The SPCA wants the government to bring in dog breeder licensing, arguing that almost anyone in New Zealand can churn out puppies for sale with no oversight and no limit on how many litters a single dog is forced to carry across her life. The animal welfare charity has launched a campaign called Puppies Before Profit, and it says the public is overwhelmingly on its side.
Polling released with the campaign found that 96 percent of New Zealanders support some form of regulation of dog breeding. Of those, 77 percent believe all breeders should be regulated, while a further 19 percent think the rules should apply to anyone breeding for profit. Just 4 percent backed leaving things as they are. Separate figures showed 91 percent support the introduction of breeding regulations and 87 percent support a licensing system, desexing incentives and an updated welfare code.
SPCA chief scientific officer Dr Arnja Dale said the lack of any framework would surprise most people who own a dog. “New Zealand has fallen behind comparable countries. Most New Zealanders would be shocked to learn that anyone can breed dogs with no licensing, no oversight, and no restrictions on the number of litters a dog can have across her lifetime,” she said in the campaign launch. “This is unacceptable for a nation that prides itself on kindness and compassion.”
The charity says it fields around 125 complaints about dog breeders every year, which is roughly 72 percent of all the companion animal breeding complaints it receives. The cases tend to share the same grim features. Inspectors describe overcrowded pens, dogs kept in prolonged confinement, untreated illness, animals bred far too often, inherited disorders passed down through careless pairings, and the sale of sick or underage puppies to families who have no idea what they are taking on.
SPCA senior scientific officer Dr Alison Vaughan told RNZ the gap in the law is striking. “Anyone can breed and sell puppies. There are no restrictions on the number of breeding dogs a person can keep,” she said. The scale of the problem lands on the centres that have to clean up after it. Mangere SPCA centre manager Graeme Ford described the steady flow of unwanted litters arriving at his door. “I’ve just had an inspector phone today asking if she can bring in two litters of 10 puppies and four puppies from one household,” he said. The organisation says it takes in dogs from puppy mills at least once a week.
The consequences are not only about numbers. They show up in the bodies of the animals themselves. The rescue group HUHA has been campaigning on the same issue and points to dogs bred so heavily for a particular look that they can barely breathe. In one case six bulldogs needed thousands of dollars of surgery to fix their airways, and one of them, named Dennis, was considered too genetically compromised to be rehomed at all. HUHA founder Carolyn Press McKenzie said the volume of poorly bred animals is overwhelming. “It’s flooding New Zealand and there are so many animals that are being born with genetic or hereditary issues,” she said. A HUHA petition seeking to stop the sale of puppies through pet stores and online traders has gathered more than 40,000 signatures.
What the SPCA is asking for is fairly specific. It wants a breeder licensing system, clear and enforceable breeding regulations, and an updated code of welfare for dogs that has real teeth. Tucked inside that are the practical limits that responsible breeders already follow voluntarily, including minimum and maximum breeding ages, caps on the number of litters a dog can have, and rules against close inbreeding. The point, the charity argues, is not to stop people breeding dogs but to stop a small number of operators treating animals as production units.
The timing is not accidental. In March the government ordered a review of the Dog Control Act, a law that has not been meaningfully updated in about 30 years. That review was announced jointly by Local Government Minister Simon Watts, Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Conservation Minister Tama Potaka, and it is looking at penalties for non compliant owners, desexing obligations, enforcement powers for council officers and the resource pressures councils face. It was prompted largely by a run of serious dog attacks, including a woman fatally mauled by three dogs in Northland and a father and son hospitalised in Christchurch, both in February. The SPCA sees that review as the obvious vehicle for breeding rules as well, since better regulation of who breeds what could reduce the number of poorly socialised and badly bred dogs that end up causing problems.
Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard, who holds the animal welfare portfolio, has not committed to anything yet. He said he had asked officials for advice on the campaign “in due course”, and noted that better breed regulation could also help with the separate issue of roaming dogs. That is a long way short of a promise to legislate, but it is not a flat no either.
For now the charity is leaning on the public mood. With 96 percent backing in its own polling, the SPCA argues there is no real political risk in acting and a clear welfare case for doing so. Whether the Dog Control Act review turns that sentiment into law is the open question. You can read more about the campaign and the SPCA’s position on its website.
What do you think, should New Zealand bring in licensing for dog breeders, and would it have changed anything for a dog you have owned? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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