08/24/2026
Email Sent on Proposal to State Senate Hensley. The voice for the voiceless, Kit Kat Alley Rescue
Proposal to Regulate Reckless High
Volume Dog and Cat Breeding in Tennessee
Submitted by Kit Kat Alley Rescue, President Stephanie Pinckley, to
the Tennessee General Assembly
Kit Kat Alley Rescue respectfully urges the Tennessee General Assembly to adopt clear,
enforceable standards for commercial dog and cat breeding and to create meaningful
penalties for reckless, unlicensed high-volume breeding operations. Responsible breeders
who invest in veterinary care, genetic screening, sanitary housing, and humane treatment
should not be placed in the same category as operators who produce animals for profit
while shifting the costs of illness, neglect, and abandonment onto consumers, taxpayers,
animal control agencies, humane societies, and nonprofit rescues.
Executive Summary
Backyard breeding and reckless high-volume breeding harm Tennessee families, local
governments, and animals. Consumers often sold puppies or kittens with undisclosed
medical, genetic, or behavioral problems. Taxpayers absorb the cost when neglected
animals are seized, sheltered, treated, and rehomed. Rescues and humane organizations
are left to provide emergency care, quarantine, spay/neuter services, foster placement,
and long-term rehabilitation. The General Assembly can reduce these harms by defining
regulated breeding activity, requiring minimum standards, and ensuring that violators pay
restitution to the agencies and nonprofits that care for the animals.
Proposed Definitions
Commercial Breeding Operation
A “commercial breeding operation” should mean any person, partnership, business, or
entity that maintains dogs or cats for the purpose of selling, transferring, brokering, or
otherwise placing offspring for compensation, and that meets a threshold established by
law based on the number of intact breeding females, number of litters produced, number
of animals sold or transferred, or repeated advertising and sales activity. Tennessee
previously used a high-volume threshold tied to twenty or more unsterilized adult female
dogs or cats maintained for the purpose of selling offspring as companion animals; the
General Assembly may use that history as a starting point while closing loopholes for
operators who divide animals among properties, relatives, or shell businesses.
Reckless Breeding Operation
A “reckless breeding operation” should mean any breeding activity, whether licensed or
unlicensed, conducted with conscious disregard for animal health, public burden, or
consumer protection. Indicators should include repeated breeding without veterinary
oversight, failure to provide necessary medical care, breeding animals known or
reasonably suspected to have serious hereditary conditions, unsanitary or overcrowded
housing, lack of adequate food, water, ventilation, shelter, or exercise, failure to maintain
records, refusal to permit lawful inspection, sale of animals too young or medically unfit for
placement, or abandonment of animals when they become unprofitable.
Required Standards for Commercial Breeders
• Veterinary care: Each breeding animal and litter should receive routine and
medically necessary veterinary care, vaccinations, parasite prevention, emergency
treatment, and written health records.
• Genetic screening: Breeders should screen for breed-specific hereditary
conditions before breeding and disclose known risks to purchasers before sale or
transfer.
• Humane housing: Facilities should provide clean, sanitary, adequately ventilated,
temperature-appropriate, and safe housing with sufficient space, enrichment, and
separation for sick, injured, pregnant, nursing, or incompatible animals.
• Recordkeeping and disclosure: Breeders should maintain records of ownership,
breeding history, veterinary care, genetic testing, sales, transfers, and animal
disposition, and should provide purchasers with accurate medical and
identification records.
• Inspection and licensing: High-volume commercial breeders should obtain a state
license, renew it regularly, submit to inspections, and comply with corrective action
plans when deficiencies are found.
Why Reckless Breeding Harms Tennessee
Consumer Harm
Families who purchase animals from reckless breeders may face unexpected veterinary
bills, contagious disease exposure, heartbreak, and limited legal remedies. Many buyers
believe they are supporting a local home-based breeder, only to discover that the animal
came from a high-volume operation with poor sanitation, inadequate medical care, or no
meaningful screening for inherited disease. A licensing and disclosure framework protects
honest consumers and helps responsible breeders distinguish themselves from
exploitative operators.
Taxpayer and Local Government Harm
When a breeding facility fails, the cost does not stay with the breeder. Animal control
officers, county shelters, humane societies, municipal agencies, veterinarians, and
rescues must respond. The public may pay for investigations, transport, emergency
boarding, disease control, court-related holding, medical treatment, and euthanasia in the
most severe cases. Requiring restitution ensures that the cost of care follows the person
who created the crisis rather than the taxpayers and nonprofits who step in to solve it.
Animal Welfare Harm
Animals used in reckless breeding may spend their lives in confinement, producing
repeated litters without adequate recovery time, exercise, socialization, or medical care.
Puppies and kittens may be separated too early, exposed to contagious disease, or sold
before underlying health problems are apparent. Breeding animals may be discarded or
abandoned when they can no longer produce. A humane regulatory system recognizes that
dogs and cats are living beings, not disposable inventory.
Proposed Penalties and Restitution
Kit Kat Alley Rescue proposes that unlicensed high-volume breeding be classified as a
Class A misdemeanor. Tennessee law authorizes punishment for a Class A misdemeanor
of up to eleven months and twenty-nine days of confinement, a fine not to exceed $2,500,
or both, unless otherwise provided by statute. In addition to the initial fine, the court should
be authorized to order restitution payable to the animal control agency, humane society,
shelter, veterinarian, or nonprofit rescue that provides care to seized, surrendered,
abandoned, or medically neglected animals.
Restitution should include, at minimum, costs for intake, transportation, emergency and
routine veterinary care, quarantine, boarding, food, sanitation, medication, spay/neuter
surgery, microchipping, foster supplies, behavioral rehabilitation, and reasonable
administrative expenses connected to the animals’ care. Courts should also be permitted
to prohibit a convicted operator from owning, possessing, breeding, selling, or transferring
dogs or cats for a defined period, and to require proof of compliance before any license is
issued or reinstated.
Legislative Request
1. Define “commercial breeding operation” and “reckless breeding operation” in
Tennessee law.
2. Require licensing, veterinary care, genetic screening, humane housing,
recordkeeping, and inspection for high-volume commercial breeders.
3. Classify unlicensed high-volume breeding as a Class A misdemeanor with fines up
to $2,500, consistent with Tennessee misdemeanor penalty limits.
4. Authorize mandatory restitution to animal control, humane societies, shelters,
veterinarians, and rescues that provide care for affected cats and dogs.
5. Create enforcement tools that prevent repeat offenders from simply relocating,
transferring animals to associates, or reopening under another name.
Conclusion
Tennessee can protect families, taxpayers, and animals by setting clear rules for
commercial breeding and by holding reckless operators financially and legally
accountable. Kit Kat Alley Rescue asks the Tennessee General Assembly to support
legislation that rewards responsible breeding, deters exploitation, and ensures that the
cost of neglect is not passed to the public or to charitable organizations already carrying
the burden of rescue work.
Respectfully submitted,
Stephanie Pinckley
President, Kit Kat Alley Rescue
P.O. Box 28
Hohenwald, Tennessee 38462
PH: 615-944-0522
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