A 9-month-old Yorkie hobbled into the Bridge Home No Kill Animal Rescue on a cold day in late December. His name was Bradley, his leg was broken and he arrived with 16 comrades – other tiny, designer dogs dropped off by a breeder who was desperate to downsize her operation.
It was not by choice, it was quite the opposite.
“She needed them gone, and that’s where we came in,” said Regina Isenberg, the rescue’s president.
A year had passed since Virginia became the first state to pass a law, commonly called the Puppy Mill Bill, that limits the number of dogs any one person can breed.
Called “historic legislation” by the Humane Society of the United States, the law was meant to reduce the size and scope of the state’s puppy mill problem: In short, if a kennel has 30 or more breeding females, it cannot have more than 50 adult dogs and is required to take the dogs to a veterinarian, keep records and meet other requirements.
But Theda Jennings, a Gate City, Va.-based breeder, and most other breeders across the state, opted to take another route. As long as a kennel has 29 or fewer breeding females, it is not considered commercial, thus it’s not subject to extra, pricey paperwork. So grudgingly, she unloaded many of her animals. She gave away dogs by the dozens – an estimated $100,000 worth.
Jennings called the law “absurdly cruel.”
“All these dogs we have to give away; we can’t take them off our taxes,” said her husband, Robert Jennings. “The law forced us to give up our personal property.”
The dogs ended up at rescues, which took them in although typically their mission is to save pets from the euthanasia needle at county shelters.
“They were overwhelming us with dogs,” Pam Lucas, founder of In His Hands Small Animal Rescue in Hiltons, Va., said of area breeders who were trying to get under the limit.
Lucas said she has taken in more than 100 of Jennings’ dogs, mostly older animals that had outlived their usefulness. She criticizes Jennings’ operation as a for-profit puppy factory and details the matted, stinking and dirty dogs she said she inherited from it. She said often, when she picked up dogs from Jennings, their fur was so thick with urine and feces she had to drive eight miles back to her house with the windows down.
“I like a lot of dogs better than I like a lot of people – they don’t talk back, they don’t do cruel, mean things,” Lucas said. “Not that it’s easy to see the suffering, but it’s easy for me to take in the dogs and take care of them.”
But Jennings pledges her love for her dogs and claims they have luxury accommodations – better than they would in any rescue – though she won’t let anyone in to see. She also declined last week to bring any dogs out to be photographed.
“I love all my angel babies and insist they are so precious they should have wings,” she wrote on her Springvale Puppies’ MySpace page. Adding a few sentences later: “I’m a ‘stay at home puppy mom,’ this is where dogs & grandchildren rule and everyone else drools!”
Jennings considers herself a responsible breeder, the victim of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals-inspired legislation, to which she is indignant: “It would have been more humane if they had just lined up all of us breeders and shot us, like the Nazis did the Jews,” she said.
Two years earlier and five counties to the east, the Humane Society and Carroll County, Va., officials removed 1,080 dogs from a Hillsville puppy mill called Horton’s Pups. According to the Humane Society, it was likely the largest puppy mill rescue in American history.
Carroll County officials were so overwhelmed by the massive operation they declared a local disaster and called in the state’s Department of Emergency Management, according to a report by The Roanoke Times.
The raid was the result of a five-month Humane Society investigation into puppy mills in the commonwealth; it led to a highly contested and unpublished list of 900 suspected mills, after which the organization made this announcement: “Unless Virginia does something fast, it is destined to be known as the next puppy mill state.”
Supply and Demand
According to the Humane Society, between 2 million and 4 million dogs are sold by puppy mills each year, many online and through advertisements and classifieds. The problem, the animal-rights group claims, is that large operations keep their breeding dogs in cages for their whole lives, with no companionship, toys or human interaction. They use their dogs as money-makers, squeeze as many puppies as they can from them, then discard them when they’re spent, the organization says.
“It’s a consumer issue, a supply-and-demand issue,” said Stephanie Shain, senior director of the Humane Society’s puppy mills campaign. “The industry is financed and supported by people who love dogs. But their money is supporting a massively cruel situation. That $600 for a puppy is going to keep its mom and dad stuck in cages for five or six years.”
After the investigation in Virginia, lawmakers and activists scrambled to come up with a reasonable solution. Six months later, then-Gov. Tim Kaine signed the bill into law – effective in January 2009.
