U.S.|Amish at Heart of 'Puppy Mill' Debate
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Amish at Heart of 'Puppy Mill' Debate
By Michael Decourcy Hinds
September 20, 1993, Section A, Page 12Buy Reprints
Amos K. Stoltzfus is one of the bearded, straw-hatted Amish farmers whose 19th-century life style has been romanticized nearly as often as the Amish's horse-drawn buggies have been pictured on postcards and photographed by tourists here in Lancaster County.
But animal-rights advocates, a bit nervous about challenging this popular image, have accused Amish farmers like Mr. Stoltzfus of breeding dogs in a cruel way and flooding the market with puppies that are sometimes maladjusted and sick.
Pennsylvania dog officers and humane agents say they have found many Amish breeders who violate health, shelter and sanitary standards for kennels. And a national humane society has called for a national consumer boycott of pet store puppies that come from Pennsylvania's commercial kennels, many Amish-owned.
The Amish, a reclusive Christian sect with roots in Germany, are by no means the only kennel operators who have been cited by the state. "Englishmen," as the Amish refer to most outsiders, have also been charged with violating state laws. Taking the Lead
But the Amish in southeastern Pennsylvania have taken the lead in dog breeding in the last decade, opening up a great many, if not the majority, of the hundreds of new commercial kennels in the state and, in the process, taking away business from Midwest breeders.
The Amish have previously had scrapes with the outside world when the biblical laws that govern their lives clashed with local zoning or building codes, but these plain-living, gentle people have never been accused of anything that goes so much against their reputation as animal cruelty.
The crux of this matter is again a clash of cultures. The Amish say they raise dogs much as they would any other livestock, restricting the dogs to small cages and killing the parents when they are no longer productive.
Animal-rights advocates say the dogs need more human contact because they are domestic animals that should be prepared for lives as family pets. And the idea of killing dogs when their breeding lives are over is repugnant to many dog lovers. State and Federal laws are silent on the moral questions, but they do mandate some things that some Amish consider unnecessary, like a minimum cage size. Dogs or Children?
"I personally think some of these animal-rights people are more concerned about dogs than their own children," said Mr. Stoltzfus, 56, as he gave a tour of his immaculate kennel behind a field of corn. Mr. Stoltzfus's 40 Doberman pinschers and Rottweilers, which are housed in a modern metal-clad building, scampered about their caged pens and barked ferociously.
He sees nothing inhumane about his methods of dog breeding. And he dismisses criticism that a commercial kennel like his produces puppies with behavioral problems because the big kennels cannot give the puppies sufficient human contact. He said he and his wife and two teen-agers work their 25-acre farm and spend time each day with the puppies, which number up to 25 at any one time.
Mr. Stoltzfus said he was not surprised that some Amish breeders have been repeatedly cited for badly mistreating their dogs: "You can have good and bad in any church." Boycott Under Way
The Humane Society of the United States, a nonprofit educational organization in Washington, first called attention to problems associated with mass-production breeding in Pennsylvania in 1991, when it called for a national consumer boycott of pet store puppies from Pennsylvania's "puppy mills," as the society calls them. The boycott continues, with uncertain effect, against Pennsylvania as well as against six other states with many commercial kennels -- Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma -- that the society had blacklisted in 1990.
Rachel A. Lamb, a humane society spokeswoman, said there were about 5,000 commercial puppy kennels around the nation that breed dogs in cages. They produce about 500,000 puppies a year. The female dogs are often bred twice a year and are routinely killed at about age 6 or 7, she said, and the puppies generally receive only minimal human contact and medical care. As a result, she said, the puppies may develop behavioral problems and health problems.
In Pennsylvania, the worst kennels have breeding bitches that are old or sick or have defects, said Thomas Bougher of the State Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement. "I don't like to pick out a particular group, but the Amish are a significant part of the problem," Mr. Bougher said. "Most people treat dogs as quasi-human, but a dog is the same thing as a chicken to them."
Last year, Mr. Bougher said, dog wardens in several southeastern counties closed down about 30 commercial kennels, including many Amish ones, when the owners refused to comply with state kennel laws.
Private agencies like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have primary responsibility for enforcing the state's anti-cruelty laws. They are understaffed, and they cannot inspect a kennel without the owner's permission. To obtain a warrant, the agent must show a judge probable cause.
Over the last few years, after humane societies filed charges of cruelty against several kennel operators, nearly all of the kennel operators have posted no-trespassing signs. "We're shut out tight as a drum," said Scott G. Barnes, chief humane agent for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in adjacent Chester County. He said that private and state agencies receive relatively few consumer complaints about the kennels because most do not sell directly to consumers, but wholesale their puppies to brokers for pet stores.
In March, Ms. Lamb said the humane society tried to draw attention to the related problem of canine overpopulation by calling for a national moratorium on breeding. The society asked all breeders to reduce or stop breeding for one year so the supply of puppies can catch up with the demand. Last year, humane societies across the country killed some four million dogs, including a million purebreds.
Commercial breeders in Pennsylvania say the boycott has had no noticeable impact on their business, and they have ignored the moratorium, saying they view the humane societies as nothing more than sanctimonious competitors. "All humane societies charge mandatory donation fees for their dogs, so they are a business," said Robert Yarnall Jr., a commercial breeder and chairman of the Pennsylvania Kennel Committee for Higher Ethics, a trade group. He said the group represents most of the state's 3,000 commercial dog breeders. Consumer Protection Urged
Pennsylvania legislators proposed laws this year that would address the most egregious problems by providing money for more kennel inspections and by providing some consumer protections. The consumer legislation, modeled after laws in eight other states, including New York and New Jersey, would require Pennsylvania pet shops to provide buyers with a veterinarian's health certificate. And should a puppy develop some genetic, parasitic or infectious illness, the pet shop would reimburse the buyer for non-routine medical expenses up to the price of the dog.
Mr. Yarnall also said that during the last two years his trade group began advising commercial kennels to restrict breeding females to once a year, instead of twice a year, and to socialize puppies.
But no matter how much Mr. Stoltzfus and others adjust their large-scale breeding practices, they will never appease people like Dotsie Keith, who raises Dalmatians in her Bucks County kitchen. "Puppies have to be picked up, fondled, hear the TV and the vacuum cleaner and see the cat walking around," said Mrs. Keith, who is a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Federation of Dog Clubs. "You can't raise puppies in cages behind barns."