The Minnesota commercial breeding licenses, which also apply to cat breeding operations, became mandatory on July 1, 2015 under a law passed in 2013. The BAH is responsible for the implementation of the law, which defines a commercial breeder as a person who possesses or has an ownership interest in animals and is engaged in the business of breeding animals for sale or exchange in return for consideration; who possesses 10 or more adult intact animals; and whose animals produce more than five total litters of puppies or kittens per year.
“We’ve been into this about six months now and have about 105 people fully licensed,” said Dr. Paul Anderson, who directs the program for the BAH. Only three of those are cat breeders. “We have a lot of folks that have two or three breeding females,” Anderson continued, “but they don’t meet the criteria for a license. So a lot of people are what we call hobby breeders,’ for lack of a better term.
“If they’re under (the criteria), then we do keep track of those people because that’s information we need, otherwise we’re always circling back on the same folks.”
The number of licensed operations is expected to double, Anderson said.
“Some people are waiting for us to find them; some legitimately don’t know,” Anderson said. “We’ve never done this in Minnesota ever. So there’s a learning curve and there’s a public information phase to this and we’re working very hard to get that word out and find the people we need to find.”
It doesn’t even come close’
Prior to 2013, Minnesota belonged to a minority group of states that had no regulations in place other than those enforced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Under the Animal Welfare Act, pet brokers or breeders who sell dogs to pet stores or over the internet are required to get a license that assures minimum standards of care. Hobby breeders are exempt from the USDA license, and defined as a breeder who sold the offspring of three breeding females or fewer.
“This is huge because now we have something,” said Nancy Minion, who drafted the bill for the Minnesota law, and co-founder and president of Second Chance Animal Rescue in White Bear Lake.
The fact that there was nothing before means the Minnesota law is “better than nothing,” said Dale Bartlett, spokesperson for the Humane Society of the United States. But “it doesn’t even come close” to going far enough to assure the well-being of the animals, Bartlett said.
“Any law is only as good as its enforcement,” Bartlett said. “Particularly in Minnesota with a brand new agency (enforcement program), there’s a tendency to not want to come down too hard on the industry for fear of backlash.”
When asked if the law would alleviate the concerns of those who classify dog breeding operations as puppy mills,’ Anderson said, “the law is what it is.
“What we’re tasked with is implementing it the way it was handed to us,” Anderson said. “We’re so early in the program and we certainly don’t have everyone on board yet. This first year, we need to locate folks not on board and teach everybody what they need to do.”
“I think it’s a good program. It will serve us in Minnesota and breeders in Minnesota.”
You need to do it right’
Pipestone County has at least a handful of dog breeding operations, including one of the largest in the state: Menning Enterprises, located a half mile north of Edgerton on County Highway 17.
Ron Menning and his wife, Kim, have around 500 breeding females. The last time the USDA filed a report on the company, they had 289 puppies on site. Menning said he was active in the passage of the bill that became the 2013 law and thinks it’s a good one.
“People get scared right away when they think they have to have a state license,” Menning said. “It is not hard whatsoever.”
Menning went through the Minnesota licensing program last summer.
“They’re looking to work with people,” Menning said. “They’re not trying to put you out of business. If you’re not doing stuff correctly, you need to do it. You need to do it right. If there’s something bad in the kennel, no ventilation, you’re not cleaning, you need to have your hand slapped and get on the right page.”
Menning’s father, John, started the company in 1968. The Mennings purchased it in 1977 and have grown the business to its current status, employing vet techs and a veterinarian. All his breeds, both large and toy, have runs. He said a rotation schedule allows him to exercise 100 females a day, and he spends $40,000 a year just to meet the USDA’s requirement for dental cleanings.
“Some people will still call us a puppy mill,” he said.
There’s just not a way to do that in a humane way’
Even before the Minnesota law was passed, Menning said the USDA requirements, like the dental cleanings, made it harder for just anyone to run a dog-breeding operation. Menning said the industry has changed “drastically” just in the past decade given
“The USDA has clamped down so hard, the backyard puppy mills are gone,” he said. “They’ve also gotten rid of a lot of good mom and pop kennels that have put the kids through college.”
