USA: Support Enforcement of 2008 Puppy
Import Ban!

  

Proposed Regulations to Implement AWA Amendment Banning Puppy Imports
 Sponsor:  USDA/APHIS
ASPCA Position:  Support
Action Needed:  Please use the form below to submit your comment to the USDA. Tell the agency that you support the proposed regulations to stop the cruel import of puppies from foreign puppy mills.


In 2008, Congress amended the federal Animal Welfare Act (the law that regulates dog breeders in the U.S.) to ban the importation of puppies under the age of six months for the purpose of resale. This amendment came in response to growing concern about the number of extremely young and unhealthy puppies entering the U.S. via airplane cargo holds, where conditions are quite dangerous for these tiny passengers.

Three years on, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) still hasn’t instituted regulations that would enable it to effectively enforce the puppy import ban. But in early September, the USDA acted—it proposed detailed enforcement regulations and guidelines to ensure the law has teeth. The ASPCA supports these proposed guidelines and asks that you please help us make sure they are implemented.

Imported dogs often arrive in very poor health. The ASPCA also believes that the conditions under which many of these dogs are bred and raised are grossly substandard. We all know that puppy mills are inhumane—now imagine what they’re like in China and Eastern Europe!

Encouraging puppy mills in other countries to view the U.S. as a ripe market for their questionable “product” is a recipe for disaster. It is our hope that once this ban is enforced, fewer dogs and American families will suffer the heartbreak that often results from unregulated and inhumane overseas breeding.

What You Can Do
 Please use the form below to send an official comment to the USDA today in support of the proposed regulations. We encourage you to enter your own text in the box provided to let the USDA know why enforcement of the puppy import ban is important to you.

Thank you for taking action for animals—in this case, animals around the world!


Submit Your Comment to the USDA


Docket No. APHIS-2009-0053
Regulatory Analysis and Development
PPD, APHIS
Station 3A-03.8
4700 River Road Unit 118
Riverdale, MD 20737-1238


Re: Animal Welfare; Importation of Live Dogs

To Whom It May Concern:

As a concerned citizen, I respectfully submit the following comment in support of the USDA/APHIS’s proposed amendments to the regulations to the Animal Welfare Act relating to the importation of live dogs, issued on September 1, 2011 (Federal Register, Vol 76, No. 170).

Dogs imported from foreign countries run the risk of having been exposed to regionally specific diseases that could harm people and animals, including livestock, in the United States. They are often in poor health and may be harboring asymptomatic, undiagnosed diseases. They may also arrive in the U.S. with little or no breeding history to indicate possible future congenital or hereditary conditions. Moreover, puppies are frequently shipped at very young ages before their immune systems have fully developed. As a result, reports from veterinarians near airports with high incidents of puppy importation indicate increased rates of illness and mortality among puppies imported from foreign countries. High mortality and illness rates are recurrent problems that are inherent in allowing young puppies to be shipped internationally.

Additionally, breeding facilities in foreign countries are not subject to oversight by the U.S. government. The conditions under which many of these dogs are bred and raised are substandard and not subject to the same regulatory requirements and enforcement established under the Animal Welfare Act.

The proposed regulations will help ensure that the law prohibiting the importation of puppies under six months of age for the purpose of resale is enforceable. Therefore, I support USDA/APHIS’s proposed rules regarding the importation of dogs under the age of six months from foreign countries and urge the USDA to implement the new regulations as expeditiously as possible.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
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