The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Puppy Kingpin | 2. Inside a Puppy Mill

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Alex sets out to learn more about Jolyn Noethe, but ends up getting an inside look at a puppy mill and how they operate legally. We’ll hear audio of the day authorities descended on the farm of Barbara Kavars, an Iowan breeder who got in way over her head. A Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment production. Unlock all episodes of Smoke Screen, ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Plus, get binge access to brand new stories dropping on the first of every month — that’s all episodes, all at once, all ad-free. Just click ‘Subscribe’ on the top of the Smoke Screen show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. Last episode, we were talking about how some pet stores were facing extinction.

And some new laws were being written to stop pet stores from selling commercially bred puppies altogether. But the intended target of these laws was not pet stores. The intended target was actually puppy mills, for-profit breeders who are known to treat puppies poorly, and where many pet stores often got their puppies from. But what exactly is a puppy mill? We all like to think we know. Before learning about them, I assumed puppy mills were big warehouses of puppies crammed into cages and that the owner must not care about animals

in order to let them get treated that way. But deciding what a puppy mill is isn't that cut and dry. So we're going to take this episode to go along and see what a puppy mill can be like. There's some graphic details and some things that might be tough for some listeners to hear. But these are the kinds of places that breed thousands of dogs that end up in our homes. So it felt important to take a closer look and get an idea of the types of places JoLynn could be buying her puppies from. The person who introduced me to this particular puppy mill case was Sybil Suka.

This goes into our big room. She's the executive director of the Humane Society of North Iowa. They've got an animal shelter for neglected pets that need to find a home. She's giving me and my producer Natalie a tour of the place. An Eagle Scout made all these benches for us. This goes into our kitty corner. We added this on after our building was built. Sybil's first big effort when she took the job 13 years ago

was to fundraise for a nice new facility. The dogs we see are in big, clean cages, and they get to run outside in part of a yard. There's even music piped into the kennel to help calm them down. But normally it's super quiet, and we have this music playing, and it seems to be calming. Despite there being days where she sees some pretty sad situations, Sybil seems to really enjoy her job.

She's charming, with blonde hair and an easy laugh. She invites us into her office. There are pictures of Sybil's two cats all over, and a sign that reads, Children Welcome, Must Be On Leash. These are my children. Hello. Orange furry children. She got her cats, Leo and Rico, from the shelter. And so they sat here for nine months, and then I adopted them both.

They formed a major bromance here in the shelter. Sybil's work has taken her to several puppy mills, which we will learn later is a big part of this story. But there's one puppy mill Sybil wanted to make sure I heard about. There were all kinds of legal findings. When I requested the evidence, there were hours and hours of video from the day authorities showed up to try to take the dogs.

It was body cam footage. And it seemed to capture everything. That's your puppy. So we have a search warrant that's going to allow us to capture everything. That's your copy. So we have a search warrant that's going to allow us to come in. We got access to moments most people don't get to see or hear. And

first-hand insight into how a puppy mill can become a puppy mill. It wasn't what I expected to find. Am I allowed to have dogs again after these guys are gone? From Neon Hub Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Alex Schumann and this is Smokescreen, Puppy Kingpin, an investigation into the mastermind trafficking puppies nationwide

and the scheme to hide the truth. I had originally shown up to talk with Sybil about JoLynn Nothi and her business, Jack's Puppies. We'll get to that. But the conversation veered toward the bigger picture. What are these laws banning the sale of puppies trying to stop? The short answer is puppy mills. To me, a puppy mill are commercial breeders that put wealth over welfare. Puppy mills started appearing in big numbers after World War II. Farmers in the Midwest wanted to diversify their goods,

so they started breeding to meet the growing demand for puppies. Simultaneously, more Americans started to have disposable income for the first time since the Great Depression. No breeder wants to be called a puppy mill because in their eyes, that's what people in my industry call the bad ones, is puppy mills. The term mill is used to describe other kinds of animal operations too, like kittens and rabbits. What do you think about when you see, when you hear about the word mill? You know, I think of like a lumber mill. You're just buzz sawing out the product, you know?

