Until the state Legislature finally passed a strong law in 2008 to regulate dog-breeding and kennels, Pennsylvania was known as “the puppy mill capital of the East Coast.”

Unscrupulous breeders kept dogs in squalid and inhumane conditions, imperiling the health of the animals and often ripping off people who did not know that they were buying sick pets.

The law helped. But laws are only as good as their enforcement.

Now, the state risks reverting to the bad old days because the Legislature has failed to increase funding for the Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement.

The bureau asked the Legislature to increase dog license fees, for the first time since 1996, from $6.50 to $10 per year. But lawmakers balked before heading home for the summer.

Republican Rep. Dan Moul of Adams County, chairman of the House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee, explained the obvious to Spotlight PA, that fee increases are politically unpopular.

”Believe it or not,” he said, “people will spend thousands of dollars to go buy a dog, but you increase their dog license fees by five bucks, they have a fit.”

That’s an argument to approve a fee increase, especially since the higher fee could help prevent people from spending thousands of dollars for a sick or dangerous dog.

Failing to fund the bureau passes on costs to local taxpayers, since local police will be stuck with more dog-related complaints if state-funded dog wardens can’t handle them.

Already, 14 of 67 counties do not have wardens — including Lancaster, which has more than twice as many breeding kennels as any other county.

— Republican & Herald, Pottsville/TNS