A Bartholomew County dog breeder is asking planning officials again to have a kennel northeast of Hope after a request three years ago was denied due to allegations the facility would be a “puppy mill.”
In December 2017, Aaron and Lena Oberholtzer asked the Bartholomew County Board of Zoning Appeals for conditional-use approval to operate a kennel in an “Agriculture: Preferred” zoning district.
The couple said they wanted to breed up to 100 small dogs a year on a 55-acre property in the northeast corner of the intersection of County Road 950 North and 500 East.
One month later, the application was rejected 4-1. The consensus among most of the appeals board members was that a large dog kennel is not the best use of land zoned as prime agricultural.
On Sept. 22, Aaron Oberholtzer again filed for a conditional use application to operate a dog kennel.
Oberholtzer says he decided to seek a permit after being visited by both Bartholomew County Animal Control Officer Mark Case and a representative of the code enforcement office. Both county representatives said they had received complaints regarding dogs on the property, Oberholtzer said.
“I wasn’t at all aware that anybody was complaining or had concerns,” Oberholtzer said. “I don’t know why they didn’t let us know. Are they scared to talk to us?
Paperwork submitted by the petitioner last month states Oberholtzer wants to raise “more than five canines … for a family hobby.” But the ambiguous term “more than five canines” raised a few red flags for Lia Elliott, a board member for CARE (Community Animal Rescue Effort, Inc.).
When asked how many dogs he currently has on his property, Oberholtzer declined to give a precise number. He said there were only “a few” dogs on his property.
After being asked about how many dogs he was planning to raise in the kennel, Oberholtzer said he preferred not to make that information public before he address the board.
However, he did acknowledge that he’s not allowed to have more than four dogs on the property without permission from the county.
When told he is facing opposition, Oberholtzer says he wants to stop his kennels from being labeled as a puppy mill.
Puppy mills are often characterized as places where purebred pups are raised for profit in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.
“We’re definitely not a puppy mill,” Oberholtzer said. “We consider ourselves professional breeders. If we sell a puppy, we always tell the customer that if you do find any health issues, let us know.”
According to the U.S.D.A. website, Oberholtzer’s wife, Lena Oberholtzer, is a commercial dog breeder licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That means that the kennels she and her husband operated in Washington County were subject to unannounced inspections, the website states.
Lena Oberholtzer is also registered as a commercial dog breeder with the Indiana State Board of Animal Health, according to Glenda Daugherty, President of the Humane Society of Washington County.
An inspection of the former Oberholtzer kennels near Fredricksburg did show all animals caged, which Daugherty said is frowned upon by her organization. However, the humane society president said she had not heard a negative public concern regarding the kennels or any complaints from out-of-town kennel customers.
Although Oberholtzer submitted a conditional use application form last month, assistant city/county planner Melissa Begley said he did not submit the right document. Instead, he needs to submit paperwork seeking permission to operate a home-based business, she said.
If the correct paperwork is submitted in a timely fashion, the earliest the matter will likely to go before the zoning appeals board will be 7 p.m. Nov. 23, Begley said.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, those who wish to speak for or against the kennel may not have the same access as three years ago, when more than 300 people crowded into a meeting room carrying protest signs against “puppy mills.”
Instead, most county meetings are being conducted with video conferencing and those who wish to attend logging on to a computer to attend virtually.
