Senate Bill 157 establishes some pointers for promoting dogs and cats in Kentucky. It requires retail pet shops to solely promote to consumers who’re a minimum of 18 years old, and prohibits them from promoting puppies and kittens lower than eight weeks old.
It additionally mandates that shops can solely get the dogs and cats they promote from animal shelters and “qualified breeders,” and prevents native governments from enacting tighter rules on the businesses. Shop homeowners could be fined $500 for every pet provided on the market tied to any of the brand new violations outlined within the invoice.
SB 157 now heads to the complete Senate, the place it might get a vote. If it turns into legislation, it could undo present rules in Elizabethtown and Radcliff that ban retail pet shops from getting dogs and cats from breeders. Those ordinances are supposed to cease shops from promoting pets that come from puppy and kitten mills. Animal welfare activists accuse mills of mistreating animals and offering sick pets to shops.
The invoice would additionally halt an identical ban in Louisville set to take impact in September. None of the native bans stop shops from partnering with adoption companies and shelters to supply dogs and cats on their premises.
Jason Howell, a Republican from Murray, sponsored SB 157 and chairs the Senate’s Agriculture Committee.
“The stores that sell pets have no interest at all in those pets being sick. It’s a bad look for the business,” Howell stated after the committee assembly. “… I wanted to drive this back to a common set of regulations and standards.”
Howell’s invoice defines “qualified breeders” as both individuals with three or fewer feminine dogs or cats used for breeding, or large-scale kennels that the USDA hasn’t issued direct violations in opposition to for the previous two years.
The company describes direct violations as incidents “having a serious or severe adverse effect on the health and well-being of the animal,” that have been ongoing throughout an inspection. That consists of vital contamination of pet meals and animals with extended publicity to harmful temperatures.
Critical violations, which may embody infractions just like direct violations that weren’t occurring on the time of an inspection, will not be talked about within the invoice’s language.
Louisville Metro Council Member Marilyn Parker, a District 18 Republican, co-sponsored town’s ordinance banning retail pet retailer gross sales. She defended the native regulation on the Senate committee assembly Tuesday, arguing that pet shops are getting dogs and cats from mills that neglect animal welfare regardless of USDA rules.
“If this bill passes, it… sets a dangerous precedent that won’t be received kindly or well by Kentucky cities,” Parker stated.
A consultant from Petland, a serious retailer that sources dogs and cats by means of breeders, stated at Tuesday’s listening to that the corporate helped draft SB 157.
Another invoice that might overrule native bans on retail pet gross sales is making its method by means of Indiana’s legislature.
State authorities and politics reporting is supported partly by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
