On May 23, 2017, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change published a document in the Gazette of India that should have changed the way dogs are bred, sold, and traded in this country.
It is called the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Dog Breeding and Marketing) Rules, 2017. It is 30 pages long. It is detailed, specific, and — in many places — genuinely progressive. It lays out exactly what a registered breeder must do, what a dog’s living space must look like, how a female dog must be treated, what records must be maintained, and what rights a buyer of a pup has.
It has been in force for eight years.
And if you have ever bought a dog from a pet shop in India, or watched a litter of pups being sold from a Facebook post or a WhatsApp group, or seen a puppy displayed in a mall or a market for immediate sale, you have almost certainly witnessed this law being broken — openly, repeatedly, and without consequence.
What the Law Actually Says
Let us start with the basics, because most Indians — including most pet owners — have never heard of these rules, let alone read them.
Under the Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules 2017, no person can breed dogs for sale without first obtaining a Certificate of Registration from the State Animal Welfare Board. The registration requires a physical inspection of the breeding establishment, a ₹5,000 non-refundable application fee, and proof that the facility meets a comprehensive set of welfare and infrastructure standards.
The certificate is valid for two years and must be renewed. It cannot be transferred. It must be displayed prominently at the breeding establishment.
That is the first and most fundamental requirement. Every dog breeder operating in India today, without a valid registration certificate from their State Animal Welfare Board, is operating illegally.
Now ask yourself: how many of the estimated hundreds of thousands of dog breeders, pet shops, backyard breeders, and online sellers across this country have such a certificate?
The honest answer is that nobody knows. Because the State Animal Welfare Boards that are supposed to issue, track, and monitor these registrations are themselves chronically underfunded, understaffed, and — in several states — barely functional.
The Rules Are Not Unreasonable. They Are Actually Quite Good.
Before criticising the implementation, it is worth acknowledging what the law actually demands — because the standards it sets are genuinely humane and thoughtful.
On breeding practices, the rules are specific and scientifically grounded. A female dog cannot be bred before she turns 18 months. She cannot give birth more than once per year. She cannot produce more than five litters in her lifetime. She cannot be mated after the age of eight years. Inbreeding — mating between relatives of the 2nd to 4th grade — is explicitly prohibited. Incest breeding, the mating of parents and children or siblings, is also prohibited. Artificial insemination and rape stands — devices used to force mating — are banned.
These are not vague aspirations. They are written law.
On housing, the rules require that each dog be given a specific minimum floor space — calculated as four times the dog’s length by two times the dog’s length — with impervious floors, adequate ventilation, proper lighting, working smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers. Dogs cannot be kept permanently caged. They must be exercised for at least 30 minutes twice a day. They must have socialisation with humans for at least three hours per day for adult dogs and five hours per day for pups under four months.
On sale, the rules state clearly that pups under eight weeks of age cannot be sold. Dogs over six months cannot be sold without being sterilised, unless being sold to another registered breeder. Every pup sold must be microchipped. A receipt must be provided to every buyer with the pup’s microchip number and the buyer’s contact details. Pups cannot be displayed in public places for immediate sale. Breeders must follow up on the health of every pup they sell at least once a year.
On documentation, breeders must maintain records of every dog in their establishment — breed, name, microchip number, date of birth, vaccination history, mating details, litter records, cause of death, post-mortem reports — for a minimum of eight years.
Read all of that again. This is Indian law. It has been Indian law since 2017.
How many State Animal Welfare Boards have actually implemented a functioning registration system?
The rules require every State Board to receive applications, conduct inspections, issue certificates, and track compliance. Several states do not have active, functional State Animal Welfare Boards at all. Others exist on paper but lack the manpower, budget, and expertise to conduct meaningful inspections. There is no publicly available central database of registered dog breeders in India. There is no government website where a buyer can verify whether the breeder they are purchasing from holds a valid registration.
How is a buyer supposed to check compliance when compliance is itself invisible?
Has the ₹5,000 registration fee and the inspection requirement deterred genuine breeders from registering?