The term can conjure images of an assembly line run by some villain lurking in the shadows. Each person has their own picture of one of these puppy mills in their head. But I've found not everyone sees the same picture. And that many assumptions about the dog breeding business don't match reality. The one I've run into the most in this investigation is that people think puppy mills are illegal. That's not true.

Just because someone calls a facility a puppy mill doesn't mean that breeder will get shut down or fined. It's mostly a term that animal advocates use to describe facilities they disapprove of. It's almost a slur. One that's all bark and no bite. I thought if a breeder was running a puppy mill that there'd be legal ramifications.

I was wrong. In fact, the USDA told me they do not even have an official definition of the term puppy mill. And yet, the Humane Society of the United States claims there are 10,000 puppy mills in this country. That's an incredible number. How does that number exist if the definition of a puppy mill depends on who you ask? There is one legal definition that gets pointed to occasionally. It's from a case in Minnesota that happened in 1984, but that's just one case in Minnesota court.

There are no federal laws that define the term. But Sybil introduced me to a case that would start to help me understand just how badly treated some puppies are. And that's at the heart of what Jolynn is accused of covering up. At the start of this case, Sybil was just trying to help. My organization took part in a major rescue effort of a commercial breeder here in North Iowa, in Manly, Iowa, of a Samoyed breeder. A Samoyed is a dog with thick, white, fluffy hair. Think of a little two-foot cloud walking around, smiling back. They're adorable. The breed is originally from Siberia and is so photogenic that it's easy to see why they're all over social media. Some Samoyeds have millions of followers on Instagram. Sybil had heard there was a woman

with hundreds of them only about 17 miles north of the shelter. So it all started back in 2017. We got a call from a veterinarian up in the area where this breeder is saying that, hey, things are really out of control here. Is there anything you guys can do to help? The breeder they were talking about was Barbara Kavars. She was in her mid-60s and ran Whitefire Kennel, a breeding operation for Samoyed puppies. And I think she started off with four dogs, four Samoyeds. And Samoyed dogs are these big, white, fluffy, beautiful, gentle giants. I mean, they're beautiful dogs. But she started off with this very small number of dogs.

And her husband was the main caretaker of the dogs, and she actually worked away from home. Her husband developed some illness. He later passed away. Things just spiraled. The dogs started having so many puppies that Barbara's kennel population skyrocketed. She'd gone from those few to more than 150,

and she was trying to care for them all on her own. She was not a person that had depraved intent. She was in over her head. And as a result, the animals were being neglected because of it. Sybil agreed to accept any dogs Barbara was willing to give up. At first, they thought this seemed like an okay compromise. This would help get the kennel's numbers back under control and get dogs out of poor conditions. But while Barbara was willing to let Sybil take some of the dogs to the shelter, she wouldn't give up all of them.

Sybil said the puppies she did get were usually sick. A lot of them required veterinarian work that was beyond what we normally provide. When she first started allowing us to be a part of things, she knew she was in over her head. So she wanted our help. She started by releasing, you know, 20 dogs to us out of several hundred. The Humane Society would then treat those dogs and put them up for adoption. Sybil estimates they did this for 70 or 80 dogs over the course of about a year. She would call us and say, I have, you know, 20 dogs that I'm willing to release,

but you have to come get them. Well, and it wasn't like, hey, there's 20 dogs in this pen or in this enclosure you can have. No, no, no, no. Even though all these dogs looked identical, I mean, she knew. So she would say, okay, you can have those two out of this pen, that one out of this pen.

