In this episode, you'll learn

• What a puppy mill is, and why size isn't the test
• What a USDA license permits, and the loophole that lets a breeder with a thousand dogs skip licensing entirely
• How puppy mills reach buyers, and why every one of those channels keeps you away from the parent dogs
• Why the American Kennel Club lobbies against bills its own member clubs support
• What the numbers show about whether pet store bans push sales online
• How preemption bills work, and why the industry wants these decisions made at the state level
• Why a national campaign against puppy mills aims at pet stores instead of the states where the mills are

Key Takeaway

The most productive work against puppy mills is local. Ordinances passed city by city are what make state legislation possible later, and a small group of prepared advocates can carry one.

Episode Highlights

03:37 John defines a puppy mill. Ten dogs or 500, the size doesn't determine it.

06:29 Inside a North Carolina puppy mill during a sheriff's department raid, and the part of the experience no photograph carries.

10:03 What triggers a USDA license, and the loophole that lets a breeder with a thousand dogs skip it entirely.

11:28 What the license permits. Cage size, wire flooring for life, breeding every heat cycle, and the legal killing of dogs who stop producing.

15:20 Every channel puppy mills use to reach buyers, and the one thing all of them have in common.

18:53 Roughly 90 percent of AKC member breed clubs tell their breeders not to sell to pet stores. The AKC lobbies against bills that would prohibit it.

26:53 Start local. The advice John wishes someone had given him when he began.

30:03 California passed a statewide ban only after 36 cities had already done it.

35:01 Why 80 percent of licensed puppy mills sit in seven agricultural states, and why John set those states aside.

Resources Mentioned

• The Horrible Hundred report, Humane World for Animals
• Humane World for Animals, Stopping Puppy Mills
• Victoria's Law in PA
• The Four C's of Legislative Advocacy for Animals (free audio series)

 

Related Episodes:

Designer Dogs, Shelter Dogs, and the Small Shift That Would Save Lives

Unlicensed Breeding and Shelter Overcrowding: A Novel Legislative Approach

Bad Dog Breeders: Spot Them to Stop Them

 

Transcript

Penny Ellison [00:00:00]:

Several years ago, a family member of mine bought a puppy. She did what a lot of people do. She Googled the breed she wanted, landed on GreenfieldPuppies.com, one of the biggest puppy listing sites in the country, and bought a puppy from a breeder advertised there. When I found out and told her where the puppy most likely came from, she looked at me and said, what's a puppy mill?

That knocked me back. I've taught animal law in Pennsylvania for 20 years, and puppy mills draw more questions than any other subject I cover. Pennsylvania lands on the Horrible Hundred list year after year, including this year. And someone in my own family had no idea what the term meant, or that she had bought from one.

Welcome to The Animal Advocate, where we arm animal lovers with the information and inspiration you need to become effective advocates. I'm your host, Penny Ellison, and I've taught animal law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006. If you've ever thought, someone should do something about that, I'm here to guide you on your journey to being that someone. You can find us on the web at animaladvocacyacademy.com, and that's where you'll find show notes and resources, and you can send us your comments on episodes and ideas for topics you'd like to hear on future shows.

So, on to today's topic. So, puppy mills. You've been asking for this topic, and today we're going to the source, because my guest is John Goodwin. He runs the Puppy Mills Program at Humane World for Animals, formerly known as the Humane Society of the United States. His full title is Senior Managing Director for Puppy Mills and Equine Protection, and he knows his stuff. His team publishes that Horrible Hundred list, the annual report on the worst dog breeding operations in the country, and they've helped pass pet store sales bans in more than 500 communities and counting.

We start with the basic question: what is a puppy mill? Then we get into it. What are the conditions really like inside one? Because John's been there. How do these operations reach buyers, so that we can educate people to know when they might be buying from one? And they're supposed to be USDA licensed, so what does that mean? Does that give you any comfort? And then the question I most wanted John to answer: what puts them out of business? He decides where a national campaign against this industry aims its resources, and he makes a clear and strong case for where the rest of us should be aiming ours. Here's my conversation with John, then let's get to work.

So welcome, John. I'm really anxious to talk to you about this topic, because teaching animal law in Pennsylvania, I probably get more questions about puppy mills than anything else. As you know, from your position, you released the Horrible Hundred list of breeders, and Pennsylvania is usually prominently featured. I see in 2026, we're still on it.

