My suggestion is that breeders become responsible for their puppies for the entirety of their lives.
As in many states microchipping is currently compulsory, and it is likely to make its way into other states as time progresses, I think this is a great way to monitoring dogs throughout the entirety of their lives. All we would need is, in the microchipping database, for an additional field, ‘breeder’, to be added for every puppy. In this way, dogs are permanently linked to their breeder.
This means that, if that dog ends up into a facility (i.e. a pound), then the breeder can be responsible. If a facility fails to find the owner of an animal, the breeder would be contacted. The breeder would have the opportunity to receive the animal back (administration costs only), or else pay the facility a fee and allow the facility to receive ownership for the animal, and consequently rehome it (or otherwise).
I argue that this is a suitable solution as it would mean that:
- Responsible breeders have the opportunity to get back any animal that, unawares to them, ends up in unsatisfactory care.
- Breeders may be less likely to have litters if they are concerned that their puppies may cost them a fee if they end up in inappropriate care.
- Breeders will seriously consider the homes in which the puppies end up in, as securing a ‘forever home’ first up would ensure no fees later down the track.
- Pound-like facilities would also have monetary benefits as a result of this proposal.
I don’t believe tougher animal welfare standards are necessary. These standards are already adequate (though poorly enforced), and any changes to these standards only make things more demanding for breeders who recognise legislation.
I don’t believe additional licensing (of owners or of breeders) is feasible. There would be lots of administrative costs associated, and obviously there would be people who would ‘slip under the radar’.
The beauty of this suggestion is that, as far as I’m concerned, it is only unscrupulous breeders unconcerned with their animals welfare which would object to this proposal. As a future breeder, I would LOVE to have the opportunity to get any animal I bred back out of a pound-like facility and rehome them myself.
There would be no additional restrictions or legislation to be enforced, just an extra field to create on the microchipping database. Pound facilities would not have a hugely additional workload – instead of calling two phone numbers when a microchipped animal enters the facility, they would call three numbers.
The main kink in this proposal is that individuals would be able to sell animals which are not microchipped, as I am sure they currently do. There needs to be more policing of microchipping. This is a difficulty. One potential solution is to educate puppy buyers the importance of microchipping, and emphasising ideas such as “you wouldn’t buy a vehicle without a warranty, so why would you buy a puppy without a micrcohip?”.
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I think you have a mythical idea of what a breeder is and should be. This proposal is nonsense for the following reasons.
(1) You liken this to a warranty. Well if you investigate how warranties work in the greater market, they are basically an insurance policy that the customer pays up front for increasing the cost of all goods sold. They have no effect on improving the quality of the goods at all. They are simply a tax on the goods sold and the theory goes that only a fraction of the people who have faulty goods will redeem the warranty and those that don’t or don’t need to fund the replacement or repair cost for those that do.
(2) Having a warranty/insurance is something that a large firm does as a sales technique and which requires a large firm to do so as to spread the costs and liability over many customers. Hobby breeders will never breed enough to justify this expense. Only a factory farm style outfit has the volume to bargain for a decent rate on such insurance. I’d say that maybe something the size of a national kennel club might be able to poull this off, but in looking at the AKC, they do something similar except they sell out breeders and buyers by offering short term health care plans and taking kickbacks on the royalties.
(3) Your plan would end hobby breeding and leave puppy mills mostly unaffected. A puppy mill operation that could afford to comply with this law wouldn’t give one crap about their sold dogs. Some shelter calls and says we have one of your strays but we neutered it, pay us money to give it back to you, and the response would be “no.”. Why would they take back any of these animals? If they were forced to (and I’ve noticed that you seem to support such a coercive police state in your recent AR post as well) why would they not just kill the dog when they took it back to minimize the cost. They are in the business of selling puppies, not warehousing adults.
(4) A small time hobby breeder being profitable is highly dependent on the breed they are in. I doubt most breeders who aren’t mini-mills are actually profitable. This would just be an even larger burden. If it were made law, then breeders would have to defray these costs by raising prices and limiting their litters or going large scale to get economies of scale. This is basic Econ101. So again we are putting small timers out of business or driving them to become more like factory farms.
There’s more but this comment is long enough already.
Hi Christopher,
I’m a long time fan of your blog and I’m really flattered that you’ve stopped by to comment with such detail. Thanks so much!
The use of the term ‘warranty’ was used just as a proposed marketing pitch to try to get people to ensure that dogs they purchase are microchipped. It wasn’t in reference to the whole scheme that is outlined in this post. I don’t think warranties or guarantees are appropriate to living animals at all.
I’m very aware of hobby breeders and how ‘in the red’ their breeding enterprises are – I’m one of them! But I am also disappointed that, currently, if any breeder wanted to get back one of their dogs that ended up in a shelter or a pound, it is at that shelter/pound’s discretion if this wish is fulfilled. That is, if I found out that any of the pups I have bred (Monty, Bolly, Daisy, Boomer, Alfie, Roxy, Douglas, Gilbert, Chloe, or Jaffa) were in a pound, I have no means to acquire them back except if the pound chooses to. As such, this proposal is two fold: Not only do shelters get money from breeders who choose to let the shelter ‘deal with’ their dogs (yay for shelters), but breeders get to take their dogs out of shelters if they choose to (yay for ethical breeders).
However, you raise a good point: If breeders are ‘forced to take back their dog or pay’, there is no guarantee that they won’t do anything other than kill them. This is a flaw in the proposal.