Story by Bethany Lee
“Hey, that’s a nice dog you got there.”
Shelby Jolly and her sister-in-law were walking their dogs along the waterfront in Washington, N.C., when a man called out and stopped them. He was pointing to Jolly’s Staffordshire Terrier mix.
“Thanks,” Jolly responded hesitantly. “She’s a rescue.”
“Is she spayed?” he asked.
“Yeah, she is.”
“Oh, man,” the man said, disappointed. “I would’ve asked if I could breed her with mine.”
He gestured toward the puppy at his feet. To Jolly, director of the Humane Society of Eastern Carolina (HSEC), his dog looked far too young to mate or even to have the appropriate vaccines.
“Well, she’s spayed, plus she’s deaf and epileptic,” Jolly told him.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Jolly replied, and urged her group to keep walking. When she turned around, he had already approached another unsuspecting dog owner.
Jolly is familiar with this lax approach to breeding dogs. Based on her experience working with the HSEC in Pitt County, she estimates that the number of people breeding dogs without licenses is in the hundreds in their county alone.
A quick Craigslist search for “puppies” reveals some of her suspicions. Eager buyers can find Boxer, Labrador, Great Pyrenees, Aussiedoodle, German Shepherd, Weimaraner, Golden Retriever, and almost any other breed of puppy they’re looking for. And without adequate dog breeding legislation, it’s difficult to regulate standards of care.
Irresponsible breeding of animals is sometimes referred to as backyard breeding, where owners mate their animals with little consideration for ethics and future care.
“When people think backyard breeders, they think of some sketchy home in the middle of nowhere breeding random dogs,” Jolly said. “But when I think backyard breeder, my thought is people who do not do genetic and health testing that is appropriate for their dog.”
Jolly believes that responsible breeders work to promote the breed of their dogs, testing their genes, health, temperament, as well as microchipping and making sure the dogs are spayed or neutered and have the appropriate shots. Usually, this kind of breeder will make sure the dog is fit for its new home and will receive the animal back into their care if not.
“Anyone that does not do that, I consider a backyard breeder. And their dogs will more than likely end up in a shelter at some point or another,” Jolly said.
Shelters across the state are short-staffed and overburdened with animals already, relying on volunteers to take animals out for walks or foster until they can find a permanent home.
Jessica Arias, director of animal services for the city of Burlington, said it’s difficult to know how many dogs that are coming into the shelter are the products of unregulated breeding. Their facility sees mostly strays, which often come from homes that can no longer afford to care for the animal, or as a result of accidental breeding from dogs not being spayed or neutered.
“We are not against responsible breeders and folks doing it right, or in-home situations properly caring for the litters,” Arias said.
Many breeders in North Carolina are commercial facilities licensed by the USDA. These facilities house dozens of animals in humane conditions, providing them with adequate food, water, shelter, and exercise.
At least, most of them do. Last year, N.C. had one breeder on the Horrible Hundred list, an annual report by the Humane Society of the United States to warn people about inhumane conditions in puppy-selling dealerships, often called puppy mills. Lois Baker, a breeder in Andrews, N.C., was found in 2021 to have inadequate sanitary and veterinary care for the more than 60 dogs and puppies on the property. The USDA gave her a “teachable moment,” meaning the violations were not recorded on the official inspection report.
Ashly Dale, director of operations for Bailing Out Benji, an organization that works to end puppy mills across the country, said that violations like Baker’s are common in mass-breeding facilities as USDA regulations only require the bare minimum from breeders.
“The USDA allows dogs to be housed in cages that are only six inches larger than the dogs, so they measure literally from the tip of the dog’s nose to the base of their tail as six inches on each side. And that’s a legal size enclosure for a dog to live in its entire life,” Dale said.
She also said the USDA gives no socialization or exercise requirement or limits on how long a dog can be bred before retiring.
“These standards of care are just not sufficient for companion animals. Really any animal,” Dale said.
In July of this year, a beagle-breeding factory and laboratory in Cumberland, Virginia, owned by Envigo, was barred from operations after an undercover PETA investigation and inspection from the USDA revealed over 70 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. Envigo had been raising the dogs to sell to laboratories for experimentation.
Puppy mills like the Envigo facility are relatively rare in North Carolina. More often, pet stores will source their animals from mills in the “puppy mill belt,” states like Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Despite what Bailing Out Benji has been able to uncover about the breeding industry in N.C., Dale suspects that many more breeders go unnoticed by advocates and legislators.
“In North Carolina, there’s only a handful of licensed breeders so we hear from advocates and even our own volunteers that there’s a lot of backyard breeders and unlicensed breeders that are problematic,” Dale said.
In 2021, N.C. ranked in the bottom tier for animal protection laws, according to a report from the Animal Legal Defense Fund. And while a bill was introduced to regulate dog breeding, it was withdrawn in 2017.
Without legislation to improve standards of care in breeding facilities, Jolly encourages people looking for a dog to consider more than just the aesthetics of the animal. She said if they are not adopting a dog from a shelter, people should make sure the breeder is following ethical practices and matching the animal to their home.
“For the longest time, it was: Adopt, don’t shop,” Jolly said. “But it’s really: Adopt, or shop responsibly.”