Barbara seemed to know exactly which dogs to relinquish. And there was a reason for that. She was keeping her best stock for breeding. The dogs that had the best features or the most... So she was still running a business? Oh, absolutely. And she still, for as many animals as we took, is as many animals that were being born in her care. But she had no, you know, way to separate the animals. She couldn't handle them. Sybil would see the poor conditions, bring what dogs she could back to the shelter,

and then go online to see Barbara advertising new litters of puppies to sell. Whitefire Kennel had profiles on puppyfinder.com and breedersclub.net. Puppyfinder calls itself the puppy search engine. You can search for a specific breed, location, or just look through the listings to see what puppies are for sale. Here's how Barbara was advertising herself to customers at the same time Sybil was taking in dogs. My puppies are all very special and loved very much. They are held and played with every day. They are wonderful. Parents are on site. All my dogs are AKC registered. I am licensed by the state of Iowa. Another paragraph down, she wrote, due to my husband's

recent death, I would like to sell all of my younger dogs and some older ones. I'm reducing She posted some photos of puppies. The dogs look like they're standing on dirt in an outdoor kennel. She was asking for anywhere from $500 to $950 for each Samoyed puppy. Someone looking at this online profile would have no idea that the same place their puppy would come from also had to give up dozens of puppies to a local shelter. Barbara's breeding operation was that disorganized. Litters that didn't get moved out of an area where the mom was, and so they started breeding,

and that develops a lot of genetic disorders. Just so we're clear, that could mean siblings were having babies together. People shopping on puppyfinder.com also didn't know their new puppy might come with a lot more than they bargained for. There were a lot of heart issues, a lot of in-cage fighting between males that were mating males, a lot of open wounds, bitten tails, tail biting, you know, they have these big white fluffy tails. Through the winter of 2018, Sybil kept stopping by, taking dogs, and conditions did not seem to be improving. We were visiting there in the winter, so you see these white fluffy dogs against, you know,

white snow, well, if it was freshly fallen, and then all of a sudden you might see some splotches of blood in the snow. The blood in this case appeared to be from dogs fighting each other. Most of the puppies had no heat or much protection from the wind. You could see there were deep lick marks in the buckets of ice where the dogs, you could see where they're trying to get hydrated. You know, in animals, like, this is all part of the science of how they stay warm is by huddling and then by keeping hydrated. And so when an animal starts dehydrating, organs start shutting down and then their body uses more energy to maintain those organs and then they lose more

heat and then becomes at risk for death. Sybil was horrified. How could she stand by and keep going along with this arrangement when there was no end in sight? We wanted to help this person, but she wasn't helping herself. And so we took a step back and said, listen, we can't, we're not going to, I mean, this isn't a perpetual deal where we're just going to take these ladies' dogs from her that are like her, in her words, her junk dogs. That's what she would call them,

the junk dogs that either had injuries or were not showing the best features of the breed or were not having big enough litters. Those were the dogs that she was releasing to us. So Sybil decided to get others involved. She reached out to the biggest animal rescue in the state and the sheriff in Worth County. Recently, I called Sheriff Dan Fink up to hear his side of the story. He remembered a lot about this case, because it had taken up so much of his time the last few years. We had a murder trial here a few years ago, and we probably had more court appearances,

more time into this dog case than we did into that murder case. When Sybil called, that wasn't the first time Sheriff Fink had heard about Whitefire Kennel. We had several other complaints called in along the way of people getting bad dogs from that area, you know, dogs with hereditary problems. He told me that they don't deal with animal cruelty cases too often, especially ones that involve possibly hundreds of dogs. Do we get complaints on a dog without food or water or shelter every once in a while?

Yes. But I mean, to that point, to that, no, we don't deal with that. That's the first one we've ever dealt with to that magnitude. So despite not dealing with this often, the sheriff's office agreed to help out. But as they start looking at the laws in Iowa around animal neglect, they ran into some roadblocks. The process would be that the Worth County Sheriff's Department would have to charge her with animal neglect.

And then in that process, like that day, all of the animals on the facilities, in this case it was probably 240 at that point, had to be removed that instant and then housed in the county of Worth County. The state's law requires the dogs stay inside the county until Barbara would be able to go before a judge. But there is no shelter in Worth County. The Humane Society Sybil runs is in a different county.

