Indiana's pet cruelty-for-profit legislation

The cruelty should be stopped, not abetted.

A sad, hungry dog living on the cold ground, Grand Street, Gary Indiana 46403, right across from the Gary Fire Department where no one seemed to notice him. One of thousands of dogs left to live at the end of a chain in Indiana, where anticruelty enforcement requires constant and exhausting political pressure.

One sign that humans are evolving, cognitively and emotionally, is that we are becoming more humane toward animals, especially those bred as companions.  In recognition that animals from breeding mills experience lives of severe cruelty and neglect, states are beginning to ban the retail sale of cats and dogs.

Not so some Republican-led states, like Indiana, where the House of Representatives passed a bill to increase animal abuse in the name of corporate profit.

HB 1412, deceptively named “Canine standard of care,” was passed out of the Indiana House and is now pending in the Indiana Senate. The legislation would force cities and towns to allow animal sales sourced from puppy mills around the country, including puppy mills with documented records of cruelty and neglect.

Before I get into specifics, I’d like to ask any reader who has ever loved their dog(s) to consider the reality of dogs who are not so loved. Too many people get a dog only to leave him/her to live their entire lives outside, every day and night, neglected and ignored.  A dog barking in the middle of a winter night is usually one of those dogs.  Animal rescue organizations report, almost universally, that when they rescue an outdoor dog, even when the dog shows visible signs of starvation and illness, the dog’s first reaction is to jump up, desperate to feel their human touch.

HB 1412 Contradicts Indiana’s existing spay and neuter law

The Indiana bill is the product of corporate lobbying efforts by Petland, the only large chain retail store in the U.S. that ignores best practices of humane organizations by continuing to sell puppies. Samantha Chapman, Indiana Director of the Humane Society of the United States, describes HB 1412 as “a dangerous bill that puts an undue burden on our local law enforcement agencies, and voids 21 local humane pet store ordinances throughout the state.”

Starting with the basic premise of breeding puppies for corporate profit while underfunded humane organizations are fighting to reduce pet populations, there are several flaws in the bill.  

Humane organizations like the Humane Society of the United States stress the need to spay and neuter all pets to reduce the number of unwanted, neglected and abused animals that end up in underfunded animal shelters. Unaltered dogs lead to litters that continue to breed their own successive litters, and the numbers multiply exponentially. One dog’s progeny can produce over 12,000 dogs in a five year period; by the sixth year, as those 12,000 dogs continue to breed, there can be a total of 67,000 dogs from the stock of one unaltered dog. In result, more than 3.7 million pets are euthanized every year, often following a lonely and stressful stay in an overcrowded animal shelter.  

Armed with these facts, the Indiana legislature passed a law, IC 15-20-4-3, requiring companion pets such as cats and dogs who are adopted out of all animal shelters in the state of Indiana to be spayed and neutered first. Indiana’s mandatory spay and neuter law has been in effect since July 1, 2021. Since the state mandates that all pets leaving animal shelters must be spayed and neutered, it makes no sense to allow corporate retailers to sell puppies, all of which remain intact. Many people who buy purebreds from retailers instead of adopting dogs from animal shelters adopt them not for family pets, but to breed them as money-makers. Puppies sold into that life are facing a life of cruelty, excessive caging, and exhaustive breeding, and big box retailers make no pretense otherwise. As long as the buyers can afford the puppy (often with financing!), they get it.

HB 1412 is state government overreach that violates home rule

Last March, Indianapolis became the 450th city in the U.S. to prohibit the sale of puppy mill puppies in pet stores, following the trend of the largest cities in the nation. Along with Indianapolis, 20 other Indiana cities have passed similar local ordinances, in part to reduce animal cruelty and in part because cities and counties- not the state- foot the bill for enforcing anti-cruelty laws.

Indiana’s HB 1412 would void local laws adopted in these 21 jurisdictions, forcing increased costs on cash-strapped municipalities. Aside from increased cruelty, costs of temporary shelter, euthanasia, and disposal of a dog’s body actually exceed the cost to spay and neuter, which means puppy mills and retailers are profiting, while forcing unsustainable costs onto cities forced to deal with exploding animal populations.

Usurping local governing decisions through state control violates the conservative concept of home rule, adopted by the National League of Cities, under which local governing decisions are best made by local- not state- governing authorities.  Home rule is a longstanding legal principle that gives local government the power to determine local policies, and the best ways to solve problems locally. Local elected officials are more aware than state officials of local challenges and competing budgetary problems; they are empowered to adopt local ordinances for that reason.  Abrogating home rule- for example, by voiding local ordinances that address animal cruelty- transfers governing power to state legislators who do not answer to constituents in the cities they are trying to govern.

HB 1412 is another unfunded mandate from Indianapolis

The bill is striking for its legislative over-reach. The state of Indiana provides NO resources to municipalities, towns or animal rescue organizations that work to discover, rescue, rehabilitate, spay/neuter, house, feed, vaccinate, and help remove dogs from unspeakable cruelty, yet the state seeks to force increased demands on those organizations.  Due to lopsided resources available to corporate pet suppliers, Petland can afford lobbyists and make sizable political contributions to candidates who in turn pass legislation to protect their corporate profits.  Petland is the only large-scale retail pet chain in the country that still sells puppies, contrary to the advice and urgings of nearly every anti-cruelty organization in the nation.

Although the bill is named “Canine standards of care,” such standards are wholly lacking in the bill, because without funding or resources to monitor, track, enforce and report on cruelty cases, they are meaningless window dressing.

The digest of the bill deceptively claims that the law, “Sets forth regulations concerning the retail sale of dogs. Requires retail pet stores, animal care facilities, animal rescue operations, and hobby breeders that sell dogs to a retail pet store to register with the board of animal health. Establishes mandatory disclosures and warranties for a retail pet store selling dogs. Establishes a random inspection program for commercial dog breeders, commercial dog brokers, and retail pet stores beginning July 1, 2025. Voids local ordinances prohibiting the sale of dogs at retail pet stores.” 

NONE of these requirements are funded, which means cities and towns will not be able to follow them; these empty provisions are only included to camouflage the cruelty of forcing puppy mill sales against the better judgment of local officials.  The Board of Animal Health is barely funded, and does not enforce any kind of standards. Retail vendors are allowed to source their puppies from hundreds of USDA-licensed puppy mills, even those with egregious histories of horrific cruelty and abuse.  The mandatory disclosures and warranties are empty, because there is no verification and Petland will be allowed to self-report and self-monitor.   

The cruelty-for-profit lobby has persuaded Indiana legislators that puppy mill sales are a matter of economic freedom and free trade.  But that economic activity comes at a tremendous cost.  Either cash-strapped municipalities will have to allocate more resources to anti-cruelty services, or, as is more common, the increased cruelty will go undetected, and animal suffering will increase. The end result will be that even more dogs in Indiana will live sad lives of desperation, at the end of a chain or rope (or worse), with no hope of discovery or rescue.

H.B. 1412 should not become law. It’s time for legislators to prioritize Hoosier families and humane treatment of animals instead of protecting corporate profits that promote animal cruelty.