Maybe we can start out, since everybody tosses around the term puppy mill but doesn't necessarily know what it means, let's start out with a definition. How do you define puppy mill?

John Goodwin [00:03:37]:

A puppy mill is generally a commercial dog breeding kennel where the needs of the dogs are not being met. It's basically a factory farm for puppies, and they come in many shapes and sizes. There are puppy mills with 10 dogs, and there are puppy mills with 500 dogs. There are puppy mills where dogs are stacked up in cages on top of each other. There are puppy mills where the dogs are on the ground, and they have a little doggy door that takes them out to a small kennel run. But they all have one thing in common, in that they're not the kind of place where you would want to leave your dog when you go on vacation, because they're places filled with misery and deprivation.

Penny Ellison [00:04:18]:

Wow. So the definition that I've often heard is, you know, they're people who breed dogs and put profit over the welfare of the dogs. And that sounds like pretty much what you're describing.

John Goodwin [00:04:30]:

Yeah. And I heard another person refer to that as wealth over welfare. Basically, the dogs are commodities. And in fact, a lot of the puppy mill owners will even refer to their dogs as livestock, which is, I think, shocking to most people who are acquiring a new puppy for their home. They don't think of their puppy and their puppy's mother as being livestock. Now, of course, we believe in the protection of all animals, including animals that are classified as livestock, but still, to describe a dog in that way, I think, really does show the mindset of the folks who are doing this.

Penny Ellison [00:05:07]:

I've definitely heard Pennsylvania breeders refer to it that way. Now, this is what we do with the chickens. And in fact, many of them started with chicken coop type housing for dogs, right?

John Goodwin [00:05:17]:

Yeah. Oh yeah. In the post-World War II era, 1940s, 1950s, that's when factory farming really started to take over American agriculture. And a lot of small farmers were being put out of business because they had small operations, they couldn't compete with the economy of scale that the factory farms had. And so the USDA promoted to a lot of these farmers to take their converted chicken coops or converted rabbit coops and turn them into what became puppy mills. And so that's really how this started to be.

Penny Ellison [00:05:50]:

Yes, I've heard that as well, that the USDA encouraged it as sort of a different kind of crop that you could make money from.

John Goodwin [00:05:58]:

Yeah. Alternative crop, alternative revenue. Yeah.

Penny Ellison [00:06:03]:

So we're talking about what a puppy mill is, but I also want to give people a vivid picture. So can you talk about a puppy mill that you've seen? Because I've seen a lot of still pictures of puppy mills and, you know, they are shocking enough, but I bet you've visited puppy mills in person that really helped you get the resolve that you have to fight them.

John Goodwin [00:06:29]:

So when you look at the pictures or the videos of puppy mills, of course, what you're focused on is the visual conditions. What you can't experience is the smell, or the feel of the ammonia in your lungs and how it makes you feel physically ill.

There was a puppy mill in North Carolina where the sheriff's department asked us to come in and assist them. They were raiding the puppy mill and they needed a large organization that could take all the dogs, because their local shelter, you know, it's a rural county, smaller shelter, and there were so many dogs. And they were largely little teacup poodles.

And I remember being in there. First off, I was in the cinder block building where they had a lot of the dogs. And I'm not on the rescue team, so I'm not going on these sorts of things constantly like they are. I had to go outside every 5 minutes to get fresh air because I was getting ill from the ammonia. Now think about a dog whose sense of smell is so much better than mine, how they must feel.

And the ammonia fumes were so thick that I was picking up puppies, or, well, gosh, they weren't puppies, they were adult dogs. They were teacup poodles, so I'm picturing in my head a dog the size of a puppy. So I'm picking up these little poodles, hold them up against my shirt, you know, so they're comfortable and feel comforted. And then I'm walking them down the driveway to where we have the veterinarians doing the triage and all that. Carried about 5 or 6 of them. I noticed my shirt is damp. That's how thick the ammonia fumes were, that I had urine on my shirt from the fur of the puppies just by carrying them down a driveway.

And, you know, those poor little guys, I remember they would get excited, just spin in circles, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, couldn't do anything else. But we set up a temporary animal shelter. So, you know, we've got a rescue team that goes in, they've got these big, big kennels, and they'll get in a nice warehouse we rent, clean. I went to dinner a couple hours, let them set up, let the dogs get fresh air. And then I went to the temporary facility after dinner and they looked so happy. Even though they'd only been out of that puppy mill for 4 or 5 hours, and they were still in kennels, albeit much bigger ones, but they're still in kennels, they had fresh air.

