“Pet store bans are unacceptable”

By an overwhelming margin, America’s dog and cat owners say the best way to crack down on illegal puppy mill operators is not to ban the sale of dogs and cats at local pet stores, as a handful of local communities have done, but rather to enact and enforce tougher breeder standards (67 per cent vs. 33 per cent). The Pet Leadership Council (PLC), a coalition of pet industry leaders championing responsible pet ownership, commissioned Harris Poll to conduct an online survey of more than 2 000 U.S. adults aged 18 and over to determine Americans’ views on puppy mill regulations. The PLC is lending its support to efforts to enact tougher breeder standards with more rigorous enforcement as well as taking a lead role in a lawsuit that challenges a pet-store ban in Phoenix in Arizona. “Puppy mills are an unacceptable problem. But pet-store bans like the one in Phoenix and more than 50 other communities across the country should be an unacceptable solution,” said Ken Oh, chairman of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council and PLC member. Oh noted that pet-store bans are inadvertently driving consumers to resources supplied by the very puppy mills that everyone wants to see brought to an end. Consumers in regions with pet-store bans are being forced to purchase from unregulated sources and there is an increase in underground – and unregulated – breeders flowing into communities.