So since the sheriff's office has nowhere to keep that many dogs for however many days, they couldn't charge Barbara with animal neglect. And so they said, listen, you know, we applaud your efforts, Humane Society of North Iowa and Animal Rescue League, but I mean, this is out of our hands to help with, unless you find a third-party organization that can help. Dogs were freezing, starving, and breeding with their siblings. But because of the law, it was going to keep happening

until they could find a place for authorities to house the dogs. Sybil started pounding the pavement, looking for a third party to help. Meanwhile, Barbara was offered a way out. An animal rescue group out of California offered to buy all of her dogs at a fair price. But Barbara turned them down. She was, you know, in our book, she was a hoarder of dogs, and she just couldn't let go. And I don't think she's a bad person. She just, she couldn't handle what she had, even though she thought she could.

But the thing is, Barbara was letting go of dogs. She was selling the puppies in the best shape online to unsuspecting customers. And those dogs may or may not have had genetic issues or health problems. Barbara was still profiting off new litters. No doubt, as a widow, she needed the money to stay afloat. She told the sheriff she'd been in this business for nearly two decades. But didn't the puppies deserve better? And didn't the people buying from White Fire Kennel deserve better too? Nothing changed until Sybil talked with Kyle Held, a director of investigations for

the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA. Kyle is a tall guy with a graying beard. He's got the kind of calm demeanor you'd want if you were going to remove hundreds of dogs from a puppy mill in a single day. I was the lead investigator on that case. Kyle told me that he and Deputy Andy Grunov spent three to four months planning how to get these dogs out of these conditions so authorities could charge her. It took a while because remember, the law requires that they have to get a place to store all these dogs inside county lines. In the end, they decided to build their own facility

from scratch. They set up a temporary evacuation shelter at the Worth County Fairgrounds. They brought in a team of people and they built 300 kennels. It's the kind of thing they usually set up to help rescue dogs in hurricanes and disasters. The ASPCA's plan was ready when the sheriff got word they needed to get to Barber's property. The thing everyone involved in the case had feared for months finally happened. On November 6, 2018, the deputy showed up to find Barbara dragging one of her dogs in a tarp. He saw it was an adult dog covered in feces and badly hurt. The dog's name was Jaeger. Barbara told him Jaeger was older and had been attacked by an aggressive male dog earlier that morning.

The dog died the next day. Sheriff Fink told me that was the final straw. One week after the death, it was time to serve a search warrant. And they called us like three days before and said, we're coming. Be ready, come with us, you know, get ready. That's next.

You're listening to audio from a body cam. It's from Sheriff Deputy Andy Grunov. He's walking up to Barbara Kavar's house. You can hear the white Samoyeds barking. It's November 12, 2018, just before 7 in the morning. The dogs are off in the distance, mostly in these outdoor cages. The sun is starting to come up through the tall trees around the property. You don't see much snow on the ground, but the air looks cold even on camera.

Deputy Grunov knocks on her screen door. Barbara doesn't know he's coming. She walks out in a big navy sweatshirt that has the word golfer across the chest. Hi, Barb. So, we've got some important stuff. Can you get some boots on and we can talk for just a little bit? Okay. Get a hat and coat on? Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Barbara knows the deputy pretty well at this point. He'd been coming for almost nine months. Barbara comes back out a few minutes later. She got on a big coat, a blue stocking cap, and some pink gloves. This time when she walks out, the deputy introduces her to someone else who just walked up, Kyle Held. So with some recent stuff going on, you know, we've talked quite a bit. Brought in a resource that might be able to help you out a little bit, okay? This is Kyle Held, who's with the ASPCA. Okay. Talked about the dogs today and see maybe what we can do to help you with the situation. Okay.

So, Barb, this is Kyle. Kyle, Barb. Barbara smiles as she introduces herself, but she's skeptical. A sheriff's deputy doesn't knock on your door that early in the morning for nothing. But nobody's told her they plan to seize her dogs and put her out of business. So she's trying to piece together what's happening. First of all, I mean, are you here in Iowa or where? I'm all over. I work all over the United States. They asked me to come in and help as a resource, help you out.

