Animal breeder oversight desperately needed

Opinion

One year ago this week, 45 animal rescue groups wrote to the province declaring a state of emergency over Manitoba’s companion animal overpopulation crisis.

Sadly, the animal welfare and public health emergency continues.

Over the past year, countless dog attack incidents have occurred in communities with large roaming dog populations, many causing serious injuries and lasting trauma.

The province has also seen a steady number of dog culls — heartbreaking events that cause dogs to suffer prolonged and painful deaths, and leave community members traumatized from witnessing the violence or having their beloved companion animals mistakenly killed.

Hundreds of stray and roaming dogs and cats will have frozen to death again this winter in Manitoba. Countless others die each day from preventable disease, starvation, untreated injuries or illnesses, and fights with other dogs over scarce food.

Northern and Indigenous communities are hardest hit by the dog overpopulation crisis — one of many continuing and interconnected impacts of colonialism and systemic racism that have been ignored by the provincial and federal governments for far too long.

Access to veterinary care, including spaying and neutering, is limited or non-existent in much of the province, as are resources necessary to develop and enforce strong and effective animal welfare bylaws.

Frontline community heroes, along with rescue groups, work tirelessly to handle the near-constant influx of dogs and cats in need, draining limited resources and pushing many to the brink of burn out. Meanwhile, puppy mills and backyard breeders turn a profit while contributing to the crisis, confining and breeding animals with virtually no oversight.

The Animal Care Act requires companion animal breeders to be licensed, and to meet basic standards for housing and veterinary care.

But in practice, those lifesaving licensing requirements have not been enforced in over a decade, leaving irresponsible dog, cat, reptile, and small animal breeders to flourish.

With no proactive inspections to monitor conditions, many show a shocking disregard for the well-being of dogs and other animals, confining them in cramped and squalid conditions, failing to provide adequate veterinary care, and ignoring their basic social and behavioural needs.

Rarely does the public see inside these cruel facilities. But hidden camera footage released recently by Animal Justice shows the heartbreaking reality of unlicensed breeding — in this case, a large pet ferret mill in Melita, Man., where hundreds of animals are confined in small, barren, and filthy cages, with many exposed to the elements and at risk of injury and disease from wild animals such as racoons.

Sadly, the animal suffering caused by irresponsible breeders extends far beyond the animals confined at the facilities themselves.

When breeders abandon unwanted animals or when they are removed by authorities in the rare instances where members of the public sound the alarm over cruel or neglectful conditions, shelters are left to house and care for these animals, stretching limited funds and leaving less space and resources for stray animals and those in need of emergency care.

Having rescue resources available is the difference between life and death for dogs like Bear, who suffered for weeks, starving outside with his lower jaw blown off by a gun. Or for tiny Thatcher — the only puppy in his litter rescued from the cold, the rest freezing to death this January. Or for Liam, who endured the pain of an embedded puppy collar for over a year.

There is no overnight solution to this complex crisis, or the unsustainable number of surrendered or abandoned rabbits and other small animals.

But resuscitating Manitoba’s breeder licensing regime would unquestionably make an immediate and significant difference, as would restrictions on the sale of animals online and at pet stores.

Manitoba’s animal rescue community is strong, resilient, and determined. The strength and compassion of community members who work tirelessly to rescue animals and keep people safe is inspirational.

But leaving communities, rescue groups, and animals to bear the physical, emotional, and economic burden of this overwhelming crisis while allowing irresponsible breeders to churn out animals for profit and operate without oversight is unconscionable.

Kaitlyn Mitchell is the director of legal advocacy with Animal Justice. Katie Powell is the president and founder of Save A Dog Network Canada.