PuppnDogs, by the record

USDA-licensed dog breeders in Minnesota

Minnesota has 14 dog breeders and dealers with a federal license, 0.7% of the national total. This is what USDA inspectors found when they visited, from every inspection report published since 2014.

Source: USDA APHIS license list of Sep 15, 2026 and inspection reports to Sep 18, 2026.

14 active USDA dog licenses in Minnesota: 12 breeders and 2 dealers

2,123dogs counted at each licensee's latest inspection

69inspections from 2023 to 2025

75.4%found no problems, against 88.7% nationally

#16of 26 states by licensed dog breeders

Minnesota has the 16th most USDA-licensed dog breeders

0.7% of the 2,063 active USDA dog licenses in the US are in Minnesota.

Active USDA dog licenses by state, top 10
#	State	Licenses	Dogs counted	Clean, 2023 to 2025
1	Missouri	680	46,635	96.3%
2	Indiana	379	17,172	93.8%
3	Ohio	247	21,357	75.2%
4	Iowa	152	11,055	86.5%
5	Oklahoma	82	4,265	91%
6	Kansas	77	5,921	89%
7	Wisconsin	77	4,747	63.8%
8	Arkansas	67	3,929	92.9%
9	Pennsylvania	52	4,482	82.8%
10	Illinois	37	1,236	91.2%
16	Minnesota	14	2,123	75.4%

How often USDA inspections of Minnesota breeders find a problem

Share of inspections with at least one citation. Visits where nobody was home are left out.

In 2014, 56.8% of inspections in Minnesota found at least one problem. In 2025 it was 25%. From 2016 to 2022 inspectors could log a minor issue as a “teachable moment”, which isn't a citation, so part of the drop is a change in how problems were recorded. A falling rate can mean better kennels or lighter inspections. The records alone can't tell which.

Show as table

Year	Inspections	Found a problem
2014	58	56.8%
2015	49	36.6%
2016	57	34%
2017	45	29.7%
2018	38	11.8%
2019	38	2.7%
2020	13	0%
2021	21	9.5%
2022	19	5.6%
2023	35	28.6%
2024	14	14.3%
2025	20	25%
2026	18	5.9%

What USDA inspectors cite most often in Minnesota

The rules behind Minnesota's citations since 2014. Separately, inspectors arrived 41 times and found nobody available to let them in.

Rule	What it requires	Cited
2.40(b)(2)	Methods to prevent, control, diagnose and treat disease and injury	45
3.11(a)	Excreta and food waste removed from enclosures daily	12
3.1(c)(1)(i)	Surfaces must be free of jagged edges and sharp points	12
2.75(a)(1)	Records of every dog acquired, held or disposed of	11
3.6(c)(1)(i)	Minimum floor space for each dog	10
2.40(b)(3)	Daily observation of all animals to assess health and well-being	10
2.50(a)(1)	Class A breeders must identify every adult dog by official tag or tattoo	10
3.1(e)	Food and bedding storage	8

Why a Minnesota breeder can be missing from these records

Breeders who sell face to face don't need a USDA license

USDA only licenses breeders with more than four breeding females who sell to pet stores, to brokers, or to buyers they never meet, which includes most online sales. A breeder who sells only to people who visit in person is exempt. So a breeder missing from these records may be unlicensed or simply exempt, and a clean USDA record covers only what an inspector saw on the day.

Sources for these figures

Active licenses: USDA APHIS, List of Active Licensees and Registrants, as of Sep 15, 2026. Public domain.
Inspections and citations: USDA APHIS inspection reports through Sep 18, 2026, collected by the Data Liberation Project. Dog counts, repeat citations and rule counts use its parsed files, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the figures on this page are shared under the same license.
A licensee counts as a dog breeder or dealer if it holds a Class A or B license and dogs were counted at any inspection since 2014.

USDA-licensed dog breeders in Minnesota

Check a breeder's USDA license number

Breeders who sell face to face don't need a USDA license

Sources for these figures