Kyle proposes taking the dogs to a safer place. She quizzes Kyle pretty hard about where her dogs might go. Do you have like a big facility they would be in while they're being all this work done? And where is that located? It would be here in Iowa. We don't have like a brick and mortar thing. We build them as we go. She looks at the deputy. I'm just trying to understand just where they would be, what they would be. They try to make it clear to her that the goal is to help her and the dogs. There's no

mention that she could be charged with a crime. Not yet. At first, they give her the opportunity to pick how many dogs she wants to let the group take. It's not clear why they're being so coy with Barbara about what they are really there to do. They're not leaving without most of these dogs. Still, they give her a second to think. I don't know exactly how many dogs. I'd have to kind of sit and think about it. I mean, some of the younger ones, you know, I'm still selling, so I don't want to, you know, I mean, I want to sell some if I can't.

You know, I need to take in some money. Barbara tells them they can take between 35 and 40 dogs. But by then, they've decided it's time. So we have a search warrant that's going to allow us to come in. It's going to allow us to look at all the dogs, and then it's going to allow us right now to seize them all temporarily until they can go through the medical team and the behavioralists and all of that. Veterinarians are going to check each dog to help determine if Barbara should be allowed to keep any.

Barbara sounds worried. I mean, I'm happy to have help with these dogs, but no, I don't understand. You sound like they're coming to take all my dogs. And so it's kind of like, I mean, what, I mean, what did I do that you decided that they should do this? It's, it's been kind of that this whole year, the, before we got called, you know, there was a couple that had some pretty significant injuries. Then that first visit was out here. We had three more with some significant injuries the most recent one had another injury out here just this last week and then it died as well so all of that together the number of visits we've been out and there's not

really been much water or any water at all very little food that kind of thing it's a totality it's not just one time it's not just one event it's it's everything she argues with him about whether the totality. It's not just one time. It's not just one event. It's everything. She argues with him about whether the puppies are underweight. But the deputy and Kyle Held make clear it's not just one thing. It's everything. Her entire operation. The search warrant said Barbara owned more than eight acres. She had multiple sheds, kennels, and a big barn. In the body cam video, you can see three main buildings not far from her home. Each one looks run down. The kennels look like long, almost open-air sheds. There's a back wall and an overhanging roof, but then the rest of the kennel's walls are just fencing. The dogs don't get much protection from the

weather or the cold. Barbara estimated she had 90 dogs on the property, but they'd find many, many more. At one point, the deputy goes inside the house with Barbara. There are dogs in her kitchen, too. Her countertops are covered with piles of metal dog bowls, red solo cups, and boxes of what look like dog treats. Big, open bags of dog food are sitting on the floor along the walls. There's some space to walk and move, but not much. Barbara apologizes for how things look, and keeps trying to convince the deputy to let

her keep the dogs. The three small litters with mama and baby, I mean, you're not going to take them, are you? I don't know. They're the ones that are going to be my money for Christmas because they'll be ready early December. Volunteers, the ASPCA, and staff from the Humane Society of North Iowa have now descended on Barbara's farm. Sybil was there too. The thing that was difficult is you couldn't walk up to any of them

and pet them. They were not pets. They were not used to being handled by humans. You know, this one singular woman as their owner, she wasn't going into their kennels to pet them and play with them. And that also, when you talk about the difference between a breeder and a puppy mill, a breeder, they usually have their breeding dog in their home as part of their family. And the breeding dog and the pups are usually handled by the owners or their kids or the neighbors or whatever. And they're socialized, you know, animals that are used to human contact. These animals would cower in fear of human contact.

You know, it was a real struggle. The temperature only got up to 22 degrees that day. It even started to snow. The ink in our pens froze. You know, somebody had ordered pizzas for everybody for lunch, and by the time you got there, it's like frosted. Barbara asked to pick out just a very small group of dogs she could keep. Look at all these dogs you're taking.

Can't you leave me nine? I'm not taking them because I want them. There's a need for them to be removed. They ended up letting her pick five, then eight, then nine that she could keep. Look at all these dogs you're taking from me. They're all so beautiful and I love them all. I don't doubt that. Any dog she would be allowed to keep would have to be spayed or neutered. In other words, this was the end of her business.

