Steve

http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=199861

Yeah that all sounds good except thats not what the current code thats being presented by the RSPCA says.

Steve, I thought this discussion was about puppy farmers and although you are right, there are smaller scale breeders considered to be "farmers" who do have other regular 9-5 jobs, I thought what we were trying to target here is indeed the large-scale commercial breeders = FARMERS! Therefore it *IS* their business, regardless if the "farm" is family-run or not and regardless if they have a outside 9-5 job. In short, they don't need the same as human children but lets decide at bare minimum, what those needs are... The discussion was about the definition of a puppy farmer and whether or not its possible to legislate against puppy farmers without that affecting smaller breeders.If you are going to introduce laws to dictate staff to numbers ratio at what point would that cut in and how does an ordinary hobby breeder or even a bigger breeder with no paid staff but rather family labour go? How would it be possible to enforce this?

You have to also consider what is likely to ever happen,whether its a realistic expectation at this current point in time or whether its just not going to be supported by those who are within and standing on the outside of the area affected. But most of all you have to consider how anything being proposed might interfere with ordinary people's rights and whether its going to prevent any dog from suffering, and whether its realistically likely that it can or will be enforced. Property laws,freedom to trade,the right to privacy etc are basic rights which you cant expect people to give up.[These are basic magna carter stuff which are protected by federal laws] because the RSPCA want to know where breeders are. You cant seriously expect that asking stock feed suppliers and vets to dob in people who buy a lot of dog food or use a lot of vet services is going to help prevent anything. Going after stopping the sales of live animals in pet shops in Australia based on current trade laws and the lack of viable stats to back up what appears to the outside world as radicals and rednecks was never going to happen.

Yes but this is people looking after other peoples children not their own.

I dont think mine are .The new owners are always telling me how they walk in like they have lived there all their lives . Ive got a litter of 6 week old Maremma babies here now. They are spread out in front of the fire now sound asleep but today they have been chased by a vacumn cleaner ,supervised while I did the washing, helped me make beds,played with the cat and beagle pups and soon they will hang out and watch me get dinner. I expect when they go home they will act as if they are timid as thats what they are bred to do until the new flock accept them but they will also be bombproof and should be afraid of nothing and no one.

There you go again. Im not dismissing your ideas Im having a discussion. I cant see the point in bringing in laws which will make the bad guys worse and make life harder for the people who are doing it right anyway. I had no desire to put forth any argument to show why I think breeding dogs have different needs in this thread but having a kennel situation such as a shelter or a pound or a boarding kennel where their is a high turnover of dogs which may have been exposed to all manner of things and which only have to stay for short periods of time is different to the way breeding dogs need to be housed and treated when they are not in whelp or immediately after.

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There is much I would like to ad and that we will make public but its not just about the difference between those breeders who answered in the breeders thread and someone who pumps out a thousand puppies a year - its also about the underlying goal of any proposal, past history of similar legislation overseas and the potential for making the very thing you are trying to rein in and make better becoming worse.Its about policing, peoples basic rights and most of all what's best for the dogs not what is easiest to keep clean or more economical. Breeding dogs are different to rescue dogs or dogs kept in boarding kennels and they have different needs and that has never been acknowledged. I know breeders who kill their pups if there are too many in a litter and others who believe that if some die then that is not such a bad thing because it ensures the fittest will survive. No amount of laws to ensure certain temperatures in a whelping room are going to make a scrap of difference and they are impossible to enforce.The very people who you are trying to stop are known to do what ever they can to avoid complying with laws as well.

