Senator: Feds to beef up puppy mill inspections
May30
The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to spend $5 million hiring more inspectors and retraining the ones it already has to beef up the oversight of commercial dog breeders, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Sunday.
Durbin said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged the problems in a phone conversation with the senator following the release of a blistering inspector general’s report that takes the department to task for failing to crack down on recklessly run puppy mills.
“We’re going to change it,” Durbin said Vilsack told him. Durbin added: “That’s what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to hear somebody pushing back and saying it’s not true.”
Vilsack is a former governor of Iowa, which is one of the worst puppy mill states in the country.
Durbin made his comments at a press conference in Chicago, surrounded by a group of men and women who were holding dogs. He said that on Tuesday he’ll introduce a bipartisan bill to close the loophole the currently exempts breeders from abiding by federal standards. Nearly half of all dogs sold in the United States are peddled on the Internet. The Puppy Uniform Protection and Safety (PUPS) Act would also require that breeding kennels offer appropriate space for dogs and give them a chance to exercise daily. The bill is aimed at breeders who sell more than 50 dogs a year.
Durbin said he was struck by the gruesome details contained in the inspector general’s report. “If you saw the photographs of these dogs in this report, you would not believe it,” he said. “Some have been mutilated by other animals, some are infested by ticks, and it’s just a horrible, horrible situation.”
Here’s a clip of Durbin’s press conference: http://durbin.senate.gov/watchClip.cfm?clipId=c78cff0e-dfea-488b-b309-be85041e2e54