Puppy Mill Fight Comes To Hartford

In the end, the core issue facing the pet industry is the care, quality and health of thousands of puppies shipped into the state and then sold to residents from one of the 16 commercial pet stores now operating in Connecticut. 

It is a big business. Leaders, lobbyists and employees in the commercial pet industry and animal advocates seeking a new business model for pet stores (sell dogs and cats from shelters and private breeders) came to Hartford yesterday to testify before a special legislative task force that will report its findings to the legislature next year. 

Possible legislation could restrict or ban the sale of commercially bred puppies and kittens in the state’s 16 pet stores. Branford’s All Pets Club is one of them. It has been the site of a number of protests over the sale of sick puppies. Click here for story.

The special task force held a second and final hearing yesterday where more than 40 people testified. The task force will decide whether to issue new legislation that will restrict or ban the sale of commercially bred puppies and kittens in the state. 

The legislators may need to find a compromise as they go forward over what is clearly an emotionally fraught set of issues that include jobs, interstate commerce, sales tax revenues and the health of puppies and kittens arriving in the state. Getting definitive data also turns out to be an issue, the hearing showed. One task force member suggested it was time for the pet industry to begin to police itself, to set standards by which the industry operates. The task force’s aim is to deliver a bill for the 2014 legislative session.

At the hearing a number of pet store owners and employees protested loud and clear that banning the sale of puppies in favor of in-state shelter dogs and cats and in-state breeders would put them out of business. However, other large pet stores, such as Petco and Pet Smart appear to be doing well selling shelter animals and not commercially bred dogs and cats.

Ed (Butch) Foucault (pictured), co-owner of All Pets Club on East Main St., testified at the hearing. He and his partner own four stores in Connecticut and he said he has 90 employees. Asked by one task force member if ​“pets drive the business,” he said, ​“Yes, I believe so.” Asked by another if he visits all 24 breeders he uses, he said: ​“I did seven breeders in four days.” His last visit was made three years ago. ​“It is not like driving through Connecticut,” he observed of the back roads of Missouri, Kansas, and other mid-western states where puppy mills are located. He testified the majority of the breeders he uses had no direct or indirect violations of U.S.D.A regulations.

Pet store owners testified that a ban would lead to job losses and loss of revenue from state sales taxes and local property taxes.

Breeder Violations

Karen Rasmussen, a Wilton resident who has studied the history of puppy store breeders who provide animals for sale, testified at the hearing about the statistics she has gathered in researching the topic for many years. 

She testified that after studying records available through the Freedom of Information Act or available at the state’s agriculture office, she reviewed 722 of Connecticut puppy store breeders ​“for which there were Certificates of Origin for 2012.” She said ​“381 of the 722 breeders violated the Animal Welfare Act. I was unable to find U.S.D.A licenses for 162 of the breeders.”

She told the task force that ​“I have provided a report containing breeder profiles that supply 12 of Connecticut’s pet shops. Breeders with violations are presented in some detail, along with U.S.D.A inspection photos when available. …Clearly we are not simply dealing with ​‘a few bad apples’ as the industry would like us to believe.’”

She said what she has seen over the years ​“are deceptive business practices from start to finish.” She asked the panel: ​“Do we trust breeders like those not to lie about the birth dates of puppies, to only ship out puppies who are truly the mandated 8 weeks old? Several examples show otherwise, including a broker our stores use.”

Lobbyists Step In

She directed her comments to Charles Sewell, a member of the task force who also serves as executive vice president of external affairs of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Committee; (PIJAC).

PIJAC, a lobbying group, worked hard to defeat a state wide ban on puppy mills during the last legislative session and instead of legislation this task force was created to first study the problems of the industry.

Sewell addressed Rasmussen, saying most of the stores that she cited at the first hearing held in October in Fairfield, had stopped using certain questionable puppy mills. 

At one point, he asked her: ​“What would you recommend we do?”

She noted that a representative from the Hunte Corp of Missouri was present at yesterday’s hearing. The Hunte Corporation, she said in a subsequent interview, is ​“the largest puppy broker in the country. They are not breeders. Stores call Hunte and Hunte contacts breeders all over the nation and then orders, processes and ships puppies on their 18 wheelers to stores across the nation.” 

