Clark Kauffman's blog

by Clark Kauffman, Iowa Capital Dispatch
February 25, 2025

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general says the agency has failed to inspect dog breeders in a timely fashion and failed to ensure that breeders correct the violations for which they’re cited.

In a newly published report, the USDA inspector general says it recently reviewed the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, better known as APHIS, and its handling of dog-breeder violations.

The report says the investigators concluded that APHIS was not responding to complaints in a timely manner, and that 80% of the dog breeders that investigators visited had not fully corrected the deficiencies for which they’d been cited by APHIS inspectors.