PUPPY BREEDER PROBE CONTINUES

While officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture hold hearings in Missouri to discuss whether dog breeding laws should be tightened, no action has been taken against an alleged puppy mill owner raided last month by federal authorities.

The investigation into breeder Dorpha Evans and a Shannon County breeding facility continues, a spokesperson from the USDA said.

The spokesperson, Cindy Eck, said the USDA hasn't announced any action against Evans, the owner of dog breeding sites in Texas and Shannon counties, about 150 miles west of Cape Girardeau.

"We haven't issued any complaint or any charges against Dorpha Evans," Eck said. "We announce those things on the 20th of every month, so you can call back in March."

An assistant U.S. attorney who serves as a liaison to the USDA, David Rosen, said he hasn't received any reports from the USDA since inspectors sought a search warrant for the Shannon County facility over a month ago.

When USDA inspectors, U.S. marshals and local law enforcement officers served the search warrant Jan. 10 at the Shannon County facility, they seized about 200 pedigree dogs. About 100 were later euthanized because of disease. The others were taken to humane societies in Carbondale, Ill., Cape Girardeau and St. Louis where they were adopted.

Eck said the search warrant was sought because Evans' facility in Shannon County wasn't properly licensed by the USDA. Evans had a USDA-licensed facility in Texas County, she said.

Meanwhile, Dorpha Evans said that she has gone out of the breeding business with an auction Feb. 10. Her remaining dogs were sold, said Evans' friend and partner in the Shannon County breeding site, Cheryl Hadaway.

"She sold the dogs because she doesn't want to continue to be targeted by the federal government," Hadaway said.

USDA public hearings on the dog breeding laws began Wednesday in Kansas City. The last USDA hearing is today in St. Louis at the Regal Riverfront Hotel from 8 a.m.-noon.

The hearings are a result of intense pressure from the Humane Society of the United States, said Joan Witt, a spokesperson for the organization. Witt said Missouri has one of the largest concentrations of puppy mills in the country. Laws should be implemented to strengthen large-scale commercial dog breeding operations, she said.