Mine are whelped about 2 feet away from the telly

I would agree with all but the bolded part. I think that t-time had a good point with child-care centres. The ratios could be enforced on animal welfare and human OHS grounds. This is something I would think worth working towards. In my opinion, a code needs to be developed to cover all breeders. Only on DOL is "breeder" such a loaded term. In real life a breeder is the owner, or lessee of a bitch that whelps a litter. That is what a breeder is regardless of our feelings on the matter. You cannot legislate on motivations. Only on practices. The challenge for you Steve (and I want to help) is to come up with the bare minimum standard of practices that you think is necessary to breed good, happy dogs. We (ethical breeding advocates) need to come to a consensus of what that is. An unfortunate consequence is that some breeders who are doing a great job may have to do things differently and maybe spend more money on facilities. But that is a small price to pay for 'puppy farmers' to be put under the same code. I don't feel that this thread has been as useful as it could have been. To ask the question "What is a Puppy Farmer?" here is to get a regurgitated digest of everything people have been told about what puppy farming is on these forums. How many people here have ever seen one, let alone worked at one or owned one? I do like the threads you have asked in the Breeder's forum, the info is so useful. Clearly, one of the practices that good ethical breeders do is to keep the litter at optimum temperature. That is a fantastic example of a concrete thing that can be included in the code that would cause huge costs for intensive farmers. A maximum and minimum allowable temperature for each breed of dog. While this may knock out a handful of hobby breeders, others would comply, and intensive farmers would have a huge costs that may put some out of business. And best of all, the puppies would benefit. Ok, I will apologise now for my tone in previous posts. I do not want to score points. I want to work with you. Having said that I believe I have provided an example of a model where by breeders privacy is totally protected. Also where breeders cannot hide the identity of the dogs they produce and statistics can be collected that would prove beyond doubt who was producing and selling the problem dogs. A system where if an ANKC breeder is not producing problems, bodies like the RSPCA will not be able to collect information on them or monitor them. I think your concerns are all addressed in the solution I spoke about a few pages earlier. I also want to speak about the supply/demand problem. This could be addressed by legislating the ban of displays of pups at point of sale. Banning pet shops. We have legislated in this way for the tobacco industry, and now it needs to be done in the dog industry. Another thing we can do is encourage better education of buyers. The reason we have an oversupply of discarded adult dogs is because those dogs failed to meet the owner expectations. Expectations can be altered through education on so many different levels. By legislating against impulse buying we are giving a chance for education to work better than it otherwise would. Steve have another look at the code. If the wording of the code makes it impossible for a breeder to breed a litter in the house, then that needs to be changed. It is possible to have a good code that allows the breeding of pups in a normal family home. Covering just about all of the breeders that responded to your thread about where they whelp their litters. Having a hygienic washable surface seems to be the norm for the breeders there, nobody had baby puppies on dirt at all. I don't believe you can legislate about staff levels for the simple reason not all breeders "work" at being breeders. And dogs are only breeding for a couple of weeks now and then. Child care centres are only open business hours too.Who is to say if I am playing with puppies at midnight and you can hardly lock children up in pens 23 hours a day either.What are we going to do count my kids into the equation because around here they play a big role in socialising and helping out with what needs to be done. The problem remains constant when you say breeder you are thinking hundreds of dogs when I say breeder Im think half a dozen. And the purpose of the thread is to discuss the fact that there is a difference. All breeders ethical or other wise keep the temp at an optimal level or they die. Cold puppies dont live and nor do hot puppies - plain and simple. There is no point in making laws to cover it. My references to dirt were not about puppies being born in dirt my concern is that dogs live on concrete all the time. Male dogs as well as bitches which are too young yet to breed and who are between seasons etc. are kept in sheds which comply with basic standards which in my opinion are not suitable for such usage. The law in some states let alone codes of practice prevent a breeder having a litter in the house. NSW companion animals act for example says any more than two dogs have to be housed at least 15 meters from a dwelling.

I think we have a solution - one that would trace every animal from birth to death, one that would alert councils to where large scale breeders are, one that would ensure that everyone followed the laws with no unintended adverse consequences for the dogs or the breeders who are doing it right.

But you can only do so much with a puppy that isn't fully vaccinated. I know one of the toughest things for me to handle when bringing home a new puppy has been handling the fear of unexpected things. I don't know what the puppy has seen and what they haven't. All I can do is assume that it's going to be scared of just about everything. I've seen plenty of new puppy owners dismayed and bewildered because their puppy is apparently afraid of the world. Interesting. Corvus are you aware that we have added a new category which is sponsored by Canine Comfort [Fit fur life] to our Dog Owners Choice awards to cater for people doing this type of stuff to be nominated? Its a good way to get a bit of free publicity and let people know what you guys are up to. 29. Best contribution to Canine Science and or Research. Must be based in Australia.Sponsored by Visit My Website You can spread the flyers around and let students etc know and nominate via our website Visit My Website MDBA Dog owners Choice Awards sponsored by