Michael Stolkey, the director of corporate sales for the Hunte Corporation, told the task force his company was wrongly the target of ​“outright smear campaigns.” He noted the breeders’ conferences the company holds and described the company as a leader in pet care education. But he did concede there were problems.

“I think every puppy that’s sold, from any place, including shelters, should be coming from a U.S.D.A. licensed professional breeder,” and he included puppy mills in that category. ​“The holes in the system right now are because that is not necessarily the case,” he said.

Rasmussen was dubious. ​“You guys are the big guns. You are the front line. You should be more pro-active about getting these bad guys outta here,” she said to a round of applause.

She told Sewell: ​“I do think that coming at this from a variety of angles maybe we can fix the problem. But I don’t see selling puppies in stores as the solution.”

Sewell observed that ​“there is a supply and demand issue”…and that the pet stores are regulated.

Nicholson Testifies

Rasmussen suggested that the rescue and legitimate breeder community be brought into the discussion and she noted that a previous speaker, who turned out to be Lori Nicholson, former chair of the Dan Cosgove Animal Shelter, had compiled research that showed ​“there are currently 114 breeders (of the most popular breeds) with 729 puppies available within a 200 mile radius of Hartford.”

Nicholson, who sought unsuccessfully to have Branford’s Representative Town Meeting adopt the first ordinance in the state to ban commercially sold dogs and cats, ran into trouble with All Pets Club and with former First Selectman Unk DaRos after she implicated the town’s animal commission, which she then chaired, in a video that would ban puppy mill dogs from being sold in retail pet stores, including at All Pets Club.

DaRos said she acted without permission from the town. After the town attorney sent her a cease and desist letter to remove the animal commission’s name ​“from all material associated in any way with this Branford Says No organization,” she decided against airing the video. She later resigned as chair of the animal commission, saying she wanted to devote herself full-time to the issues before the legislative task force.

At the hearing yesterday, Nicholson told the task force that the humane sourcing of dogs ​“cannot be guaranteed by the pet store owner. Visits to kennels, although unverified, are stated as 3 – 4 years apart by pet shop owners.”

She also noted, as did others, that the U.S.D.A is not the answer. ​“There are approximately 105 inspectors’ nationwide inspecting over 10,000 AWA facilities (Animal Welfare Act)” across the country.” She said ​“they inspect once a year. Twice if corrections are mandated. Many times ​“no responsible adult is available for re-inspection.”

In the end, sick puppies mean high vet bills and often litigation for the families that adopt them. 

Diane Vigneau, one of the few veterinarians to testify, supported a ban on pet store sale of animals.

“As a society we have a responsibility to animals who are defenseless and dependent on us,’’ Vigneau said. But, she added, ​“The victims of sourcing puppies from mills are not only the dogs, but owners who acquire dogs with serious health issues.”

An Attorney’s View

G. Kenneth Bernhard, a lawyer and a former state representative from Westport, has looked closely at puppy mills because he has represented families who purchased seriously ill puppies at Connecticut pet shops. He told the task force that one time he had to go through 70 pages of breeders from one state to figure out where a puppy actually came from.

He noted the puppies were raised in ​“horrific conditions,” adding dryly that ​“most breeding facilities are either not inspected or are inspected so rarely” by the federal government ​“that it doesn’t matter.”

“There’s no sanctuary in the definition of a U.S.D.A. sanctioned facility because the standards are so minimal it doesn’t give me any comfort,” he said.

All Pets Club Supporter

That is not to say that Branford’s All Pets Club was without supporters.

Bella Petrosino,(pictured) age 11 and a student at Walsh Intermediate School, was one of them. She took the stand early in the day and read her statement before the task force. They smiled.

Actually Bella’s overall statement was delivered to some members of the media a day before the event. It came from All Pets Club’s lobbyist, The Kowalski Group.
 
​“Bella will tell the task force members how she and her friends will sometimes go to All Pet’s Club, and play with the puppies under the supervision of staff. Bella will say how she enjoys having this chance and that All Pets Club is a very clean, sanitary and caring place where the puppies are healthy and well-taken care of.”

And so she did.

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