Today, September 17, 2025, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (SAF) filed the final brief in our appeal challenging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) puppy ban in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The puppy ban prohibits all dogs under the age of six months and dogs without an implanted microchip from entering the country. The purported purpose of the age and microchip requirements is to make sure that the dog is old enough to have been vaccinated for rabies and has the appropriate vaccination paperwork linked to an implanted microchip as proof. The puppy ban applied even to countries with almost no risk of rabies and that many breeders depend upon for genetic diversity – such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and others.
Prior to the rule change, CDC declared these same countries to be free of rabies or to possess such a low risk of rabies that it did not require the dogs coming from those countries to be vaccinated. It did not even ask for the dogs’ age or microchip number. Nevertheless, it now applies the ban to those dogs.
“Federal law requires that agency actions be both within their scope of lawful authority and to be logical and rational,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “This ban is neither. CDC has no idea which statute authorizes it. It has changed its position and grasped at straws after the fact while simultaneously telling the court to ‘trust the experts at the CDC.’”
The ban took effect in August 2024. SAF immediately sued, and asked the district court to preliminary enjoin the CDC from enforcing the ban. After months of briefing and arguments—and an announcement from CDC that it would be reconsidering the ban—the district court denied the injunction in April 2025. SAF appealed that denial to the Sixth Circuit.
CDC has yet to make any progress on its reconsideration of the ban. And now that the briefing is complete, it is up to the court to decide whether it wants to hear oral arguments on the case or not.
Ultimately, the ban is “not based on sound legal principles, is the antithesis of reasoned decisionmaking, and as such is arbitrary and capricious,” the brief argues. It concludes by asking the court to “lean forward from the bench to let [CDC] know, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough” and to prevent any more “irreversible mischief” until the matter can be fully resolved.
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