M&P Winter 2024

Legislative Report Katherine Jacobson

Membership Report Diane Hanowitz, Acting Membership Chair 2023 Annual Report of Memberships The following report records activity in 2023: Submitted for consideration and published in the Mustard & Pepper: MP228 4 MP229 4 MP230 2 MP231 7 Total 17 This year has seen a turn-around from 2022 in which the Club added three new members. Included in the 17 new memberships this year are six from Canada. And while the turn -around has been significant, it still represents 3/4 of the number of new members (22) the club added in 2021. I would like to encourage all of our members to promote the breed and welcome new members to the club. September 11, 2023 - January 6, 2024 The following applicants are respectfully submitted for consideration by the Board to become new members: Alissa Flight 43 Mariner Drive Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island C1C1M3, Canada Telephone: (709) 222-1058 Email: alissaflight@hotmail.com Sponsors: Lisbeth Fisher & Heather Forbes I want to see Dandies in the States! And to become part of the club to form connections with fellow Dandie lovers. Hopefully, in the future, I can show my Dandie in the U.S. Hotshot Hamish is my one-year-old Canadian Champion pepper dog, He is also a canine good neighbor, novice trick dog, and a lab dog for my veterinary school laboratories. AWA. Constantly changing rules do not allow for a consistent environment for animal care and create a situation in which neither the licensees nor the regulators and inspectors have a clear understanding of the requirements to be enforced. The AKC supports a regulatory environment that promotes animal welfare. It believes that increased funding and enforcement of current regulations will provide that environment. Neither the Puppy Protection Act nor Goldie’s Act is in the best interests of either dogs or the people who care for them and will only further the animal activist goal of ending the breeding of purebred dogs altogether.

The Puppy Protection Act (H.R. 1624) previously discussed in this column continues to make its way through the legislative process and animal activists are currently lobbying members of Congress to place the act in the 2024 Farm Bill. The AKC continues to oppose this bill as imposing “one size fits all” requirements on commercial and hobby dog breeders alike, based on what it considers to be an overly broad description of a “breeding female.” To briefly summarize the bill’s provisions, H.R. 1624 would require anyone who keeps four or more intact female small pet mammals and transfers even one pet sight unseen to comply with provisions regulating the number of times a female might be bred, mandates requiring annual dental exams, the type of flooring used in kennels, kennel temperatures, access to outdoor exercise areas, and the number of meals per day, among other requirements. The AKC argues that the bill as written has the potential to impose these requirements on small breeders as well as commercial ones due to the definition of a “breeding female.” Arbitrary restrictions and requirements on dog care have the potential to be both expensive and unnecessary for hobby breeders who keep their dogs in a home environment or in a small kennel situation. The AKC is therefore urging all dog owners and breeders to contact their representatives and urge them to vote no on H.R. 1624 and to oppose its inclusion in next year’s Farm Bill. Another bill currently in Congress, H.R. 1788, known as “Goldie’s Act” also applies to those breeders who maintain four or more intact females. This bill would revise the Animal Welfare Act by removing the distinction between care and welfare (direct) violations and paperwork/ non-welfare related (indirect) violations. Currently, only those violations related directly to the health and well being of animals are made public. The AKC believes that if paperwork errors are reported in the same way as care violations it will create a misleading public perception of breeders as well as making them targets for animal activists who use these public databases to identify breeders. H.R. 1788 would also require inspectors to remove or destroy any animal that they believe might be in “psychological harm.” The bill does not indicate how “psychological harm” would be defined or determined and creates an environment for potential abuse and unnecessary euthanasia of animals. Finally, H.R. 1788 would state the intent to expand federal breeder licensing requirements. In fact, passage of the bill would throw out recent enforcement enhancements currently in a three-year implementation process. Rather than improving enforcement of the current Animal Welfare Act, H.R. 1788 would create confusing new mandates and undermine current efforts to improve enforcement of the

Mustard & Pepper

5

Winter 2023