Penny Ellison [00:09:00]:

But they could breathe. Yeah.

John Goodwin [00:09:02]:

They could breathe. And, you know, you just don't pick up on that when you watch the video. You can't experience that unless you're there.

Penny Ellison [00:09:10]:

Wow. That's a pretty vivid picture. So now that we have that picture, let's talk about what we can do about it. We talked about the USDA, so let's talk about licensing. You know, we don't use a particular number of dogs to define puppy mill, but these operations generally are big enough to require licensing by the USDA, right?

John Goodwin [00:09:36]:

That is correct. And when you walk into one of these puppy-selling pet stores, they'll oftentimes use, these dogs come from breeders who are USDA licensed, as part of the sales pitch. And most consumers don't stop to think, hmm, Granny down the street who has one litter of pugs a year doesn't need a USDA license. What exactly does that mean? Well, it means you have to be of a certain size in a commercial operation. That's what it means.

Penny Ellison [00:10:00]:

What is the minimum size for a USDA license?

John Goodwin [00:10:03]:

So there are 2 components to this. Number one, the breeder has 5 or more breeding female dogs, and some of their customers are buying the puppies sight unseen. Now let me explain what that means. If you buy a puppy through a pet store, or you order a puppy online who is delivered to you, you're never meeting the breeder, and so that's referred to as sight unseen. And so any breeder who has 5 or more breeding female dogs and sells through one of those mediums has to have the USDA license.

Now, there's a significant loophole, though. You could have 1,000 dogs, but if you sell all of them through Craigslist, the side of the road, in a flea market booth, and none of the puppies are shipped to someone else who you never meet, then all your sales are done face-to-face, and you don't need that USDA license. That's a significant loophole.

Penny Ellison [00:11:01]:

It sure is. But I also want to focus on what does licensed mean? Because you're right that it's like humane washing, in the sense that they put that on the pet store kennel to give people a level of comfort that, hey, this came from an inspected facility, and you're supposed to read into that that it meets a certain standard and the dogs are getting what they need. What standard do they really have to meet for the USDA?

John Goodwin [00:11:28]:

They have to meet a survival standard. Now, it's better than nothing, because at least a USDA inspector will go into these kennels and, provided they're doing their job the right way, they'll identify a dog who has a prolapsed rectum and needs to be taken to a veterinarian immediately. They might identify a problem like that. And they might identify small problems that, if unattended to, could fester and become big problems.

But it is a survival standard at best, because a USDA-licensed breeder can legally keep dogs in conditions that are so abhorrent that if you or I did it, the sheriff would be knocking on our door. What do I mean? Well, let's talk about cage size. Under the USDA regulations, you can keep a dog in a cage that's only 6 inches longer than her body. And remember, these are animals that are going to be there for years. That's torture in my mind.

You can keep a dog on coated wire flooring her entire life. Her paws might never touch a blade of grass, and that often leads to cysts between their toes and other discomfort. The dogs are bred every heat cycle. A puppy mill owner is not going to miss out on a heat cycle, because that's their bread and butter. So they'll breed them, breed them, breed them, breed them, breed them until their bodies wear out. They can even kill the dogs when they're no longer productive breeders, and that's completely legal.

So on the one hand, I'm glad that there's some regulatory framework so that certain veterinary issues, for example, can be identified. My gosh, if someone gets cited for overcrowding, considering how small the cages are allowed to be, I'm glad someone's there to cite them. But the standards are woefully inadequate for meeting even basic animal welfare needs. Now, they're supposed to prioritize the kennels that are not even complying with the existing regulations. And, you know, there's logic to that.

Penny Ellison [00:13:21]:

Survival, like you're saying, the existing regulations are just survival. That tomorrow you're likely to go out and the dog will still be alive, but it could barely be able to move.

John Goodwin [00:13:31]:

Well, that's true. That's true. That's 100% true. I mean, they are survival standards at best.

Penny Ellison [00:13:39]:

I'm sorry, you said they're prioritizing inspecting the facilities that don't even meet that survival standard. That means that if they come in and they fail an inspection, they don't necessarily lose their license or stop breeding dogs.