In a series of Scott County Board of Supervisors meetings, the county considered exempting its breeders, with Jennings and others claiming it would put them out of business. But after a couple of meetings and a lot of discussion, the board sent the breeders off to reduce their dog numbers and get under the limit.
“We call this communism,” said Jennings’ husband, Robert.
“And haven’t we suffered enough?” Theda Jennings pleaded.
Rick Barger, supervisor of Scott County Animal Control, sympathized, to some extent, with the breeders’ plight.
“These people invested a lot into their operation,” Barger said. “So we established a reducing plan so they could come into compliance within a reasonable amount of time.”
Protected or caged?
Theda Jennings lives on a narrow, curving gravel drive on the outskirts of Gate City, just shy of the Tennessee line. She has an unassuming house built into a hillside, with ivy and wildflowers growing off everything in sight. She’s considering going into the flower business now that, as she sees it, the government has stolen her dogs.
“I’ve never heard of them putting you in jail if your petunia dies,” she laughed.
On the lot next door to her home sits a building that resembles a double-wide trailer with a garage beneath it. Jennings is offended by that description. They built the home, she said. Upstairs, there is an apartment, where no one lives, and below are her breeding kennels.
She doesn’t let anyone inside. One reason, she cited, is that mother dogs have a tendency to get excited around people, jump up and down and squash their puppies. The other and more important reason, she said, is that humans bring in disease, which spreads like plague among puppies.
Shain, with the Humane Society, called these “classic excuses.”
“If they really want to see the parents, I’ll carry them up,” Jennings said of customers interested in viewing their potential pet’s parents.
Springvale Puppies deals in at least half a dozen tiny breeds – from morkies, a cross between a Yorkie and a Maltese, to West Highland terriers – though Jennings declined to say exactly how many breeds. Jennings has a stack of black binders – at least 10 different breeds written along their spines – that hold AKC registration papers and charts that chronicle champion bloodlines for her “foundation dogs.”
She claims her dogs live in luxury. She describes sprawling concrete runs with plush beds and chew toys.
But Lucas, the rescuer, was invited in once after Jennings completed a massive renovation and described a very different scene.
“I was pretty much appalled,” she said. “It’s clear she’s just in it for the money.”
On the morning of March 12, 2007, a state inspector arrived at Jennings’ facility unannounced and found at least 400 dogs living in the kennel, some doubled- and tripled-up in small wire cages and pet taxis, stacked on top of each other, with no solid bottoms or bedding. Many of the kennels, the inspector noted, were 2 feet tall, not high enough for the dogs to stand on their hind legs without hitting their heads. The kennel reeked so strongly of urine that the inspector said her eyes watered.
“This is a very claustrophobic environment for these animals to have to spend their life,” the inspector wrote.
The recommendation was that “the situation be closely monitored in order that the necessary living conditions improvements are made and that the reduction in total animal numbers is achieved.”
Two weeks later, though, another state inspector, from the regional office in Wytheville, arrived and while he did not note the number of dogs or the specifics of their living conditions, he stated that he found only happy, well-cared-for dogs. He provided Jennings with a list of recommendations including, among other things, never letting anyone inside, installing ventilation fans and air fresheners “to reduce or mask the doggy odor.”
Jennings called the first inspector a liar and said she regrets not suing the state over it.
Rick Barger, who supervises both animal and litter control for Scott County, said that despite the inspector’s suggestion to closely monitor the kennel’s progress, he didn’t.
“When you’re a one-man operation with 560 square miles to cover, you do well to answer complaints,” he said.
There was not another inspection for more than two years, after the puppy mill law took effect.
Then, on April 8, 2009, more than three months after Jennings was required to have fewer than 30 adult female dogs, Rachel M. Touroo, a state veterinarian, conducted an announced inspection of her kennel.
“In total, there were 92 small breed dogs over one year of age being used for breeding purposes, 63 of which were females over 18 months of age,” Touroo wrote.
By that time, the Jennings family claimed to be operating two breeding businesses – one run by Theda Jennings and the other by her son – both out of the same facility.
Inspectors didn’t buy it.
Touroo noted similar housing issues as the state inspector more than two years earlier, adding that while they were there, one Yorkshire terrier got stuck in jagged fencing.
They examined 12 dogs that day. Two of them had severe dental disease, two were badly matted to the point it could cause skin conditions or discomfort, and another had a painful ear infection. Five of the 12 were determined to have “no abnormalities.”