You cant go into how many dogs a person can own or breed - because restricting that is a restriction of trade.You can restrict numbers in certain zones but you cant across the board. You cant dictate how many employees or carers a business will have per dog either. You can say what needs to be covered but its up to the business to arrange staff ratios etc in order to get that done appropriately. You cant say what will happen to a dog when its no longer wanted for breeding.You can say how it should be bumped off but if someone wants their dog killed humanely no one is ever going to stop that. Even rescue and pounds have the right to decide what lives or dies. You cant say where they can sell their product either for example via a pet shop or export - attempting to restrict that is also a breach of trade and ACCC laws take precedence. You may be able to say No live animals in pet shops one day but I doubt it . If thats do- able thats a very long way off without data to prove that its the dogs that go through that sale type that more often end up in pounds or that their suppliers are not doing the right thing by their dogs. If we are to have mandatory codes for trying to control puppy farmers and legislation directed at ensuring dogs which are kept for breeding don't suffer any more than they have to at puppy farms we need to all agree on what a puppy farmer is or we drop the term altogether and simply call every one who breeds dogs regardless or how many or how they do it a breeder. Then - and only then- we can move on because if we don't we run the risk that the unintended consequences ensure there are more - not less - large scale commercial breeders and less small breeders. Before we legislate on mandatory licenses and making breeders publicise their addresses we have to be sure the unintended consequences don't mean more of the less scrupulous large breeders going to ground,going after less supplies and vet treatments in order to stay hidden if we do as is suggested and make stockists and vets and buyers dob them in. We have to be sure that these things dont mean less small hobby breeders. Using an argument of "What have you got to hide " wont win any points with me either. I have nothing to hide and any one can find me and my address with in 2 seconds but there are many many reasons why someone wouldn't want everyone knowing their address.I could just see Pugrescue Sydney when it was running being happy about people just turning up day and night to see if she had a dog available. Go and have a look at the responses in the breeders forum to where breeders whelp their litters - in their homes, spare bedrooms, laundries and garages etc.even large scale breeders have a right to privacy and taking into consideration the safety of their dogs. Why on earth would they want to advertise where they live and leave themselves open to the risks associated with that.What have they got to hide? Their homes, their dogs and their families - that's all.

Some big puppy farmers are saying they do provide these things via their own family and employees. How much enrichment can you provide though if a dog lives its whole life except for 20 mins a day on concrete in a pen?

Well I don't agree with registries releasing info about breeders.

I think if a farmer with any kind of livestock had them in that condition it would be grounds to shut them down. Providing animals with enough food, for example, is one of the bare basics of animal care regardless of the species. Intensively farmed animals might slip through the cracks, but the fact is those industries are very production driven, so in a way they are self-regulated. No one wants a bunch of their chickens compromised in any way. It's a waste of money. I doubt my view will be remotely popular, but the way I see it there's not a lot in the literature on welfare and socialisation that would be much help. Until we have higher standards of welfare for livestock, dogs are in a relatively good position. I say the best way to tackle it is to improve welfare for livestock through legislation. As long as there are battery hens, pigs housed in tiny cages in the dark, and broilers with spongy bones, and mulesing, I think we are going to have trouble changing things for dogs. Sort of - except when you want to bring in laws which regulate every breeder as if they are producing massive amounts of puppies in an intensive land use situation and demand they comply with laws which interfere with their privacy and cost them money thats not necessary for licenses and the like just so the RSPCA knows where they are all you do is take the smaller breeder out of the picture altogether. More than anything I want to fight with the RSPCA to stop dogs being ill treated in puppy farms but seriously how could they honestly expect that anyone was going to back them in on a mandatory code for breeders which would make them list their addresses on the net and thats just one part of it that ordinary everyday hobby breeders cant say O.K. to. What on earth were they thinking?

Bloody hell it was much better when I was a mod and had a bigger in box! It seems to fill up over night but I would prefer emails because sometimes I dont get here every day and people get mad if I don't answer straight away.

I don't consider the owner to be the breeder in either of those two examples.