This is a legitimate operational question. A serious, professional breeder with a proper facility, proper records, and proper welfare standards should have no difficulty meeting the registration requirements. But India’s dog breeding landscape is not dominated by serious professional breeders. It is dominated by backyard breeders — individuals with one or two breeding females, operating from homes, selling pups through social media and WhatsApp, with no infrastructure, no records, and no veterinary oversight. For these operators, the registration system is irrelevant because it is unenforced. They simply do not register. Nothing happens to them.
Who is conducting the mandatory annual inspections?
The rules require that every registered establishment be inspected at least once each year by an authorised inspector — who, critically, cannot be a person who has ever been a pet shop owner or breeder, or is related to one. The inspector must file a written report. If the State Board finds non-compliance, it can revoke registration.
This is a sound framework on paper. But who is conducting these annual inspections? Are they happening? Are the reports being filed? Is there a single state in India that can produce records of annual inspections of registered breeding establishments covering the past five years?
These are not rhetorical questions. They are questions that journalists, animal welfare organisations, and concerned citizens should be formally asking state governments — under the Right to Information Act if necessary.
What happens to pups that are not sold within six months?
The rules require every breeder to rehabilitate unsold pups through an Animal Welfare Organisation within six months. This provision exists because the alternative — breeding pups for commercial sale and then discarding or abandoning the ones that do not sell — is one of the most documented and least discussed welfare crises in the Indian dog trade.
How many breeders are complying with this provision? How many Animal Welfare Organisations are receiving these pups through formal rehabilitation channels? And critically — is anyone tracking this?
Why are pups still being displayed in public places for immediate sale?
Walk through any major pet exhibition, any busy market in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, or Jaipur, and you will find pups in cages, in boxes, in the arms of sellers, being displayed and sold on the spot. The rules explicitly prohibit this. Pups under eight weeks cannot be sold at all. Public display for immediate sale is prohibited.
Eight years after the law came into force, this is still standard practice. What enforcement action has been taken against a single pet shop or exhibitor for violating this provision?
The Document That Exists and the Reality That Does Not
India is not without good animal welfare law. That is not the problem.
The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 is reasonably comprehensive. The ABC Rules 2023 provide a framework for managing stray dogs. The Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules 2017 — the document we are discussing here — set standards that are comparable to those in more developed pet-industry markets globally.
The problem is the gap between the document and the reality. That gap is where millions of dogs live their lives — bred too often, weaned too early, sold too young, housed in conditions the law explicitly prohibits, by operators the State Board has never registered and inspectors who have never visited.
The law says a female dog cannot produce more than five litters in her lifetime. The law says she must have twelve months between litters. The law says she cannot be mated using a rape stand. Visit any high-volume dog mill operating in India — there are many, in rural areas outside major cities, supplying pups to urban pet shops — and ask whether any of those three provisions have ever been enforced.
The law says every pup must be microchipped before sale. Walk into any pet shop in India and ask to see the microchip documentation for a pup in the window. Count how many shops comply.
What Needs to Change
The Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules 2017 are not the problem. They are actually a solution — a detailed, welfare-grounded, legally sound solution that has been sitting in the Gazette of India for eight years, waiting to be implemented.
What needs to change is the seriousness with which the government treats implementation, enforcement, and accountability.
Every State Animal Welfare Board needs to publish a public register of registered breeders — so that buyers can verify compliance before purchasing a pup. Every state government needs to fund and staff inspection teams with the expertise to conduct meaningful annual visits. Every pet shop and online seller operating without registration needs to face consequence — not a warning, not a fine that is never collected, but actual legal consequence proportional to the commercial activity they are conducting.
And every person buying a dog in India needs to ask one question before they hand over money: Are you registered with the State Animal Welfare Board?
If the seller does not know what that means, you have your answer.
Pets News Network is India’s first dedicated media platform for the pet and animal industry. For breaking global pet news, brand coverage, and advertising enquiries, contact: ankur@petsnewsnetwork.com
