• The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for licensing commercial animal facilities, such as puppy mills, and for ensuring that licensees comply with standards of care set by the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
• For years, the USDA has applied a “Courtesy Visits” rule, under which USDA inspectors are not allowed to document AWA violations during “Courtesy Visits” at a licensee’s facility, no matter the severity of the violation.
• The Courtesy Visits rule has been widely criticized, and the ASPCA is currently challenging the rule in court as unlawful.
• The USDA recently updated its policy to allow for narrow situations in which inspectors can document and report violations during Courtesy Visits, but this small step does not address the fundamental problem of Courtesy Visits.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a troubling history of disregarding its duty to protect animals in commercial breeding facilities, such as facilities that breed and sell puppies at wholesale to pet stores and dog brokers. Time and time again, facilities that violate the minimal standards for humane care and treatment set by the Animal Welfare Act are left by the USDA to freely break the law without being held accountable—meanwhile, animals suffer.

It is not just that the USDA’s inaction has allowed problematic facilities to harm animals; USDA policies have actively enabled bad actors to escape consequences. The USDA’s controversial “Courtesy Visits” rule is a prime example—USDA inspectors are prohibited from documenting any Animal Welfare Act violations observed at commercial breeder facilities during a “Courtesy Visit.”

There is zero evidence that Courtesy Visits benefit animals. In fact, the available evidence confirms that Courtesy Visits harm animals and that serial animal abusers are the greatest beneficiaries of the Courtesy Visits rule [PDF].  More than one out of every three licensees who requested and received a Courtesy Visit went on to violate the Animal Welfare Act after the visit, and dog dealers who received Courtesy Visits had more violations overall than those who did not.  

The USDA recently updated the Courtesy Visits rule to allow inspectors to, under narrow circumstances, record and report Animal Welfare Act violations observed during Courtesy Visits. This is an overdue step in the right direction, but it is a small step. We are encouraged that the USDA seems to have recognized that its prior approach—under which no violation observed during a Courtesy Visit could be recorded, no matter how severe—was and is indefensible. To protect animals and comply with the Animal Welfare Act, the USDA must end Courtesy Visits altogether.

How Courtesy Visits Enabled a Bad Breeder

In 2019, the USDA licensed Daniel Gingerich to operate as a commercial breeder in Iowa.  A few months after issuing the license, the USDA went back to Gingerich’s facility to conduct a routine inspection, but they were not granted access.  The USDA returned two more times before the end of 2020 and still were unable to inspect the facility.  

Refusing to allow the USDA access to conduct an inspection is itself a violation of the Animal Welfare Act. But rather than report Gingerich, immediately suspend his license, block him from selling dogs to pet stores or other brokers, or revoke his license, the USDA offered to conduct a Courtesy Visit of the facility and allowed Gingerich to expand his abusive business to other locations. During a Courtesy Visit, the USDA observed shocking mistreatment of dogs in Gingerich’s care, but the Courtesy Visits rule prevented USDA inspectors from recording any of these violations or reporting them to law enforcement. By the time USDA inspectors were able to record the worst of the violations, at least one dog was suffering so severely she was euthanized. This dog was the inspiration behind the name Goldie’s Act, federal legislation we hope to see passed to address the failed state of the USDA’s enforcement in a variety of ways, including requiring documentation of all violations, terminating the concept of the Courtesy Visit. 

Taking Legal Action Against the USDA

Policing Animal Welfare Act violations is the core of the USDA’s mission. Courtesy Visits undermine that mission because they prevent inspectors from documenting violations.  Without a documented violation on an inspection report, that inspection report appears “clean” to the public and cannot result in an enforcement action against the violator, and without enforcement actions, dogs suffer in the hands of problematic facilities.

The Courtesy Visits rule is both dangerous and illegal. That is why the ASPCA sued the USDA to challenge the use of Courtesy Visits and other similar anti-accountability policies. Just months after we filed our case, the horrific conditions that the USDA ignored and concealed at Gingerich’s facility came to light after being hidden for months by the Courtesy Visits rule and other similar policies. When Gingerich’s violations were finally revealed, he was criminally prosecuted for animal welfare violations. 

We hope that the updates to the Courtesy Visits rule are the first step toward the USDA finally recognizing that—as ASPCA has long argued—Courtesy Visits are ineffective, harmful to dogs and against the law. We look forward to making the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that if the USDA will not voluntarily dismantle the Courtesy Visits rule, a court must force the USDA to do so.

Join us in the fight to end the cruel puppy mill industry by becoming a member of the ASPCA Puppy Mill Action Team today!