sit there and watch that these breeders are playing with their dogs and puppies in an appropriate manner? It would take a lot of manpower to have everyone sit and watch this.
BN: Point well taken.
LP: What we are saying here about this bill, again, is that we do strongly support humane treatment of dogs, but what we are feeling is that this creates a greater bourdon for responsible. Responsible breeders are already great caretakers for their dogs. And some of these provisions in this bill would be almost impossible for small breeders to comply with, especially some of the residential, um, issues, of, um, you must have a dog in a crate of a certain wire gage with plastic coating with so many square feet per dog. You know, responsible breeders - the majority of them - they have their dogs in their homes with them.
MF: But, again, I think we are having some selective interpretation of this bill, because I think small hobby breeders who are allowing their animals to free roam in their home would not be affected by this bill. We are talking about - for animals living their entire lives in wire cages, what are the dimensions of those cages? And. ..
LP: Well, the other thing that is troubling about this bill is that it defines a puppy as one less than 20 weeks of age, which is just 5 months. So once it becomes 5 months old, boom - its and adult and if its and intact female, its another breeding bitch, so now you're. . . . many breeders will keep dogs for 6 months to a year to see if they are breeding potential or to make sure they do health screenings with them.
MF: But, if they are a commercial breeder and . . .
LP: They may not know if they want to use them as breeding stock or not and all of a sudden, it ups the threshold for the responsible breeder.
MF: But because what they need is -anyone who is enforcing this law - needs and objective measure of the breeding animals they have on the property. And if they have animals that are at or very near breeding age, they need to very objectively assess that. And getting back to your argument that they want this bill to be enforceable, I think that they need those kinds of objective measures in the bill so that it IS enforceable. Ironically,
LP: [trying to interupt]
MF: Ironically,
LP: It's not. And also the thing that we do is that we should really list the number of litters produced rather than the number of intact breeding females, because with dogs, its very . . .
MF: How in the world would enforcement personnel be able to go and measure the number of lizard, ah, litters that are being sold? THAT would be unenforceable. All a breeder would have to do is not write them down, sell them, and the enforcement bodies would have no way of measuring that. It's ironic that you like to say that this bill is going to be unenforceable when all of the enforcement personal that I know in our state are backing this bill. And so, again, it gets back to: AKC is creating this perception that they are actually acting as a front - trying to throw a monkey wrench into legislation. . . whenever the animal welfare movement tries to create better living conditions for animals . . . and I think that, ah. . . I think that . . . if you want to make a comment on the enforceability of a law, I would think that contacting the enforcement in the state where the law is being enacted would be a really good thing for the AKC to do, rather than just putting an opinion out on your web site that enflames people's emotions.
LP: Well, you know, we like to believe that, ah, dogs are your property. And, by law, they are considered that. And we like to leave the option to the owner of the property, of the dog, with the breeder because its their right. It's their decision as to how to, um, how many intact females to own or how many litters to produce.
MF: But, there is a public health issue. There is an animal welfare issue. There's a whole lot of reasons why the State should be interested in enforcing animal welfare concerns in our state. Um, we have growing problems with, potentially, the spread of zoonotic diseases as a result of these facilities, not to mention the consumer fraud surrounding puppy mills, so there is a lot of reasons the State should be involved. These are MORE than property. They are living, sentient animals who have life experiences of their own. And, it seems clear that the AKC's position doesn't seem to acknowledge that piece.
LP: Well, you know, the AKC is upholding the rights of its responsible breeders and you know some of these commercial facilities do not register with us. There are currently 38 competing registries in the United States.
MF: It is interesting. I did a little Google search to find out a bit more about AKC registered breeders by searching through, ah, a list of suspended permits or memberships from AKC at barkbytes.com. I found that, um, a member of your organization is more likely to be charged with animal cruelty [by local law enforcement] than to have complaints against them by AKC for their living conditions.
We will be back with more Animal Wise Radio right after this. | |