Dog owners who find themselves with a litter of puppies to sell will have to register as a domestic animal business if proposed dog laws get out of the gate.
Reforms to the Domestic Animal Act were tabled in Parliament in recent weeks and, if the legislation passes, dog owners will have to comply with commercial breeding regulations from which they were previously exempt.
Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford is looking to toughen dog breeding laws targeting puppy farms, at which thousands of puppies are reared in sometimes squalid and cruel conditions.
The reforms aimed to eradicate all puppy farms and entice more families to adopt abandoned pets.
Macedon chow breeder Judith-Ann Robertson was one of more than 500 pedigree dog breeders who gathered at the Bulla Exhibition Centre last month.
She feels like she has been caught in the crossfire.
Under the proposed regulations, anyone owning six or more breeding dogs must house them in a commercial grade kennel with concrete floors, six-foot high solid walls and built-in heating and cooling.
Ms Robertson said there were usually three or four pups in a chow litter and she charged $3000 for a pup. Quotes from builders suggest a code-compliant kennel will cost about $200,000.
She said it was a knee-jerk reaction to fulfil a government election promise.
“It is basically taking a steamroller to crush a peanut,” she said. “If I have to invest $200,000 to build a kennel facility on my property, how do I recover that money? Do I start charging $5000, do I start charging $10,000? Average families aren’t going to be able to afford a purebred dog.”
Ms Pulford said the legislation needed to be judged alongside steps already taken by the government – introduction of mandatory, pre-mating vet checks and a lifetime five-litter limit for every breeding dog.
She says the legislation will affect only a small proportion of an estimated 10,000 breeders in Victoria and there will be no future shortage of puppies.
