By Michelle C. Pardo
On February 3, 2025, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report of an audit that OIG had performed of the Animal Care Program Oversight of Dog Breeder Inspections. Audit Report 33601-0001-22 (Audit Report).
OIG’s objective? To determine: (1) whether selected dog breeders corrected Animal Welfare Act (AWA) noncompliances previously identified in USDA inspections; and (2) whether the USDA carried out enforcement actions on dog breeders with substantiated AWA violations during the audit period. Audit Report at 3.
The USDA is responsible for administering and enforcing the AWA – the federal law that requires owners/holders of covered animals to be licensed and/or registered and to comply with standards for the humane care and treatment of covered animals exhibited to the public, used in biomedical research, and commercially bred and transported. After becoming licensed or registered, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Animal Care unit is responsible for assessing ongoing compliance through a system of unannounced inspections, which can be routine or initiated to respond to a particular complaint or concern (a “focused” inspection). If an APHIS inspector finds a noncompliance with an AWA regulation, the issue is cited on an inspection report and the facility is required to perform a corrective action to achieve compliance, or else risk “repeat” noncompliances, warnings, fines, confiscation, or suspension or loss of a license or registration. It is not uncommon for an inspector to return to the facility to determine whether the noncompliance was corrected during the time prescribed, and, if it wasn’t, continue to cite the licensee or registrant (even if an appeal of a noncompliance is pending).
As the OIG uncovered in its Audit Report, 80% of dog breeders visited by USDA inspectors did not correct noncompliances in the time required. It also found that APHIS did not timely address complaints received about dog breeders. Significantly, the OIG further found that:
“APHIS’ inconsistent and untimely inspection may have also contributed to the dog breeders’ continued violations of the AWA requirements. As a result, continued noncompliance with AWA requirements poses a threat to the safety and well-being of the animals.”
Some examples of noncompliances among sampled breeders identified during OIG’s site visits included: excessive feces and flies, no water provided, lack of exercise plans or medical records, contaminated dog food, and matted hair.
The Audit Report also found that 95% of the dog breeders selected for OIG review, APHIS inspectors did not use the “Risk-Based Inspection System (RBIS) – the algorithm used to determine minimum inspection frequency at each facility – with increased frequency of inspections at licensed facilities with higher risk of animal welfare concerns. Some dog breeders were not even being inspected annually – the minimum duration proscribed the AWA regulations.
The summary of the Audit Report notes that APHIS “generally agreed” agreed with OIG’s findings and recommendations and were working to resolve RBIS inspection date miscalculations. But APHIS officials also responded citing a “shortage of veterinarians nationally,” which suggests that a lack of personnel contributed to the problem. According to APHIS, “USDA has formed a task force to develop strategies for attracting and retaining veterinarians.”
What was not suggested by OIG or USDA in the Audit Report, however, was examining whether the veterinarian and non-veterinarian inspector resources are being deployed in a manner that doesn’t disproportionally focus on one category of regulated entities (for example: zoos, marine mammal and wildlife parks, and animal testing facilities) while ignoring or minimizing inspections of others (such as the subject dog breeders), all of which are subject to AWA regulations.
Case in point: some regulated zoos, marine mammal parks, and wildlife/safari parks (all “exhibitors” under the AWA) have in recent years found themselves with a measurable uptick in the number of inspections they have received from APHIS. Notably, some of these facilities have had USDA veterinarian inspectors – individually and even in teams – conduct inspections multiple times in a single month, even though prior noncompliances did not rise to the level of animal welfare concerns highlighted in the OIG’s dog breeder visits.
The Audit Report begs the question: if APHIS veterinary inspectors are so scarce, why, then, are teams of veterinarians conducting repeated examinations of exhibitor facilities – even within the same month or year — for noncompliances such as bird enrichment items, peeling paint, extension cords, proximity of a petting zoo attendant to farm animals, and habitat and structural issues that previously have been approved by APHIS for decades? (Note: USDA Inspection Reports are publicly available). Surely, if such a large percentage of dog breeders were not receiving inspections – some not even annually – due to veterinary shortages or otherwise, the USDA would have at least deployed its inspectors to inspect the dogs at those sites that had not been visited in months or even a year or returned to facilities with animals living in documented poor conditions to determine whether corrective actions had been taken.
But despite a marked uptick in inspections of exhibitors – many of which have additional certifications and accreditations from independent organizations that also inspect their animal care and facilities and are open to the public providing more “eyes on” regulated animals on a daily basis– APHIS officials’ defense to lack of oversight of dog breeders was: “due to budgetary constraints and human capital resource limitations, delays can occur due to staffing shortages and the overwhelming workload.” The Audit Report also indicated that at least with respect to complaints received about dog breeders, that the agency treated those complaints as “generally lower on the list of priorities” and cited “resource limitations” as the reason for the de-prioritization.
While notable for the infrequency of dog breeder inspections, the Audit Report does not draw any comparisons to the disparity in resources that are being spent in repeated inspections of exhibitor facilities, nor whether the targets of such inspection priorities are being driven by political or special interest groups’ agendas, such as animal activist groups. Repeated inspections for one segment of regulated entities (but not for the other) also raises additional concerns because, according to the Audit Report, “repeat” violations (even if minor and not resulting in animal neglect, injury or death) “automatically trigger a compliance referral.” That means if an inspector decides to frequently visit a particular zoo, for example, it increases the chances that a “repeat” violation will be found. In that respect, repeated inspections of one segment of regulated entities – while ignoring others – could create selective enforcement issues.
The Audit Report concluded with OIG’s recommendations and APHIS responded with a “corrective action” and a “completion date” for each action of November 30, 2025. Given the reality of agency “resource limitations” hopefully the Audit Report will facilitate an even more comprehensive review of APHIS’s AWA inspection priorities and practices and ensure that certain regulated entities are not being disproportionately targeted for inspection while other facilities (and the covered animals that reside therein) are receiving equal regulatory oversight under the law.