As she watched her dogs get put into kennels and taken away, Barbara seemed to regret asking for help. I'm just sorry that I thought it was great that you came out here at the time I needed help with that dog. And then now, I mean, if you hadn't come, then this wouldn't happen. By the end of the day, they had taken nearly 150 dogs. And over the course of the whole ordeal, Sybil estimates they took a total of more than 300 dogs from Barbara. If you think that sounds like a lot, JoLynn and Jack's puppies buy from commercial breeders who sometimes have had more than a thousand puppies at one time.

Those operations at least have several employees. Whitefire Kennel just had Barbara. Even as they're trying to get ready to leave, Barbara never stopped trying to keep dogs. I mean, I love these dogs and I feel like an adopted one somewhere, but I love my own dogs better that I've raised. And one of the little puppies that they took, I mean, I really have my eye on. It's one of the young ones. It's not old enough to go. And I don't know if there's any chance that I could, I don't know what evidence I would need or what I need to do to let the judge have me one. You would have to speak with the judge on that.

We have the disposition hearing. I mean, I don't know what I need to... All of her dogs were removed from the property, and ASPCA volunteers staffed the temporary kennel at the fairgrounds until a judge could hear Barbara's case. Sybil considered the day a win, but wished it hadn't come to this. It was a miserable day, except it was an exhilarating day because we got all the dogs out of there and got them set up at the Worth County Fairgrounds. Barbara was charged with 17 counts of animal neglect. There are hours of video from that day. And while I'm going through all of these official recordings, there's something I keep wondering.

Where are the inspectors? Both the United States Department of Agriculture and the Iowa Department of Agriculture have inspectors. Federal ones are required to visit at least once a year. Whitefire Kennel was a licensed breeder, which meant an inspector from that agency had to make regular visits and say, Yep, everything looks fine here. How could they have done that? Shouldn't the USDA or the state have stopped this before

it got to the sheriff? Turns out a state inspector did shut down Barbara's business, but got overruled. That's next. I used to be a TV reporter in Iowa, but in recent years moved to New York. When I walk around the city, I notice that restaurants stick these big capitalized letters in their window. Or right by the door. It's a grade. You can get an A, B, or a C. Every restaurant is required to post this letter grade somewhere anyone passing by can see. It's a way for people to know how well the restaurant did in their last sanitary inspection. There can be some comfort knowing that a health

inspector gave that place an A rating. You're safe. We want that same comfort when making a big purchase like buying a dog. You want to be able to trust what you're getting, which is one reason a lot of us might check to see if a breeder has a license before buying one of their dogs. Whether we're getting a dog online or at a pet store, we assume a licensed breeder runs a tighter ship than one that hasn't been inspected. JoLynn says her breeders are licensed. You can trust them. But they're inspected by the same officials checking Barbara's operation. And in her case, an inspector came to visit, knew about these terrible conditions, and Barbara kept her license. Sybil told me that the same inspector checks her shelter. She said when he stopped by, he'd tell her what was going on at Barbara's business.

The inspector was visiting her multiple times and saying that, you know, your license is not approved, thus you can't sell. The inspector responsible for checking Barbara's operation was Mark Rue. He's a livestock inspector from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. That's the local department that checks on breeders to make sure they're following all the rules. I reached out to Mark, who is still an inspector. He didn't respond. But I've looked through some of his inspection reports.

Back in 2013, he noted that Barbara was not providing adequate exercise areas. By 2018, her status switched from approved to disapproved. On April 19, 2018, the inspector sent a letter to the state veterinarian. You may not have known states have official vets, but this is Iowa, a largely agricultural state. Here, the state vet is a big job. In his letter to the state vet, the inspector wrote, I informed Barbara she is past due on license fee and my disapproved inspection means she

is no longer legally in business. He told the state vet about what he'd seen through the years. Substandard sanitation, no food, no water, and dog fighting. But even after the inspector shut down Whitefire Kennel on paper, Barbara asked for a waiver to sell a large group of puppies. She suddenly found two buyers. She estimated it to be about 30 puppies in an email to the inspector. And it's after that request that the inspector gets word

from his boss. Despite his reports, letter, and evidence, his boss tells him that Barbara can keep selling puppies. You might be wondering, why? Well, then the inspector's boss, who would have been the, at that time, assistant state vet, said you aren't allowed to disapprove her license because she already paid her licensing fee. And it doesn't matter if she doesn't pass inspection. So long as she's paid for that licensing fee, you can't tell her she can't sell. What? Mm-hmm. I mean, is there any explanation?