John Goodwin [00:13:51]:

You usually have to get cited a lot before you lose your license. Now, I will say that in the last year, they have revoked, I know of about 10 people that were in our last Horrible Hundred where they have gone out and taken some sort of action, whether it's revoking a license or some sort of litigation. That's been a little bit of renewed thrust on enforcement.

But you can be completely compliant, never get a citation, never run afoul of what the USDA regulations are, and keep your dogs in conditions that are clearly cruel. Caging a dog is cruel. I'm not talking about keeping a dog in a crate for 3 hours because there's some sort of medical issue or something. I mean, we're talking about years at a time. Of course, they'll get out to be moved to a whelping pen when the mother's giving birth, but it's a caged environment. And considering how minimal the size requirements are, it's pretty bad.

Penny Ellison [00:14:55]:

It sounds like livestock farming. So let's talk about, people that are listening, probably most of them don't buy dogs, but they might, and they might have friends that buy dogs, and they want to make sure that they're not buying from a puppy mill. I want to talk about how puppy mills sell their dogs, and how people can tell this is a puppy mill dog, because they certainly don't advertise them that way.

John Goodwin [00:15:20]:

I'll go through the main mediums that puppy mills use to sell to the general public. First, let me just say there's one thing that all of these outlets have in common. They all keep the consumer far away from where the parent dogs live. That's the fundamental difference.

So when we talk about responsible breeders, those are people that are gonna meet you in person, show you the mother dog, ask you questions, make sure that the puppies they're breeding will fit your lifestyle, that they'll fit your family well, and make sure that it's the right fit, etc., etc. Puppy mills are glad for anyone to buy their puppies. Most puppy mills sell either through pet stores, websites where they'll ship the puppies, flea markets, roadsides, parking lots, and then a lot are also sold through sites like Craigslist, sites that kind of replace the classified ads in the newspaper.

Penny Ellison [00:16:20]:

Right.

John Goodwin [00:16:21]:

So, you know, you look, oh, look, puppy for sale, and you just have no idea who you're dealing with. I mean, it's kind of like that person you might chat with on the internet. You have no idea who that is. You have no idea.

Penny Ellison [00:16:32]:

You have no idea what that picture is, that picture of a puppy out in a green field. Or I've heard stories of the same puppy being pictured for years.

John Goodwin [00:16:42]:

Oh, they steal photos from each other all the time. And now, of course, if you've got a relatively new laptop, you're going to have Copilot or something on there. You can create an image in like 10 seconds. So you just really can't trust that kind of thing. But sometimes the puppy mills will say, well, we'll do FaceTime. And you can see, okay, but listen, if I lived in a dump, I could show you the corner of the dump that doesn't look like the dump.

Penny Ellison [00:17:11]:

Yeah, that makes sense. In fact, what you just said made me think that maybe there's a positive development here, because I used to always warn people, when you go to Greenfield Puppies, Lancaster Puppies, you are not seeing pictures of how these puppies are really raised. I think people had a harder time getting used to that idea. Now that everybody's used to AI, they can immediately say, well, is that photo real? I think it's almost an advancement that it makes people question.

John Goodwin [00:17:39]:

That's a good point. There's a different approach, too, that companies like Petland and some of the other puppy stores have used to manipulate people. When you go into some of these stores, they'll have a couple flat-screen TVs up above the kennels or the little glass display cases, whatever they're calling them, and they'll have videos playing of dogs running through lush green fields. They'll say, oh, these are our breeders. This is where the puppies come from.

You'll notice a couple things if you have the observing eye and you know dogs. Number one, those videos are very, very carefully edited so you're not seeing where the dog lives. And number 2, anybody who has a couple dogs in a backyard that's fenced in, where they can go out there and run around and play, your grass doesn't stay that perfect very long if you're letting your dogs get out very much.

Penny Ellison [00:18:33]:

So you mentioned Petland.

John Goodwin [00:18:35]:

Yeah.

Penny Ellison [00:18:36]:

You mentioned Petland, and I know they're sort of, I guess maybe your nemesis, because they're the biggest pet store chain that is still selling puppies that are sourced from puppy mills? I mean, maybe I back up a second and say, do any responsible breeders sell through pet stores?

John Goodwin [00:18:53]:

Absolutely not. No responsible breeder will sell through pet stores. Here's an interesting thing. The American Kennel Club, the AKC, of course, I think one of their slogans has been they're the dog's champion. They're not the dog's champion. They're the puppy mill's champion. They're basically a trade group for puppy mills at this point.

