By Thia James

Debden dog breeder fires back against ‘puppy mill’ allegations

Dec 15, 2014 | 3:54 PM

The owner of a Debden, Sask. horse and dog breeder is defending itself against online accusations that the puppies are living in “horrible” conditions.

The allegations stem from a Saskatoon man’s visit to Horses Deluxe earlier this month. Jason Baert wrote that he heard from friends about the business and the dogs’ living conditions.

“I was heading to Prince Albert[,] so I thought I would make a trip to this place because I wanted to see for myself just how bad it really is,” he wrote in his Dec. 13 Facebook post. 

At the ranch, he said he saw the corpse of a dog rotting at the side of the road. He wrote that when he looked at the puppies in the pens with the owner, he noticed the “overwhelming” smell of urine “so strong it made my eyes water and me gag. In this shack[,] there were over 30 dogs ranging in age from two weeks to four years old.”

He asked a woman named Betty at Horses Deluxe questions and took pictures before he was asked to leave, he wrote. He then went to the Prince Albert SPCA to report what he saw.

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The Saskatchewan SPCA confirms they have an ongoing investigation into Horses Deluxe and they are aware of Baert’s post.

Baert’s Facebook post was shared more than 3,000 times by the middle of Monday afternoon. Many of the comments applauded him for sharing the pictures and his experience. He later posted a comment saying he received a notification from Facebook that one of his photos was under review.

Since Baert’s post went live this past weekend, Horses Deluxe co-owner Betty Rath has been receiving “nasty” emails and phone calls. On Monday morning, both phone numbers listed on the business’ website were not in service.

Rath has been raising dogs for 35 years and has been operating the business in Debden for three and a half years and said she isn’t required to have a licence to operate.

She said this is the first time someone “snuck in,” claiming to want to buy a dog and posting photos without her permission.

But she isn’t surprised it happened.

“The vet that was out here with the SPCA one day said that was going to happen,” Rath said, and added the only true part about the allegations is that they do raise dogs and have quite a few dogs.

However, she said the picture Baert took of the dead animal at the side of the road was not of a dead dog, but it was an old goat that had died.

When it comes to the dogs’ living conditions, she conceded that some of them are housed in smaller pens. She said the dogs get out to use the bathroom two to three times per day.

“They’re not really that small of cages. Like he took a picture of that pen and said those dogs were overcrowded. The pen was four feet by eight feet, with a doggy door that went outside. There was extra dogs in there because I had been cleaning a different pen and when I clean a different pen, I put the dogs into a different pen so that they can go outside to go to the bathroom too,” Rath said.

Baert came to Horses Deluxe in the morning, she added. It usually takes her until sometime in the evening to finish cleaning the pens.

The older dogs live in heated and insulated buildings with “doggy doors” that they can go in and out of, and they have beds with blankets, she said.

Rath said the pens are cleaned every day. “It does smell a little bit in the puppy pen because it’s such a closed quarter and you’ve got all those little puppies peeing.”

She attributed the urine smell in the yard to the horse corral that is beside the dogs’ pen.

When asked about the characterization of her business as a puppy mill, she responded by questioning what that is defined as.

“I mean, we do raise dogs, and we do sell puppies,” she said.

To Rath, a puppy mill is a place where the dogs don’t have names, they are numbered and not warrantied. She said the owners of those places only care about raising the dogs for money and don’t warranty what they breed.

“We warranty our dogs, we don’t breed them every single time,” she said, and then paused. “We look after them. They all have names, they all know their names. The little dogs are whelped in the house. They go outside to go to the bathroom, I blow a whistle and they come back in.”

Rath is frustrated and upset by the accusations, but at the same time, she said she appreciates that people are concerned. She said she would be concerned too if she saw the post.

However, Rath is glad she has the opportunity to put people’s minds at ease, she said, and added the dogs are well looked after and are loved.

“It’s not what they’re making it out to be.”

The Saskatchewan SPCA confirmed on Monday that the animals will not be removed from the premises during the course of the investigation. The animals are only removed from a business after a legal ruling orders this to be done.

Rath is aware of the SPCA’s investigation and said the SPCA has been out to her business more than a month ago.

“They make recommendations, we follow the recommendations. Yes, we work with them.”

Jason Baert was not available for comment in time for publication.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames