FEDERAL "PUPS" LEGISLATION

"I believe we will have less time to work on PUPS than was the case with PAWS, and with neither of our two best known groups (AKC and NAIA) in the action and cats not included so we won't have the CFA, we have our work cut out for us.

The main two things that PUPS will do are:

1. Remove the 'retail sales only' line that now keeps hobby breeders (who only sell direct to pet buyers, never through pet stores or other middlemen) out of the Animal Welfare Act and replace it with a '50 or fewer dogs sold' line. Because the number line would be in the law itself rather than in the USDA regulations, it would be much easier to change in the future.

2. Greatly expand the exercise requirements for dogs and do it in the most expensive possible way.

I believe that our first step should be to contact our individual Congressmen and say "I am deeply concerned about S. 3519 (for the Senators) / H.R. 6949, the 'PUPS' bill because:"

Then one or more of the following talking points:

1. The bill would require a several fold increase in the number of APHIS inspectors. That's unjustified and in the current serious budget and national financial situation, unwise.

2. USDA regulations for licensed breeders require a farm-type operation. Small breeders can do it better precisely because they are not farms. They should not be forced to lower their standards.

3. The USDA already regulates breeding of dogs if any are sold at wholesale. Retail-only breeders are subject to animal welfare laws enforced by state and local authorities and additional requirements are generally made in zoning and other permitting requirements. The AKC inspects its own breeders.

4. Retail-only breeders are inspected by their customers who can (and often do) report violations to authorities.

5. The USDA does not believe that licensing and inspection of retail-only breeders are a good use of its resources; they have successfully defended this view in court. (Doris Day Animal League vs. Ann Venneman)

6. The bill's changes in exercise requirements would greatly increase the cost of breeding dogs without necessarily improving their welfare. With the cost of everything else increasing rapidly, this is unkind and will be unpopular.

7. The replacement of a licensing threshold set (and defended by) the USDA by a threshold in the law itself would make it much easier to further extend the reach of this unwise law in the future.

To get contact information for your senators and your representative, go to:  http://www.congress.org/ and enter your ZIP code in the upper right corner.

You want to contact your FEDERAL officials only -- that's TWO Senators, and ONE member of the House of Representatives.

Phone calls are excellent, so are faxes. Snail letters are delayed due to terrorism processing. Emails will work but are not as good as calls and faxed letters.

Here is the link to the PUPS bill as it will look when merged into the existing law. The changed stuff is highlighted in yellow:
TheAnimalCouncil - S3519 PUPS - Integrated 9/21/08
(Thanks to The Animal Council!)

Following are the two links to the current Animal Welfare Act and Regulations.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/awa.shtml  [The act]
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/awr.shtml [The regulations]

An important effect of PUPS will be to move the definition of 'retail pet store' (the people who are NOT covered by the Animal Welfare Act) from the regulations, into the act itself.