Report: Pa. fails to use puppy mill law
A panel's analysis of 18 months of records says that inspections are down; the Dog Law Enforcement Office has all but stopped issuing citations and didn't revoke a single license in 2011 or most of 2012; and that regulators have allowed operators to abuse a waiver process.
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Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2012 10:59 pm | Updated: 11:49 pm, Thu Sep 12, 2013.
Thousands of dogs are languishing because the Pennsylvania Dog Law Enforcement Office has failed to enforce regulations meant to eliminate substandard commercial kennels known as puppy mills, a state advisory board said Thursday.
Dozens of kennels have been permitted to skirt tough new rules on ventilation, humidity, lighting, flooring and ammonia levels, the Dog Law Advisory Board's enforcement panel said in a new report.
The report was issued five months after board members first publicly raised concerns about regulatory lapses that threatened to undo years of hard-won progress in the fight against breeders who mistreat their dogs. The panel said it has come to the "disturbing conclusion that, through either studied indifference or by design, the (Dog Law Enforcement Office) has failed in its enforcement of critical components of the dog law and canine health regulations."
This "laxity in enforcement," the report continued, "has allowed thousands of dogs to languish in pre-2008 conditions despite protections in the law that as of today largely exist only on paper."
Michael Pechart, an Agriculture Department official who serves as acting director of the Dog Law Enforcement Office, had requested the board review the agency's work and make recommendations. The state-sanctioned advisory board released the report as it met Thursday in Harrisburg.
The panel's analysis of 18 months worth of agency records shows that inspections are way down; the Dog Law Enforcement Office has all but stopped issuing citations and didn't revoke a single license in 2011 or most of 2012; that regulators have allowed operators to abuse a waiver process; and that the agency is not verifying that substandard kennels that claim to have shut down have actually done so.
Dog law enforcement officials told the board they have been hampered by severe budgetary constraints but that enforcement efforts are moving in the right direction. The agency has been cutting positions, and only recently began filling warden vacancies, as it tries to ward off insolvency of the Dog Law Restricted Account, its sole income source.
Funded primarily through the sale of individual dog licenses, the account's balance plummeted 91 percent between 2007 and 2011.
Pechart said the agency has a plan to put the account in the black. And he said some of the problems raised in the report have been addressed and the agency was moving in the right direction. On Monday, for instance, the agency revoked the license of a kennel operated by the wife of a man convicted of animal cruelty, it said.
"We want to get there, and we're going to get there, and we're going to get there sooner than later," Pechart told the board. "We're making significant progress."
But board members questioned the agency's priorities, noting Pechart drastically cut the hours and benefits of Danielle Ward - a veterinarian hired to inspect the health of dogs at licensed kennels - while at the same time choosing to spend $200 each on jackets for staff.
"It doesn't sit right that we are spending (money) on a jacket but we don't have enough money to pay the vet," said board member Jennifer Muller, herself a veterinarian. "Something's off."
Pennsylvania had long been known as a breeding ground for puppy mills when then-Gov. Ed Rendell signed off on the 2008 dog law overhaul. The legislation, two years in the making, was a response to appalling conditions in many large commercial breeding kennels, where dogs spent most of their working lives inside cramped wire cages, stacked one atop the other, and got little grooming, veterinary care or exercise.
Key provisions that went into effect in October 2009 required large-scale breeders to double cage sizes, eliminate wire flooring and provide unfettered access to the outdoors. The new law also banned cage stacking, instituted twice-a-year veterinary checks and mandated new ventilation and cleanliness regulations that went into effect in July 2011.
Most commercial kennel operators went out of business rather than comply. Many of those who remained open have found ways around the law, the report said, putting some 475,000 dogs at licensed for-profit kennels at risk.
"Kennel owners have learned that they may evade the legal kennel requirements with virtual impunity," the report said. "An examination of inspection reports leads to the conclusion that kennel owners have likely realized that although they lost their battle against enactment of the law, they are usually free to ignore it.
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