Most, if not all Puppy Mills within Ontario are run by the Amish from their principal private residences. Hundreds of thousands of dogs are housed in their barns and outhouses with no heat, where they are routinely left ungroomed due to severe neglect, sleep in their own urine and feces in over crowded pens, suffering from horrendous, painful afflictions such as emaciated hernias, skin, eye and ear infections, pyometra and glaucoma. They are never seen by a veterinarian and will most probably never know the warmth of the sun and the feeling of grass under their feet. When they become too sick or too old to breed, they are either poisoned, starved to death or shot and buried behind the barn. That is the harsh reality of a puppy mill dog, but it doesn't have to be.

Current legislation enables these operators to prosper and continue to abuse these precious animals simply because they are doing it on their own property.  The solution is simple. There should be no distinction in the OSPCA Act between crimes perpetrated on public or private property.

Section 11.4 of the Act allows for inspections on any property being used for animal exhibit, entertainment, boarding, hire or sale, yet section 11.4 (2) precludes it on private property without the occupiers consent.

The Act should be amended as follows:

Dwellings: "The power to enter and inspect a building or place under this section shall not be exercised to enter and inspect a building or place used as a dwelling except with the consent of the occupier, unless the dwelling is also being used as a kennel for the hire and sale of animals for profit, to which consent by the occupier would not be required."

I ask for your support to amend the OSPCA Act to enable inspections on private property if also being used as a kennel to abolish the existence of clandestine puppy mills and make our world a brighter, more loving, safe place for these precious animals.

Thank you.