To report this story, The Instances filed public data requests to all 50 states for canine export data, the 58 counties in California for canine import data, a number of animal management and regulation enforcement businesses for investigative information and reviewed U.S. Division of Agriculture inspections and different paperwork associated to its licensees.
Thirty-three states supplied a number of years of certificates of veterinary inspection, which doc the motion of canine and their well being standing. The remaining states thought-about the data confidential, had brief record-retention durations or charged exorbitant charges to gather the paperwork. In all, The Instances collected almost 60,000 certificates for canine permitted to journey into California, reviewing every web page to find out the variety of canine in any given cargo. A single kind might embody wherever from one to dozens of canine.
The Instances counted roughly 88,000 canine permitted to journey to the state since 2018, logging every entry by yr. The evaluation represents the clearest accounting but of canine coming into California from different states.
Every state has a number of variations of journey certificates — some are digital, and lots of are handwritten. Some states hold the data in cardboard containers at off-site storage services; others hold them digitally or log them into spreadsheets.
A number of the journey paperwork listed microchips. The Instances ran tons of of microchip numbers by way of public microchip databases, a few of which make proprietor info public. Pet microchip firm Peeva helped put The Instances in contact with pet house owners whose microchips had been registered with the corporate and appeared on journey certificates. By monitoring the microchips, reporters had been in a position to study the place canine ended up in instances the place the vacation spot listed on the journey certificates was a faux identify or nonexistent deal with. Reporters additionally recognized pet house owners by way of civil and prison courtroom data.
The Instances tried to interview breeders throughout the nation, together with throughout a reporting journey to Midwest states. Reporters attended a canine public sale in Missouri to see the situation of breeding canine being bought.
In California, reporters visited quite a few areas listed because the locations for bulk shipments of canine.
The Instances additionally pored by way of 1000’s of pages of USDA investigative stories and inspection data posted on-line, in addition to courtroom paperwork throughout a number of states. Two animal welfare teams — Bailing Out Benji and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — additionally shared data supplied to them by the USDA.