Penny Ellison [00:19:11]:

[reaction — check audio]

John Goodwin [00:19:12]:

Yeah, because they lobby against everything we do to try to crack down on puppy mills. That said, the AKC is a club of clubs. They're made up of breed clubs, the Yorkshire Terrier Club, the Pug Club, the Rottweiler Club, etc., etc. About 90% of those breed clubs have in their code of ethics that their breeders should not sell to pet stores. And then AKC turns around and lobbies against legislation to stop the sale of puppies in pet stores. Total disconnect. There's a disconnect between what they do and what the codes of ethics of their member clubs say.

Penny Ellison [00:19:42]:

Yeah. They came in when we were passing the moratorium on unlicensed dog breeding in Philadelphia. The AKC came in strong against it, even though, as you say, if you want to get a license, you'd still be able to breed. So they were really defending the people who weren't willing to get a license. And because in Pennsylvania, we license them separate from the USDA, and anyone can get a license. So it was shocking to me. It shouldn't be shocking anymore, to see them coming in on behalf of people who don't want to get a license.

John Goodwin [00:20:09]:

Well, they tend to take very extreme positions. I can give you a horrible example. It's just a disgusting example. So we have a staffer who spent a number of years getting laws passed in a lot of states to criminalize animal sexual abuse, or bestiality, and the AKC opposed some of the bills that she put forth on that. And the reason was because of artificial insemination and certain acts that are conducted in the process of doing artificial insemination.

Penny Ellison [00:20:43]:

Which you could easily exempt, but—

John Goodwin [00:20:44]:

That's exactly my point. What you're supposed to do if you're a rational actor is come to the bill sponsor and say, I'd like a friendly amendment, completely support the goal of what you're trying to do here, everyone should be against bestiality, we'd like an amendment to make sure this doesn't apply to collecting materials for artificial insemination. Instead, they just oppose the bill.

Animal fighting paraphernalia. They've opposed legislation to prohibit the possession of animal fighting paraphernalia because, rather than work out the context of when a dog might legitimately exercise on a treadmill as opposed to when it's being used to condition a dog for dog fighting, they just wanted to oppose, oppose, oppose. And it's mind-boggling why an organization that claims to care about dogs would just take reactive positions instead of getting into the nuance a little bit to come up with good policy to protect animals.

Penny Ellison [00:21:36]:

That would be nice. Hopefully we will see that in the future. I have not seen it yet.

So I guess in terms of the public knowing when they're buying from a puppy mill, one way is, you walked into a pet store. If you're in a pet store, you're probably buying from a puppy mill.

John Goodwin [00:21:51]:

You probably are.

Penny Ellison [00:21:52]:

Yeah. What about online?

John Goodwin [00:21:55]:

You probably are. I would say that responsible breeders want to know where their puppies are going. Responsible breeders will agree to take your puppy back if something happens in the future. They're supposed to love the offspring of their beloved dogs. I think responsible breeders do feel that way, and they want to be ready to help any dog who they helped birth. That's not going to happen when you order a puppy off of Lancaster Puppies or puppies.com or PuppySpot or any of those sorts of websites.

Penny Ellison [00:22:27]:

But if you find your next pet by Googling golden retriever puppies, that's exactly where it's going to send you.

John Goodwin [00:22:33]:

Yeah, that's exactly where it's going to send you. And listen, I understand that people are busy and the shopping environment's changed and people are used to packages being delivered to their door. But I would just say to anyone listening that might acquire a dog that way, or anyone who's talking to a family member or friend who might want to acquire a dog that way, remind people, you're beginning a 12 to 15 year commitment when you acquire a puppy.

So if you're going to make such a commitment, to bring this living being in and provide good care and have this animal incorporated into your family, become a family member, it's okay to take a little time to research. If you're skipping shelters and rescues, let's say you've got your heart set on an 8-week-old Yorkshire Terrier and that's just what you gotta have, it's okay to research. It's okay if you have to drive for 4 hours to meet the breeder, because you're making a 12 to 15 year commitment. It's really a small investment in the big picture.

Penny Ellison [00:23:37]:

Well, that's good advice, because I do want to get into what we can do. We don't want these puppy mills to exist anymore. I see everybody online saying, well, the first thing we should do is ban puppy mills. We have federal, state, and local involvement in this issue. So maybe we want to start at the top. I know you attended a meeting at the White House. Do you see anything happening at the federal level?

