A cap of 10 fertile female dogs, or 50 with a special exemption, is part of the state government’s planned puppy farm laws that aim to stamp out animal cruelty.

But Banksia Park Puppies’ Matt Hams said the laws would do the opposite, putting commercial operations like his out of business, creating a black market of dodgy backyard breeders and making it harder for families to get the pet they want.

Mr Hams joined Chevromist Kennels’ Robert and Michael Attard and veterinarian Amanda Hulands-Nave to put their case to a briefing of Corangamite and Moyne Shire councillors in Terang on Tuesday.

Mr Hams has 150 breeding females and employs 30 people.

“We would see that drop significantly to where our business won’t exist in its current form,” he said.

“Because we have so many dogs it allows us to invest in half a million dollar nurseries that have heated floors and commercial airconditioning, but also we have big training areas and the vet on site constantly, all those sorts of things are made possible because of our volume.”

By putting commercial breeders out of business, Mr Hams said the cap would have unintended consequences.

“The Minister’s romantic idea with this is that the dogs that will be bred now will be bred in a family environment and therefore that will be better for them, but the trouble with that is it ignores the demand,” he said. 

“I think the Minister has this image that wholesome families will have four or five dogs and they’ll breed them, the reality is the vast majority of them will be 10 dogs in a chook shed out the back. We’re not solving any problem, we’re making it worse.”

Dr Hulands-Nave said there was no evidence to show that a cap on animals would improve welfare.

“There’s no scientific paper that’s been done that shows that animal welfare is related to any numbers whatsoever,” she said.

“Queensland and New South Wales have looked at this issue over the past few years and both of them came to the conclusion that there was no reason to have a cap.”

Dr Hulands-Nave said the cap would also lower the genetic diversity of dogs, while removing commercial breeders would likely have consequences for animal welfare.

“You remove the ability for these dogs to be actively loved on a day-to-day basis and it ends up removing the professionalism from the operation because you have to seek income outside that environment, so you can’t be there all the time and corners get cut and welfare gets cut,” she said.

Robert Attard has 50 dogs in total and has spent more than $1 million on developing their kennels. He said the cap would mean an uncertain future.

“The Minister has amended this Bill to suggest we could possibly have… the ability to have our 50 dogs as opposed to 10, but that’s at the Minister’s discretion that we would have to renew after the first 12 months and once every three years after that. We’re not going to have any real certainty over our business,” he said.

“If this goes through it could be applied to other industries as well, greyhounds, horse racing, they’ll be next.”

The group instead advocates for better enforcement of current laws and more resources for local government to help with this.

Corangamite Shire councillor Bev McArthur said it was hoped that councils would also lobby Mr Purcell to support amendments to remove the cap

“Mr Vote One Local Jobs needs to support local jobs,” she said.

The Coalition and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party will oppose the bill in the upper house, with the vote likely to rest with Mr Purcell and Fiona Patten.