Bruce H
Well-known member
Every time I read about something like the Tennessee siezure Karlin just posted about, I think there has GOT to be a way to stop these mills. So far everyone seems to concentrate on the number of dogs that are kept. Unfortunately for breeders like myself, those numbers seem to run in the 5 to 10 dog range before laws that make it financially impossible for the small breeders kick in.
For whatever reason, an idea just hit me that may be equitable for the small breeders and yet make it tough for the puppy mills to exist. Maybe we should be concentrating more on the number of litters produced per year rather than the total number of dogs. If we do that, then it seems to me that automatically cuts the numbers of dogs that the mills have because it's not cost effective to have non-producing dogs.
The reason I have always been against looking at numbers of dogs is that it doesn't recognize how a kennel is managed. To show you what I mean, I'll use our kennel as an example (I can just see Kris' eyes rolling back into her head!). We produce 3 to 4 litters a year; I don't think that's an unreasonable number, given that Kris is a "Stay-at-Home Mom" for the dogs. So let's use 4 litters in my example.
We have 4 breeding age females to produce those 4 litters. We also have to think ahead to when those 4 girls will be too old to breed, so we have to keep 4 more girls (puppies) from our own litters or from other breeders. So far that's eight dogs in our house.
Then for the boys. We like to have at least 2 breeding age boys for our girls so we have the option of using our own rather than going outside for stud service. And, like the girls, we need a couple male puppies to take over when the boys get too old. So now we have 12 in the house.
Of course there's always a risk that we will have a dog or two that has to be taken out of the breeding program because of MVD, SM, or what have you. I won't add to the count for that. But the really tough one is how many of the retired dogs do we keep because we just plain can't bear placing them like we should. Right now we have 3 in that catagory, so the total is up to 15 :shock: (we actually have 16, but we have a retired girl who is being placed in a home as soon as the husband recovers from knee surgery).
So you can see how a kennel with a very modest number of litters per year can have a LOT of dogs. What do you guys think? Do you think having a limit on litters is a better idea? Do you see any holes in my idea? Of course all the laws in the world won't do any good if we don't have the manpower or the judges with the guts to enforce the law.
For whatever reason, an idea just hit me that may be equitable for the small breeders and yet make it tough for the puppy mills to exist. Maybe we should be concentrating more on the number of litters produced per year rather than the total number of dogs. If we do that, then it seems to me that automatically cuts the numbers of dogs that the mills have because it's not cost effective to have non-producing dogs.
The reason I have always been against looking at numbers of dogs is that it doesn't recognize how a kennel is managed. To show you what I mean, I'll use our kennel as an example (I can just see Kris' eyes rolling back into her head!). We produce 3 to 4 litters a year; I don't think that's an unreasonable number, given that Kris is a "Stay-at-Home Mom" for the dogs. So let's use 4 litters in my example.
We have 4 breeding age females to produce those 4 litters. We also have to think ahead to when those 4 girls will be too old to breed, so we have to keep 4 more girls (puppies) from our own litters or from other breeders. So far that's eight dogs in our house.
Then for the boys. We like to have at least 2 breeding age boys for our girls so we have the option of using our own rather than going outside for stud service. And, like the girls, we need a couple male puppies to take over when the boys get too old. So now we have 12 in the house.
Of course there's always a risk that we will have a dog or two that has to be taken out of the breeding program because of MVD, SM, or what have you. I won't add to the count for that. But the really tough one is how many of the retired dogs do we keep because we just plain can't bear placing them like we should. Right now we have 3 in that catagory, so the total is up to 15 :shock: (we actually have 16, but we have a retired girl who is being placed in a home as soon as the husband recovers from knee surgery).
So you can see how a kennel with a very modest number of litters per year can have a LOT of dogs. What do you guys think? Do you think having a limit on litters is a better idea? Do you see any holes in my idea? Of course all the laws in the world won't do any good if we don't have the manpower or the judges with the guts to enforce the law.
