| The Future of Dogs | |
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The Importance of Home Breeding |
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Dogs In the Year 2026 Note: Much of what follows may seem impossible if you're not in the middle of the fight. However all of the laws needed to create the situation I'm about to describe have been seriously proposed and nearly all of them are in effect in some places. Current trends give no reason to think they won't spread. The rest is just predicting how people will react as that occurs. The good news is that there are still pets in 2026. Not quite as many as twenty years ago, but most families that want a pet dog or cat do have one. However ... Only about one dog in three is legal. Legal dogs come from large scale commercial breeders and importers plus a handful of wealthy individuals who still breed dogs as a hobby. Because of the many demands the law makes of breeders (expensive licenses and 'puppy lemon' laws, strict liability for attacks by their dogs, socialization requirements, broad and detailed kennel and husbandry standards), legal dogs are too costly for most people to own: upward from $5000 for a pet shop dog. A 'sort of home bred' purebred starts at $15,000; maybe a bit less for an imported animal. (All prices guessed in 2006 dollars.)
Ownership of an intact dog requires a very expensive license, available only to licensed (usually commercial farm) breeders. All other legal dogs are sterilized. All are microchipped and tracked by the government from birth to a required vet-signed death certificate. The enforcement risks (what if your dog escapes, your ACO finds a bees' nest in your yard and reports you for poor care, or your vet turns you in for missing a required routine checkup) add to the fear factor and the cost of owning a legal dog. This is of course the future that the animal rights movement wanted for all dogs, on the way to completely eliminating pets. However, because Americans really do love dogs, the AR movement hasn't been able to get strong enough enforcement of the laws creating this grim 'legal' pet status to make it even close to 100%. The other two out of every three dogs now, are illegal. Most illegal dogs come from a vast cottage industry of "back in the woods" or "over there under the pile of boards behind the garage" very-small-scale illegal breeders. Who is this 'puppy moonshine' maker? Your neighbor, your aunt, or the guy who takes care of your car – and maybe all three. Because demand for pets has remained high but most people can't afford (or are afraid to own) a legal dog, even illegal puppies are expensive – a minimum of $1000 for a four-week old just-weaned pup with no shots, do your own worming. At these prices, people can make good money breeding a single litter a year, and they do, even though they don't have the required licenses, comply with the kennel requirements, microchip their puppies, report names of new owners, or any of the rest. They are thus completely outside the law, subject to severe penalties if they get caught.
The good news is that these breeders are willing to take the risk in exchange for the added income, so middle class folks can still have dogs; the bad news is that most of them don't know much about dogs or dog breeding. In theory, enforcement could be tightened to almost completely choke off the illegal dogs, but efforts by HSUS and friends to get even stronger laws and more money for enforcement seem to have stalled. We pay billions in tax dollars a year for a war on drugs that is only somewhat effective but there is no chance that we'll vote to spend that kind of money to stop illegal breeding, especially since most of us are getting our dogs from outside the legal pet system. In fact even most animal shelters don't want illegal breeding stopped. As was true in Los Angeles as early as 2005, illegal breeding has become a profitable cash crop for shelters nationwide. Every breeder bust yields perhaps $10,000 in shelter income for just a few hours work. Shelters seize and sell the dogs and they fine the breeder -- but not too big a fine or too many of the illegal breeders, because that would kill the 'crop.' No trial is ever necessary because illegal breeders are happy to plead guilty to a neglect charge carrying a $1000 fine and sign over their animals, rather than face required jail time for an illegal breeding conviction. Illegal dogs are nearly all mixes, although some do look like specific breeds and a few of the underground breeders claim that they use only purebred breeding animals. But no illegal dog comes with registration papers since registration requires enrollment in the government-accessible microchip data base.
It is still legal to breed dogs on residential property in most states but only people wealthy enough to be able to live in a properly zoned area, build a kennel that complies with commercial standards, and employ a kennelmaster to handle the licenses, paperwork, record keeping, and inspections do it as a hobby and only by importing nearly all their breeding animals. Naturally their puppies sell mostly to other wealthy folks. Next: 2026 Part II - Purebred dogs, Veterinary Care, Animal Welfare, and Enforcement |
