ASPCA representative urges US Congress to pass Goldie’s Act — The Hill
In the United States, Nancy Perry, senior vice president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), urged Congress to pass the bipartisan Goldie’s Act bill. In an op-ed for The Hill, she said that the US Department of Agriculture is not making sufficient use of its statutory authority over licensed dog breeders.
Concerns about federal oversight
Perry noted that the Animal Welfare Act, passed 60 years ago, requires the department to license and oversee commercial breeders that sell puppies to wholesale buyers, pet stores, or laboratories. In her view, animal cruelty at such facilities continues because the law is insufficiently enforced.
As an example, the author cited an Iowa kennel run by Juanita Svendlund. According to Perry, the agency issued her a license three years ago and subsequently continued to document untreated illnesses, painful injuries, a lack of basic care, and animal deaths among the dogs. After the breeder avoided mandatory inspections for more than a year, inspectors entered the property and found emaciated dogs with fleas kept in dirty cages without clean food and water.
More than 30 animals were removed from the facility by local law enforcement and transferred to a local shelter. The county brought 34 counts of animal neglect against Svendlund, Perry said.
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Other cases and the bill
Perry also mentioned Ridglan Farms in Wisconsin, where animal welfare organizations recently purchased more than 1,500 dogs. The facility, she said, faced allegations of performing eye surgeries on dogs without anesthesia or pain relief. Wisconsin inspectors recorded 494 violations of state law there in one year, while federal authorities registered only four Animal Welfare Act violations over a decade.
She also pointed to cases at federally licensed Envigo facilities and at Daniel Gingerich’s kennel in Iowa. According to Perry, thousands of dogs were removed from the Envigo facility in 2022 after years of documented cruelty, while hundreds of animals were rescued from Gingerich’s kennel in 2021.
According to an ASPCA report, last year the Department of Agriculture recorded 680 cases in which licensed dog dealers failed to meet minimum standards of care, but none lost their license. Perry believes Goldie’s Act would require the agency to conduct meaningful inspections, respond to every violation, and intervene to protect animals.
