New rules to help clamp down on puppy farmers

Breeders who register five or more litters in a year with the Kennel Club are being asked to produce copies of their breeding licence, in order to help the Kennel Club ensure that it does not register puppies from puppy farmers.

Breeders who breed five or more litters a year normally require a breeding licence from their local authority and now, in order to continue registering puppies with the Kennel Club, will have to prove that they hold this licence. This is now effective and all breeders who bred five or more litters in 2011 will receive a letter from the Kennel Club.

The Kennel Club will also be entitled to ask for a licence from those individuals who collectively register more than five litters a year from a single address.

Breeders who cannot produce this licence and who believe that their local authority does not require them to hold one must get this in writing from their local authority, in order for their registrations to be accepted.

In the event that a local authority should not cooperate by way of appropriate correspondence, the Kennel Club may contact it directly in order to establish that it is satisfied that the breeder does not require a local authority licence for their breeding premises.

The first time that a breeder breeds five or more litters within a year they will not automatically be required to produce a licence, but they will receive a letter informing them that if they do so again they will be required to hold one.

Members of the Kennel Club Assured Breeder Scheme who have bred more than 5 litters in 2011 or thereafter may be exempt from the requirement to produce a licence, if they have been inspected by a Kennel Club Breeder Advisor and therefore satisfied the Kennel Club that they are a responsible breeder.

This move follows an announcement by the Kennel Club last year, effective from 1st January 2012, that the Club will refuse to register more than four litters from a single bitch in its lifetime. The current legal limit is six litters but the Kennel Club’s more stringent rules reflect its concern for the welfare of breeding bitches.

Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary, said: “The Kennel Club wants to ensure that the thousands of responsible breeders who set store by their puppies’ Kennel Club registration are not brought into disrepute by anyone who breeds large volumes of puppies and fails to care adequately for their health and welfare.

“We are proud of our registration system, which not only provides a comprehensive database of information about pedigree dogs that is vital in the development of health tests for dog diseases, but which provides a large amount of information, including health test results and inbreeding coefficients for every registered dog, and enables puppy buyers to see very clearly which steps responsible breeders are taking.

“The vast majority of breeders who register with us register in small volumes and only around 2 percent breed five or more litters a year, which includes responsible breeders such as Guide Dogs for the Blind. But we want to ensure that all volume breeders registering with us have had some form of inspection if required – whether by their local authority or one under our Assured Breeder Scheme.”