Replies

PAWS/USDA Definition for Dealer
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ac/cfr/9cfr3.html

9 CFR § 3.1 Housing facilities, general.

(b) . . .Housing facilities [for dogs and cats, ed.] . . . must be physically separated from any other business. If a housing facility is located on the same premises as another business, it must be physically separated from the other business so that animals the size of dogs, skunks, and raccoons are prevented from entering it.

PAWS/USDA definition of retail pet store in 7 USC § 2132

Retail pet store means any outlet, including but not limited to residential dwellings where only the following animals are sold or offered for sale, at retail, for use as pets: Dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, rats, mice, gophers, chinchilla, domestic ferrets, domestic farm animals, birds, and coldblooded species. Such definition excludes- (Emphasis added).

(1) Establishments or persons exhibiting, selling, or offering to exhibit or sell any wild or exotic or other nonpet species of warmblooded animals (except birds), such as skunks, raccoons, nonhuman primates, squirrels, ocelots, foxes, coyotes, etc.;

(2) Any establishment or person selling warmblooded animals (except birds, and laboratory rats and mice) for research or exhibition purposes; and

(3) Any establishment wholesaling any animals (except birds, rats and mice).

(4) Any establishment exhibiting pet animals in a room that is separate from or adjacent to the retail pet store, or in an outside area, or anywhere off the retail pet store premises.

>>>>Prohibits a person from operating as a pet dealer unless the person holds a license issued by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.<<<<

To be exempt under PAWS, a hobby breeder must not, within a calendar year, derive more than $500 gross income from the sale of "other" animals. See 26 USC § 1031(f)

If a person breeds dogs or cats as well as birds, and sells birds worth $501.00 during any calendar year, he is a dealer.

The AWA has been amended four times since 1966. PAWS erases the distinction between retail and wholesale. Wholesale, meaning sales from homes or homesteads.