Beacher fights for provincial puppy mill ban

When Dean Will met Cassie, his cairn terrier, she could hardly see him for all the matted fur covering her eyes. She had worms, her teeth were rotting and she was hobbled by long untrimmed nails curling under her paws.

Will says Cassie, who was raised with several other poorly kept dogs in a barn outside Colborne, Ontario, was half her current weight when he bought her. After vet visits and a special diet Cassie did bounce back, though she remains unusually small for her breed and in need of dental work.

Appalled by what he saw in Colborne, Will phoned an inspector who covers the area for the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA). He was told that Cassie’s breeder already had three prior convictions for animal cruelty.

“How can this person have three offences and still be operating?” Will asked. “God knows what’s going on in that barn.”

As a Queen’s Park staffer and former assistant on political campaigns, Will took his frustration to the Ontario legislature.

Working with fellow Beacher Barbara Nielson of the Cairn Terrier Club and Robin Hall of Westies in Need, he helped to gather 18,000 signatures – 3,200 in the Beach alone – on a petition calling on the government to ban puppy and kitten mills in Ontario.

In response, Ontario’s minister of community safety Madeleine Meilleur said new animal cruelty laws passed in 2009 do give police and OSPCA inspectors the power to protect animals from badly run breeding facilities. Meilleur also noted that Ontario cities have the power to license animal breeding.

But Will says the minister’s reply was little comfort, knowing that Cassie’s breeder is likely still mistreating animals.

“I wish the politicians could see what that barn smells like,” he said.

Scott Sylvia, an OSPCA inspector who works in the Toronto area, says police and the OSCPA do permanently ban irresponsible breeders from owning animals.

But before 2009, Ontario’s animal cruelty laws were “very antiquated,” he said. While Sylvia is not aware of the specific charges against Cassie’s breeder, he said there would be no way to ban her from breeding if she was convicted under the pre-2009 laws.

While the OSCPA’s 80 inspectors can be stretched thin, sometimes driving six hours to a call, Sylvia said they have had real success now that OSPCA inspectors are police-trained and Ontario’s worst animal abusers face permanent bans and a fine of up to $60,000 or two years in jail.

Cities have also stepped up their bylaws, he said, noting Toronto now requires all pet stores to source their animals from shelters and animal rescue operations.

As good as it is, Sylvia says Ontario’s legislation could still be better, and he welcomed Will’s petition.

Sylvia agrees that leaving breeding licences up to cities could create a patchwork across the province.

“It should be treated as any other business,” he said, with provincial standards for anyone who owns a breeding female.

While the term “puppy mill” conjures up images of big barns packed with abused animals, Sylvia said it’s far more common to see animals abused by someone with a single litter.

And lately, Sylvia said a lot of problems come not from breeders but from brokers who buy animals in rural areas and spend little money looking after them before they sell them anonymously on websites like Kijiji or Craigslist.

Sylvia’s top advice to would-be pet owners is to actually go and see where their animals are bred, as Will did with Cassie.

“If you can’t see where the puppies are being bred, there’s something wrong there,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re getting, and once you buy that animal it’s your responsibility.”