Six months later, inspectors were back again. The Jennings family had decreased the number of adult dogs by only two – from 92 to 90. Sixty-five of the 90 were breeding females, more than twice the legal number.
Still, there were no charges, no fines or reprimands. But Theda Jennings finally relented. She said she “wanted to be left in peace” so she agreed to scale back before the new year.
“It’s ridiculous; they had more than enough time to come into compliance,” said Shain with the Humane Society. “When there is no fear, no reason to come into compliance, why comply?”
Rescue operations
Regina Isenberg runs the Bridge Home No Kill Animal Shelter out of a converted service station in Kingsport, Tenn. The rescue depends on donations, hosts yard sales, collects aluminum cans and takes pictures of dogs with Santa Claus.
When they took in Jennings’ 17 dogs, including Bradley and his broken leg, they spent $1,600 on trips to the vet and vaccinations for that pack alone. They found a second dog with a broken leg in the group.
“Those animals are innocent,” Isenberg said, adding that those at the rescue did the best they could to give “those little dogs the very best beginning for a new life.”
By last week, the rescue, with the help of the Holly Help Spay and Neuter Fund, had fixed, then adopted out all but one gun-shy Pomeranian. They charged $80 for each; some could have gone for $700 through Jennings’ kennel.
Jennings said she didn’t know the little dogs’ legs were broken, but she recalled that Isenberg called her to tell her about the injuries.
“It’s very easy for a little toy dog to get a broken leg,” Jennings said. “If they just jump too high or too far and land on it wrong.”
Isenberg asked the breeder for a donation. Jennings said maybe later, if business got better. She said she was insulted by Isenberg’s request. “Isn’t that what the adoption fee is for?” she asked.
Jennings said she felt no obligation to pay for the dogs’ new start. The state forced her to hand them over, she said. It’s not like she did it on her own.
Shain, with the Humane Society, said Jennings’ reaction was typical. “They take everything they can out of these dogs; they make money off them for years,” she said of breeders. “Then they just get rid of them how they can, and somebody else picks up the tab.”
And while willing to hand over her animals to the rescuers, Jennings called animal rights advocates “fanatics,” “fruit loops” with “personality problems and adjustment issues.”
“They want to label all breeders as puppy mills, especially if they have more than one breed,” Jennings said. “Just because you have an interest in different breeds doesn’t make you a puppy mill.”
An issue of care
Sharyn Hutchens, a legislative liaison with the Virginia Federation of Dog Clubs and Breeders, said her organization opposed the bill because it was considered bad for dogs. She cited privacy concerns – at what point does animal control have the right to go into someone’s home to count their dogs? The issue, she said, should not be the number of dogs someone owns, but how well they take care of the dogs.
“The entire bill was based on a lie,” she said.
The Humane Society never made their list of 900 Virginia puppy mills public, she said, but she knows of a dozen small-scale show breeders, far from puppy mills, that made the cut.
“There is a general feeling of fear in the entire animal rights community due to the animal welfare movement in this country,” Hutchens e-mailed. “We are dedicated proponents of animal welfare, but the animal rights movement wants to end the breeding of all pets. They have almost succeeded in making dog breeding a crime in the public view. I’m not sure where people think puppies will come from if they are not bred.”
But those animal rights groups say the law is doing precisely what it was created to do – force breeders to scale back to a manageable number of animals.
Barger, with Scott County Animal Control, said Theda Jennings’ kennel was inspected in April, after another complaint. He would not say how many breeding females Jennings had because it is an ongoing investigation. Jennings, though, said she had 26 adult females and “passed with flying colors.”
Still, she quoted the Bible when talking about the legislators and activists she credits with ruining her 30-year-old business. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,” she recited. “The Lord will see to it that they pay. They’ll just have to wait and see what the Lord decides to do with them.”
Eight miles away, Lucas said she started In His Hands Small Animal Rescue on her 66-acre farm after surviving breast cancer a second time. She has several dozen dogs, some up for adoption and some not, a ferret, several parrots and a rescued pig named Arnold Bacon. Lucas confessed that once, years ago, before she learned of puppy mills and backyard breeders, her own pet had a litter. It was a mistake she is looking to redeem. Now, she believes she’s doing the Lord’s work: “God will have his revenge on those who take advantage of his creatures.”
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
Staff writer Mac McLean contributed to this report.
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