The why you breed is what carries the extra risks but it doesn't mean that one persons idea of a good reason to breed a dog is the only one. No matter the reason each carries with it identifiable risks. Someone who wants to breed a champion still has to ensure they cover the health and temperament and consider the impact on the gene pool. I personally know breeders who do very well at making champion conformation dogs but couldn't care less what happens to the other pups or how what they breed impacts on the gene pool. For most of them that comes about by ignorance - they think profiling a pedigree means looking for champs and nothing else but some simply hand the pups they don't want for showing to an agent to slip into Pets Paradise as if an unregistered breeder has bred them.There is one dealer who lives near me who has a thriving business spotting for purebred dogs which the registered purebred breeders don't admit to breeding for pet shops in Victoria.Some of these breeders are very high profile and well known in the show ring. Breeders who breed primarily for great pet puppies run the risk of over looking the need to take into account the breed standard so over time the quality of their pups deteriorates Breeders who breed primarily for a working dog couldn't care about how the dog looks as long as it does the job.Over time working dogs wont look much like the breed standard if its not something they consider in their selection. Someone breeding to make money runs the risk of over looking many things as they aim for their goal just as a show breeder does in their quest for a show dog but the test for all of them comes in what they are prepared to compromise on in order to get there. however, you cant over look the fact that throughout history farmers have been responsible for some pretty innovative solutions to keeping their animals in optimum breeding condition too in order to increase production and therefore profit. Aiming for primarily a profit might be O.K. as long as the breeder is prepared to take less profit in order to ensure the dogs are being bred without compromise on all of the things needed to make the dogs healthy and happy. If you only have to keep a dog producing for a 3 year period and then you don't need them anymore and its more cost effective to shoot them will you spend money on them you don't really need to in order to get puppies just to be sure she is living her best life while she does? Im very happy for breeders to make a profit - But when thats the only goal and they treat their animals like stock just as a farmer of any animal does and send their puppies off to market without any care for what happens to the babies or what impact any cost cutting has on them into the future as they go to new families- or the ones who have to live their lives in captivity worse than any battery farmed animal because its easier to clean or manage or more cost effective - that in my opinion is disgraceful and that goes for whether they are breeding purebred or cross bred. Any one can breed nice cute puppies,ship em off to market and put the profits in the bank and clearly some people will continue to do that. Registered breeders as well as any others are able to breed em, ship them to market and forget about them and thats the most cost effective way to manage them.After they leave the breeder they become someone else's problem. No difference to that and a commercial pig farmer or egg farmer. I get that this is a huge challenge for everyone who is involved in making sure animals don't suffer but I think the solutions tendered overlook several large issues and we cant keep making up possible solutions without listening to the people who are the stake holders. Breeders - big and small. A puppy farmer for me is someone who derives their principal income from farming dogs.

6 years ago when we started the MDBA we didn't want to restrict our members to only ANKC registered breeders so we did a whole pile of research on what breeders did that we felt was in the dog's best interests. The one thing you can bank on is that the basic difference is whether or not the dogs bred are placed on a registry for the purposes of being able to share and utilise information aimed at breeding consistently better dogs.that includes working breeds which are nowhere near wanting to be ever recognised by the ANKC. So we have some breeder members who are breeding dogs which are not yet a recognised ANKC breeds or who have no intention of ever going after being ANKC recognised. Someone who only ever breeds first cross dogs can never claim to be breeding for anything other than money. Every single dog is different to any other and the characteristics and management issues cannot be predicted with any confidence. - for example a lab cross poodle has potentially 68 different combinations to produce their coat characteristics. Its not about why you breed - if you want to breed to make money that in itself isn't a bad thing. However, it is about what you are prepared to compromise on in order to achieve that.

I agree - problem is my idea of sub standard conditions doesn't equal yours.

It will be the same if the mandatory code comes in the RSPCA are pushing for now.You cant blame them for trying but you can blame a government if they go with some of the things that are in there and you can blame dog owners for being apathetic and not beating their chest about it.

Am I correct in saying that if you get a dog de-barked and you are in victoria (once you've jumped through all the hurdles), you cant show it? I have no idea how all the breeders in Vic with 'talkative' breeds cope. No you can show it if you have jumped through all of the hoops. But even if you try to dodge it and cut across a border where regs are not as tough - if the dog has ever lived in Victoria before the op you cant show it. How would the judges know if the dog was debarked ??? The judges dont care.Its the state law not anything to do with Vic Dogs - The RSPCA investigate and raid you. The charge is cruelty to animals. Amazing. You alter your dog, under anaesthetic, in order to give it and everyone around you a good life and you're done for animal cruelty....report animal cruelty (real animal cruelty) to the RSPCA and you'd be lucky to even get anyone round there to have a look. Think they need to get their priorities sorted out Cant blame the RSPCA the government is responsible for introducing the laws and then the RSPCA are able to police it - Its stupid but you have to change the law not the policeman. Steve, wasn't the RSPCA's responsible for bringing the issue to the attention of the government in the very first place? The RSPCA should get their priorities right. I remember reporting a dog that was kept tied up to its kennel, only about a one metre long chain. They turned up at the place and came back with the report that there was nothing they could do given that the dog had water and shelter! So how was that dog better off living such a life in comparrison to a dog that has had its vocal chords cut and has all the freedom in the world? No sense of justice. Yes they were responsible for the push to bring it in but that doesn't excuse a government for stupidity or a population for letting it go unchallenged.

We had to bring in number 11 about 2 years ago after a near miss. We almost had a responsible pet owner breeding non registered dogs.