Our letter to the Vancouver Sun, Sept 13/01, re SPCA panel member comments on control of dog-breeding:
SPCA spokesperson Lorie Chorytk says that people want the SPCA to press for laws that would forbid anyone except licensed breeders of pedigree animals from allowing their pets to reproduce.

That is the knee-jerk solution. Too many licensed (and sometimes CKC registered) breeders of purebred dogs run despicable puppymills. Too many purebred dogs suffer from deliberately bred-in painful deformities and from early deaths as a consequence, like bulldogs and Great Danes for example.

The thinking solution is two-tier license regulations for all dogs, cross breeds and purebreds:

1. a one-time inexpensive casual breeding license (dog must then be spayed), and

2. an expensive commercial breeding license (anyone who breeds a female dog more than once or breeds more than one dog).

The licenses would include the provision for inspections of the dog and pups' health, the facility, and the condition that all pups receive certain veterinary care and microchipping before sale, and the condition that any pup that ends up in the pound/SPCA system, be the financial responsibility of the breeder who can be traced through the microchip.
This is a fair and enforceable system.

Mandatory spay/neuter is overkill and unenforceable. Not all unsterilized dogs are producing more dogs. License only those that are. Litters of pups have to be advertised; it is easy to find and control unlicensed breeders.ŠSome SPCA staff and directors breed and sell animals.  The SPCA could start by cleaning its own house first.Š
Judy Stone,
President, Animal Advocates Society of BC

We welcome the SPCA to correct this statement if it is no longer SPCA policy.