Puppy mills focus of local forum

A town meeting aimed at raising awareness about puppy mills in Iowa was held by Mary Lahay, founder and president of the Iowa Friends of Companion Animals Thursday at the Jasper County Community Center in Newton. Lahay spoke to the small crowd about the work, or lack there of, of the USDA regulating animal breeding kennels.

“It’s not their (USDA) top priority, food safety is, so it just doesn’t make sense that we put all of our eggs in their basket” Lahay said. “We’re not against breeding, breeding is fine, but not this.”

Iowa is home to more than 200 USDA-licensed and inspected large-scale commercial dog-breeding facilities, which is second in the nation, she said. In those facilities, 15,000-plus adult dogs are housed and of those facilities 41 percent were cited for violations to the Animal Welfare Act in 2013.

“Too many of these dogs never see the light of day and their feet never touch the ground,” Lahay said. “ Many puppies coming out of these kennels are sick.”

Inspection reports provided by the USDA indicate that many Iowa dogs continue to be mistreated, neglected and often die at the hand of their breeders, in part because there are not enough USDA inspectors to thoroughly inspect, document and enforce animal care standards in each kennel, Lahay said. Currently, there are three inspector positions in the state of Iowa with two of the positions filled. It was also reported that 32 percent of the inspectors were not reporting the inspections correctly.

Legislation developed by the organization — dubbed the “Puppy Mill Bill” — was passed in 2010 and requires the Iowa Department of Agriculture to perform complaint-driven inspections.

Currently, the organization is working on the SF 168 bill, which would, among other things, require that oversight of USDA dog-breeding facilities be shared with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. Among the top four puppy-producing state, Iowa is the only one that currently has no state inspection requirements of USDA-licensed kennels. The bill would also require seller disclosure, a remediation fund to help finance rescues, increase fees to cover costs and add a special small breeder status for breeders with three or fewer litters.

“If USDA when they inspect, if they encounter a situation that is violation of our animal cruelty act in Iowa, they don’t have to report that and they don’t have to follow up on it at all,” Lahay said. “They are not beholden to state level laws at all.”

The bill has passed in a senate commerce committee and has moved on to the ways and means committee. Currently there is no companion house bill, although it was attempted. Lahay said that she has the support of Rep. Dan Kelley and that Sen. Chaz Allen has not firmly committed to a side, but did report to the organization that he voted in favor of the bill in the committee.

“We kept it alive in the committee and I think there will be more discussion on it when it gets to the senate floor,” Allen said.

He said that he liked the idea of the bill but more discussion is needed as it moves forward.

Lahay worked in the medical device industry until 2008 when she learned about the commercial dog-breeding industry in Iowa. She decided to form two nonprofit animal-welfare organizations, Iowa Friends of Companion Animals and Iowa Voters for Companion Animals to address animal welfare issues found in many of the breeding kennels, commonly referred to as puppy mills.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com