You have it? Mm-hmm. The email where it said, uh, from the inspector, he wanted to let me know that he received a call from his supervisor that we inspectors cannot prevent licensees, even disapproved ones, from doing business. If you couldn't tell by my what, I'm confused. I looked at a copy of the email. In it, the inspector basically blamed his boss. He said his boss told him that inspectors can't stop a breeder from doing business. The inspector added, quote, So I am not sure what good it does for me to disapprove any license for noncompliant issues.

Yeah, I don't know either. What's the point of the inspections if there's no punishment when they find the breeder is doing something wrong? This is how a puppy mill, even one caught by an inspector, is able to stay open. The inspector tried to shut down Barbara in April. Instead, she stayed open for another seven months until the sheriff's office served that search warrant. Remember, both federal and state departments of agriculture monitor licensees. Why did it fall on the sheriff to shut down Barbara's business? Back in Des Moines, Mindy Callison from Bailey Now Benji had warned me

about the USDA. She'd said they consider breeders their customers, and the customer is often right. They're not in the business of shutting down these places. They're in the business of working with their customers to upgrade their facilities or make sure they're doing as good as possible. And when you're saying customer, you mean somebody that gives them money in exchange for a license? Yes. So instead of us having to report to a boss, right? Like that's how I would see the USDA. I would think that they are my boss if I was a breeder and that I need to do everything I can to make sure I'm in compliance.

But the way the USDA sees it is that they are customer service focused. When I look up Whitefire Kennel, Barbara's name is labeled customer information. The language does suggest they're serving her as a licensee instead of regulating her business. So the next time you're thinking of buying a puppy, don't necessarily be reassured by a breeder who says they are licensed. It's no guarantee. I wasn't the only one caught off guard by how toothless the process seems. Sheriff Dan Fink told me he was disappointed

to learn how much inspectors' hands are tied, too. They really can't shut them down very easily. They can't issue them fines. I thought that would be a lot more cut and dry, and it wasn't. It was, you know, they give them warnings and warnings and warnings and and honestly you know i've talked to a couple of our local state representative and a state senator and i said you know there needs to be some kind of bite to this to the inspectors going there that issue them a fine or shut them down or something because that could help take this out of where it got to, to the level we had to go to.

You don't even think your office should have to get involved? I don't. It should have stopped with the inspector's level. The sheriff saw this as yet another thing communities are putting on law enforcement. Even though a totally different government agency already exists to track breeders breaking the rules. It costs his department time, resources, and he believes a good deputy. Deputy Grunov, who was just a very good officer of mine, going through this case, I think that stressed him out so bad. That's why he ended up leaving law enforcement. The people I had the most questions for worked at the Iowa Department of Agriculture.

I wondered what explanation they could have for their decision to let Barbara stay in business. In response, a spokesperson for the department emailed me a part of the state code. The section said a license can only be revoked by the Secretary of Agriculture. Quote, So, they're saying Barbara has to be allowed a hearing before they can take away her license. But why was she never given a hearing? They had seven months. And there are not just complaints against local inspectors. An audit of the federal program found that the USDA mishandled almost 50 percent of the complaints

made against dog breeding operations, at least of the complaints the audit reviewed. Since this case, Iowa law was updated but still does not give inspectors the power to seize or impound dogs. That power still belongs to the state's secretary of agriculture. So it has to come from the head of the whole department after a hearing or nobody. Here's Sybil again. All they can do is inspect you and tell you like, oh, you were approved to sell or your license is, you know, denied or, you know, this is the list of things you have to improve upon. I'll be back in six months. They have no ability to say, you're under arrest, turn over your dogs. They have to work with local law enforcement.