John Goodwin [00:24:02]:

A little bit. There's been a little bit more enforcement of the existing regulations. There have been a few more licenses that have been revoked, so that's a good thing. So I do think that there's been a little bit of progress on that front. Unfortunately, the Trump administration released a list of proposed rules that we can expect to see from various federal agencies over the next, I think it was up to 6 months or something like that, and there wasn't anything in there pertaining to puppy mills. So we were disappointed about that.

I will say that when someone says, why don't you just ban puppy mills? Well, the issue is, how are you defining that? Because to ban something, you have to have a tight definition. And you don't want to define it in a way that's so tight and narrow that a bunch of places that are doing bad things are completely off the hook, because then they can say, look, legally, we're not a puppy mill. This is a legal operation. That could be counterproductive. You don't want it to be—

Penny Ellison [00:25:01]:

I think, as somebody who's written statutes, I don't know how I would define puppy mill that would be the perfect bright line to exclude everyone you wanted to exclude and include everyone you wanted to include, because it's not on a number of dogs. Because if you try to say you can't have more than X number of dogs, then you just have a bunch of facilities in a row that each have the maximum number of dogs. You just can't do it.

John Goodwin [00:25:22]:

Yeah, I've seen dog fighters do that, where they would maybe live in a city and they didn't have enough room to have a whole bunch of dogs out on those big logging chains, so they'd have kind of like satellite operations. Buddy over here has got one, buddy over here has got one. So that can definitely happen.

I think the best thing we can do is, number one, try to eliminate the sales outlets that are predominantly used by puppy mills. That's the first thing. And number two, dramatic upgrades to the standards of care of the dogs in puppy mills. And I'll say, in 2015, we submitted a rulemaking petition to the USDA that called for 10 significant reforms to their commercial dog breeding standards. And this was not an ideal list. We went with what was possible. If they had done everything we'd said, we still wouldn't really be where we need to be. It would just be better. But it was completely realistic, in hopes they would do something. No response. No response.

Penny Ellison [00:26:23]:

I think everybody has a frustration with, if this is something that's controlled at the federal level, I probably can't do anything about it. We would love to see the USDA raise the standards, and we'd love to see them enforce the standards with meaningful penalties that aren't just a slap on the wrist, or we'll come back another time. But if we assume that we, as advocates, probably can't get that done, we rely on HWA and organizations like that to get that done, what can we do at the state or the local level?

John Goodwin [00:26:53]:

Well, when I became an animal advocate a long, long time ago, I was still in high school, and I wish someone had given me the advice I'm about to give animal advocates. There's a lot of advice I wish people had given me back then, because I think I spent about a decade making mistakes every day. But local action. Start local.

Like, I immediately got into this, the first thing I wanted to do was the fur industry, and I was like, I'm going to take down the whole fur industry nationwide. I wish that I had had a little bit less ambitious goals, more realistic goals, to focus on my local community, doing things in my local community, things that are within my control where I can make an impact. And a lot can be done at the local level.

Animal advocates in Pennsylvania and other states have been going city by city, municipality by municipality, for example, getting ordinances passed to ban the sale of puppies in pet stores. Humane World for Animals, we've worked with Revolution Philadelphia and some other really wonderful organizations around the state. A really great group of activists in Pennsylvania, and in other states as well. And so much can be done at the local level, and that leads to state reform, which leads to national reform.

Penny Ellison [00:28:06]:

You are speaking my language, and that is exactly why I started this podcast, because I want people to feel like they can make a difference. And in your community, you can. Your commissioners, whoever is your local governing body, they don't have a big constituency. A group of 10 people that comes forward and wants this can really make a difference.

John Goodwin [00:28:28]:

You think about if you're a staffer in a congressional office, and then compare that to being a staffer in a city council office. Congressional office, first off, you're representing about 800,000 people, and you're getting those form emails by the thousands every day, from every interest group, from every issue, every cause. City council, you probably sit there for 4 hours before an email comes in from a constituent. And you might hear some stuff about the pothole and the schools and the police and the fire department, the things that are kind of the core city council functions. But these sorts of social issues, you're really not hearing from anybody.

And so when a grassroots advocate takes the time to get polished, practice making the pitch for why they should pass an ordinance that prohibits the sale of puppies in pet stores, maybe stops using animals in dissection, maybe stops cruel circus acts, whatever it is, they're going to stand out, because not many other people are going in there to have those conversations with city council.