The USDA requirements are not enough to weed out all the bad actors, making state laws necessary, according to proponents of commercial dog breeding laws. That’s why the Humane Society takes a stand against puppy mills on all possible levels, including supporting legislative changes, conducting investigations and litigation, and promoting public awareness and education. From their perspective, commercial dog breeding facilities are puppy mills, and puppy mills are dog-making factories where mother dogs spend their entire lives in cramped cages or kennels with little or no personal attention or quality of life.
“There’s just not a way to do that in a humane way,” said the Humane Society’s Bartlett. “They’re cash dogs. The worst of the worst are just churning out puppies as fast as they can without any concern for the mother or father dog.”
Belinda Donley, president of the Minnesota Pet Breeders Association, and a licensed breeder who lives in Park Rapids with 24 females miniature schnauzers, cairn terriers and a couple westies said that because they profit from their dogs, “we want that female to be as healthy as she can be.”
Donley also said there is a fundamental difference between a family pet and a breeding dog.
“These dogs never knew what it was like to be someone’s pet, sit on someone’s lap, roam a yard,” Donley said. “They don’t know what they’re missing and they live happy lives. Dogs get used to their environment wherever they’re at, whether it’s caged, whether it’s free.”
You just keep going until neither one of you like the bill’
It took eight years to navigate the bill through the lawmaking process under a difficult political climate. Minion and her coalition faced strong opposition not only from the commercial animal breeding industry, but the agricultural lobby that argued that if the state came in to regulate cats and dogs, the barns would be next.
“Over the years, you come up with a compromise and amendments and you just keep going until neither one of you like the bill,” Minion said.
One of those compromises was the allowance of the suppression of public records. The Minnesota BAH maintains a public list of the facilities that have been licensed. All other data, down to the locations of the operations, are specifically classified as private or nonpublic.
“So we’re not at liberty to share specific information on individuals,” said the BAH’s Anderson, even when they receive complaints or tips from the public. “We’re obligated to follow up on a complaint, but the frustration is we can’t share that information back.”
Minion said the suppression of data makes it difficult to know how some of the licensing guidelines are being met, or what the BAH may be finding at the operations they inspect.
Under the Minnesota law, each operation must pass a 26-point inspection that’s designed, as Minion wrote the guidelines, to assure the animals receive proper care. The guidelines pertain to the cleanliness and confinement spaces of the animals, their food, water, exercise and care standards, record-keeping and vet protocols. Practices such as periodic exercise, enrichment and positive physical contact are covered under those guidelines.
Since the inspection data isn’t public information, no one but the BAH inspector and the breeder know how the guidelines are being enforced. Anderson said they spend “a great deal of time talking with commercial breeders about these issues and discussing how they can meet these requirements. Each breeding operation is unique and the breeders have various ways of meeting the requirements. All licensed breeders have agreed that these things are important and have told us that they will comply with the requirements.”
Similarly, while the vet protocols are required to be written, they don’t specifically indicate the vet must physically inspect the animals. Anderson confirmed that it’s not required for the veterinarian to inspect all the dogs in the facility, but said “most veterinarians have insisted on regular visits and inspections as part of the agreement.”
Anderson said they’ve worked hard on the vet protocol part of the law, believing that whenever “we get vets involved to a more significant degree it always makes things better.”
He also emphasized that his agency did not write the legislation and is implementing it exactly as written.
Minion conceded that “any law can be made better.
“We need to see how it’s working and how it’s not,” she said. “Right now, we’re watching how it’s being implemented and we have some concerns.”
The Board of Animal Health is actively looking for commercial dog and cat breeders. If a person has a tip or complaint, contact Dr. Mike Curly, who is the BAH field veterinarian for southwest Minnesota, at 651-485-6401. They can also contact Dr. Paul Anderson, who heads up the program, at 651-201-6800.
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Editor’s note: The story has changed from the original version. After the publication of the story, Nancy Minion said one of the opinions attributed to her was misinterpreted pertaining to Menning Enterprises, Inc. and was clarified for the online version of this story.