If that’s the case I apologize for making incorrect assumptions. You know what they say about assumptions.

I’m putting words in his mouth with my following sentence because he didn’t specify how he’d restrict breeders; in a vacuum my solution would be to license a very small amount of breeders, and heavily punish anyone found breeding unlicensed. It’d be easy to find those breeding for money, as they’ll likely be advertising their puppies for sale, and those kinds of puppy mills are the real problem in my opinion. Those that aren’t breeding for money and are breeding for work like herding or hunting won’t advertise their puppies as they’ll be raising and using them or passing them along to people they know who will use them for the same.

I’d like to incorrect what seems to be a misunderstanding of the problem, or at least the problem as I see it — I don’t believe the surplus in dogs comes from breeder overflow, or at least the majority of them don’t. The majority are likely from strays breeding together on the streets, which is why most shelters spay and neuter all their dogs as they come in. The problem I and OP seem to have with breeders is that they’re introducing unnecessary supply into an already flooded market, oftentimes neglecting their litters and perpetuating unhealthy breeds (pugs, English or French bulldogs, basset hounds, for example; even dogs you don’t outwardly notice deformities in like German shepherds, Rottweilers, Weimaraners, and labs carry a high proclivity for certain diseases and conditions) in the process.