Penny Ellison [00:29:36]:

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think what you said is also true, and I've seen it here, is that something that you might have trouble passing at the state level, particularly in an agricultural state like Pennsylvania, you can start getting passed at the local level. And as those pockets of local laws change, you can build the momentum to go to your state capitol and say, here are all the cities in our state that already are in favor of this.

John Goodwin [00:30:03]:

Oh, I'll give you a perfect example. And now, this isn't a state necessarily known for being agricultural, but there was a time when I think we would all be shocked that an entire state would ban the sale of puppies in pet stores. Now there's a bill on the governor's desk in Delaware he's going to sign soon that would make them the 10th state to ban the sale of puppies in pet stores.

Well, the first state to do that was California, only after 36 cities in California passed these ordinances. Once we had the big cities, LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland, San Diego, all the ones you know, plus a bunch of smaller ones, then we were able to go to the state legislators and say, look, two-thirds of the population in this state already lives in places that have this law. The sky hasn't fallen. It's been good. Then they're like, okay, we'll do it. So local led to state.

Penny Ellison [00:30:54]:

And that's a great example. And it illustrates why, because you can take some of the fear out. A lot of the opposition to the laws that we want sort of catastrophizes what will happen. You'll ruin the economy and blah, blah, blah. And when you can say, hey, it's already happened, like you said, and the sky hasn't fallen, it really deflates those arguments.

John Goodwin [00:31:13]:

100%. Those were key arguments for us to make.

Penny Ellison [00:31:19]:

So in Pennsylvania, for years we have had Victoria's Law pending, which is the ban on the retail sale of puppies here in Pennsylvania, puppies and kittens. And we had a hearing on that in the last 6 months, before the Consumer Affairs Committee of the legislature. And there was testimony in favor of it from advocates, and there was testimony against it from the industry and from the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association. So the PVMA also opposes this bill. And their rationale is, well, if you prevent pet store sales, then you're pushing everybody online, and there's no regulation in the online world, so that's even worse. So how do you respond to that?

John Goodwin [00:32:09]:

So first off, the talking point is 13 years out of date, because the puppy mills that sell over the internet have been regulated under the exact same USDA regulatory framework as the puppy mills who sell through pet stores since 2013. So that's just factually wrong.

Now, do bans on the sale of puppies in pet stores shift the sales online? I want to give you a 2-part answer, but the end result is no. First off, it's irrational to assume that a store that sells, let's say, 1,000 puppies a year, and they go out of business, oh, all of a sudden some website's going to sell 1,000 puppies. No, of course not. Some of those customers, some of those sales just won't happen at all, because people walked into a pet store and made an impulse purchase. Some of them will go to a PetSmart and see an adoption event out front and adopt one of those dogs. Some will go to a responsible breeder. Some will go to a puppy mill on accident through some other outlet. But it's not going to be all of them.

But remember that I just made the point that the USDA has been regulating the people that sell online since 2013. Since we have started to really push bans on the sale of puppies in pet stores, the number of USDA-licensed kennels has declined, and the average size of the USDA-licensed puppy mill has shrunk from an average of 87 adult breeding dogs in 2012 to an average of 57 adult breeding dogs today. So if these sales were just transitioning online, we wouldn't have seen that decline in those numbers. So I just think that they're—

Penny Ellison [00:33:46]:

That's really good evidence, right? So as states and cities have banned the retail sale of puppies, you've seen a decline in puppy mills.

John Goodwin [00:33:58]:

Yeah. And in fact, we were saying that since 2020, there had been a 14% decline in USDA licensed puppy mills because of these pet sales bans. Now, it was a little hard to estimate the number, because you get a Class A license with USDA, you might be a puppy mill, but you also might be a breeder of lab animals, or you might be breeding other regulated species sold through pet stores, like rabbits, for example. And also you could be a Class B license for broker, but brokers can breed. So we made an estimate, 14%.

The CEO of Petland put out a letter to the pet industry a few months ago, though. Of course, he was complaining about this, but he said it had been an 18% decline in the number of USDA-licensed puppy mills since 2020. So we estimated on the conservative end. The numbers were a little better.

Penny Ellison [00:34:48]:

That's a strange correction to make, but that's great, because that feels statistically correct. That if you can prove that the number of puppy mills is going down and the average number of dogs in a puppy mill is going down, these bans are having an effect.