And they don't usually in our state. After veterinarians got a look at the puppies that had been in her care, Barbara was charged with 17 counts of animal neglect. A lot of the dogs that we took in had serious issues that required amputations, surgeries. Sybil estimates the local Humane Society spent upwards of $60,000 to $70,000 on extra health care needs for the dogs. That's on top of regular bills like spay and neuter surgeries. The ASPCA took some of the dogs to a's on top of regular bills like spay and neuter surgeries. The ASPCA took some of the dogs to a behavioral rehabilitation center, and other puppies went to shelters across the country. So all in all, as far as I know, all the dogs have found homes.

All the dogs that came through my shelter did find forever homes. Although most people running puppy mills aren't charged, Barbara was. In October 2019, more than a year after Barbara's dogs were seized, a jury found her guilty on 14 counts out of 17 charges of animal neglect. The judge required she get a mental health exam. She was also sentenced to two years probation. She's appealed the decision and tried to get her dogs back. Her parole ended, and legally, Barbara can own dogs again.

Sheriff Dan Fank told me he's been hearing about Barbara recently. I've had a couple reports that she's starting to get dogs back again, which there's nothing we can control on that. You know, just keep our ear to the ground and make sure it doesn't turn bad again out there. I've called Barbara, tried emailing her, and talked to her lawyer's office a couple of times, sending him an email too, but they never chose to comment. Barbara did take to the witness stand in her trial to defend herself. She argued the Samoyeds were receiving good treatment

and wasn't aware that any of the dogs could be malnourished. In her appeal, Barbara argued that she was forced to sign the agreement to give up her puppies after being threatened by deputies. Barbara wasn't who I pictured when I thought of someone running a puppy mill. She was not the villain lurking in the shadows overseeing an assembly line. She seemed like she wanted help, but also needed money. And that's one of the ways she and her husband had made money for nearly two decades. Profit over the welfare of animals.

I mean, they're my income. I mean, you know, I want to sell them. I understand. These are the kinds of conditions that exist in puppy mills all over the United States. So let's take this back to the puppy pipeline we've been focused on. Remember, breeders that sell puppies to JoLynn of Jack's Puppies have violations like these too. Sybil, in her corner of North Iowa, has gotten calls about both Barbara and Jolynn. Jack's Puppies is only about 35 miles from Sybil's shelter. I'm known as the animal lady here in my little pond, you know, I'm medium fish in a medium pond.

And so when people hear things, they want to tell me about it, you know, and they, oh, I sat next to this lady at the nail salon and she works for Jack's Puppies. And she said this and this and this and she needs to move 20 dogs. The mail lady calls and says, there's a big van in their driveway right now. Things like that. Sybil usually has to break the news. What they're seeing happen is 100% legal. And sometimes moving 20 dogs is just moving 20 dogs. But then one day, a different kind of tip came in.

This one seemed like good news to Sybil. There was a new dog rescue in her area. At first, she was excited. Until she saw who started the charity. JoLynn of Jack's Puppies. So my mind always tries to go to the good in people. And like, I feel even the most evil person must have some good in them somewhere. And so, I mean, you know, I just always want to believe the best in people. That's kind of where my mind went. I was really wrong.

Why did Jalynn start a dog rescue? That's next time on Smokescreen Puppy Kingpin is a production of Neon Hum Media. It is reported, hosted, and written by me, Alex Schumann. Lead producer is Natalie Wren. Our editor is Catherine St. Louis. Chloe Chobol is our associate producer. Managing producer is Samantha Allison. Executive producer at Neon Hum is Jonathan Hirsch.

Fact-checking by Sarah Ivry. Asha Ivanovich composed the theme song and music heard throughout this series. Additional tracks by Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Asha Ivanovich composed the theme song and music heard throughout this series. Additional tracks by Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Sound design and mixing by Hans Dale Shee. Special thanks to Odelia Rubin, Kate Mishkin, Crystal Genesis, Moona Danish, and Joanna Clay.