Ethical Breeders Charter General Chat

The problem with mandating breeders to chip has the same limitations as the other breeder legislation:

Only the ethical breeders will follow the law. The rest will ignore it. And it is too difficult to enforce the laws.

In my city, there is a law that requires anyone selling a puppy under 4 months to include the city license number of the dam on the paperwork and/or advertisement. Ethical breeders do this. The rest don't license any of their dogs.

But the only way to charge these breeders for not complying with the law is for someone to file a complaint with the local animal control. And animal control is understaffed and dealing with serious abuse cases and doesn't have the ability to go inspect the breeder homes for licensing compliance.

So the law is for all intents and purposes unenforceable.

With chips, most shelters and rescues chip when the animal is fixed. They then register the chip to their name.

When chipping started, most rescues locked the registration. Adopters could not change the contact information. So if the animal was found, the rescue was contacted. They in turn contacted the adopter to find out what happened and could return the animal to the home or enact the contract clause allowing the rescue to reclaim the animal.

Now, there are multiple chip registries and even if the original registry won't allow you to change the contact info, you can add the chip number to another registry and put in your contact info. When the chip is scanned, the registry with the most recent info will be listed first. So when the animal is found, the adopter is called directly and the rescue has no knowledge of the animal being found.

This will happen to the breeders too. Even if they chip all their puppies, the buyer can simply add the chip number to a new registry and bypass the breeder's safeguards.

@CaroleC yeah, here in the states, loose dogs are a HUGE problem.

Unfortunately, too many people get a dog (or cat) and put it outside for life. The dog is rarely fixed, neglected, and bored out of its skull. So the dog escapes. Repeatedly.

And they breed. And those puppies are handed out like candy to anyone with their hand out with no regard to their ability or willingness to care for the puppy. So the cycle repeats.

Right now, our city shelter is so full that they are turning away owner surrendered pets. They are actually releasing found cats back into the streets. And they are waiving adoption fees regularly and not doing any screening to ensure an adopter is capable of caring for the animal.

And then there are the backyard breeders who let their dogs run loose and get pregnant to make a few bucks. They do no health checks, vaccinations, socialization, etc. They sell the pups to whoever is willing to pay. If the pups don't sell they dump them. And if they get in trouble, they hid the breeding dog at another house until animal control leaves them alone and start back up.

And of course, their puppies end up outside, unfixed and neglected to roam the streets.

I'm sure there are people with standards like that over here too, and we have had occasional scandals where mass under-age importation of puppies from Europe is involved.
I'm sure there is sludge at the bottom of every pond but our pond is quite a bit smaller.

[QUOTE="
Only the ethical breeders will follow the law. The rest will ignore it. And it is too difficult to enforce the laws.
The rest don't license any of their dogs.
.[/QUOTE]

Every vet giving puppy shots for a breeder BY LAW should be required to chip the puppy and put it in the breeders name. Geez what an easy solution.

Everytime you answer you undermine my posts and give the worst examples, like retractable leashes, NO prong collars when you obviously know NOTHING about them, changing food without saying a little at a time, neglect to mention what to ask the vet to look for, not mentioning a stool sample when going to the vet with a pup.
I recommend ignoring my posts and offering advice that has value.

Every vet giving puppy shots for a breeder BY LAW should be required to chip the puppy and put it in the breeders name. Geez what an easy solution.

Everytime you answer you undermine my posts and give the worst examples, like retractable leashes, NO prong collars when you obviously know NOTHING about them, changing food without saying a little at a time, neglect to mention what to ask the vet to look for, not mentioning a stool sample when going to the vet with a pup.
I recommend ignoring my posts and offering advice that has value.[/QUOTE]

Most breeders give their own shots so while you CAN require vets to chip whenever they vaccinate a puppy, you will still not address the majority of professionally bred puppies.

As for the rest of your post, no I am not undermining you.

1. I did NOT say anything about retractable leashes except for a specific comment directed to another poster regarding her experience.

2. Here we go with "being contemptible". You have no knowledge of my background yet you attack me for "knowing NOTHING" about prong collars rather than discussing prong collars. I have provided an article from the RSPCA with multiple cited studies that show prong collars and other aversive methods and tools are dangerous or, at best, no more effective, than positive based force free methods and tools.

3. I did not suggest changing foods a little at a time - because I do not recommend changing a 3 month old puppy's diet without consulting with their vet first. There was no reason for me to discuss how to change the puppy's diet.

4. Correct. I did not advise the poster to bring in a stool sample. Because that is something the vet's office will ask them to do or not according to their protocol.

Your list of minimum standards for an ethical breeder is comprehensive and well-thought-out. Here we can consider one more point:

Transparent Record Keeping: Maintains and shares detailed records of pedigrees, health screenings, and genetic testing results with buyers.