John Goodwin [00:35:01]:

They're definitely having an effect. Of all the work that people have done on puppy mills, I think cutting off the sales outlets is probably the most important thing people can do right now.

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, 80% of the USDA-licensed puppy mills are in 7 states: Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, around that area. All of those states are states with large agricultural economies where big agribusiness has tremendous influence in the state legislature. And it's made it impossible to get enough reforms that it would make a difference for the dogs in puppy mills.

So I made the decision when I took over the puppy mills program at Humane World for Animals, okay, let's set that on the back burner and wait for the climate to change. And in the meantime, we'll focus on ending the sale of puppies in pet stores, because the pet stores are in areas where organizations like ours are going to have more influence. And that would be a more productive way to shrink the problem. And that has been working.

I do hope, though, that at some point the lawmakers in those states will realize that it doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter how red or blue the state is. Everybody wants puppy mills done away with. And I'm hoping that at some point we can get into those states and get some meaningful laws passed.

Penny Ellison [00:36:18]:

One more thing I wanted to cover, and it's kind of a legal concept, but it's important now because there's a lot going on on the preemption front. It's sort of a defense mechanism of the industry, to try to stop these local efforts that we're talking about. So talk to me about preemption.

John Goodwin [00:36:42]:

So one of the shields that companies like Petland use to protect their inhumane business model of selling puppies from puppy mills is to try to pass state laws that take away localities' rights to regulate pet stores. And we also are seeing pretty radical animal use extremist groups, like the Cavalry Group, push what they call the Working Animal Protection Act. And they'll say, oh, this is just to stop people from doing ordinances that'll prevent rodeo. But they'll say working animal or animal enterprise, and that "or animal enterprise" makes those much broader than just making sure animal advocates can't do anything about rodeo.

And so there's a real concerted push by some of these industry groups to try to pass these laws to preempt local ordinances. And then they'll say, oh, well, we don't want this patchwork of local regulations, just do it at the state. Okay. But then they introduce legislation in the Congress like the Save Our Bacon Act that would preempt state laws that protect farm animals.

Penny Ellison [00:37:45]:

And it's a brilliant strategy if you're on their side, because they're trying to move the decision up to where money talks.

John Goodwin [00:37:55]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's their ploy. So we spend a lot of money fighting them on preemption. And this year, we did defeat the working animal preemption bill in Kentucky and a pet store preemption bill in Oklahoma. So I hope that the opposition sees that even in states where they thought that they might have a better chance, we were able to hold them off. We've beaten them on the floor in Tennessee. We've beaten them on the floor in Georgia, in the 2 respective Houses of Representatives. But they do still keep bringing those bills.

I mean, if Petland was listening to this, I'd tell them, you know, you're at the corporate level, you've lost money 4 years in a row. Why are you spending money pushing these preemption bills when you should be using your money to change your business model? But I just don't think their leadership has good business sense.

Penny Ellison [00:38:42]:

Wow, that's quite the indictment. I do think that it's not a red or blue issue, so I have the same hope.

So in terms of sending people out with something they personally can do, one of them is lobby for a local ordinance. And another one is even simpler, and that's talk to your friends and family about how to recognize that you're buying from a puppy mill. Be an advocate in your own little corner of the world, so that people don't unwittingly support these things.

John Goodwin [00:39:12]:

Well, we live in an attention economy, and attention is the currency for any issue, whether it's a social issue, a foreign policy issue, whatever. Those voices that can amplify the message about puppy mills are so valuable.

Penny Ellison [00:39:30]:

Well, thank you, John. Thank you so much for all you do. I think you gave everybody a lot of tools they can use to hopefully get rid of puppy mills sometime in the future.

John Goodwin [00:39:39]:

I hope so. Thanks for having me on to discuss this, a very important topic.

Penny Ellison [00:39:44]:

Thanks so much.

That's it for today. The Animal Advocate is brought to you by the Animal Advocacy Academy. If today's episode got you thinking about what you can do to change things for animals, I want to make sure you know about the four Cs of legislative advocacy for animals. It's a free audio series I put together that gives you a real framework for making legislation happen. You can find it at animaladvocacyacademy.com/fourcs. and you can find all our episodes and show notes at animal advocacyacademy.com. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and if you know another animal advocate who should be listening, send this one their way. Questions on today's topic or anything else, just email us at podcast@animaladvocacyacademy.com.  We'll write back, or we'll feature your question in a future episode.

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