Senate Passes PA Puppy Mill Bill
On Wednesday, the day we’ve been waiting for finally happened.
Pennsylvania House Bill 2525 was passed by the Senate.
The Senate and the House on Wednesday approved a bill that gives most commercial kennel owners an additional three years to comply with an array of new regulations to make their kennels more humane. The bill also gives the state agriculture secretary the power to extend that waiver even longer.
But even with provisions that supporters said water down the legislation, it still was an advancement for animal welfare in Pennsylvania, they declared.
”This is the day that we eliminate” Pennsylvania’s reputation ”as the puppy mill capital of the East,” said Rep. James Casorio, D-Westmoreland, the prime sponsor. ”The mistreatment of thousands and thousands and thousands of dogs kept in deplorable and inhumane [conditions] will no longer stand.”
The bill has been changed from the original, but at least this is a beginning, you have to start somewhere.
Hopefully, what Pennsylvania has begun will force every state to take a look at their laws, or lack of, so that humane treatment of dogs in puppy mills will be the norm rather than the exception.
I am sad to say that this watered down bill, is nothing like what was originally passed by the house. There are so many loop holes for the puppy millers this bill should never had been passed. Many people will think that the lives of the breeding dogs will be greatly improved by this bill. They will not. The waivers requested by the puppy millers will prevent anything from helping their dogs. The same dogs that languish in those cages will be there for years to come. Very sad.
I wished they had tougher laws in every state!! It makes me sick the way people treat their pets!! or other animals!! to make money!! I wish we could put the dog breeders in cages!! And treat them just like they do the poor and suffering animals!! What ever happened to just loving and taking care of your pets!
Hopefully this is a step in the right direction. Laws need to be stronger….The publicity is raising the awareness. As more come to realize hopefully the laws will get stronger and puppy mills go away.
There is one problem with any new laws and it is the same problem they have with the current laws.. there isn’t enough people to enforce the current laws or the new ones! The day they hire enough people to enforce the laws they put on the books will be the day that things can finally start to get better. Until then.. I doubt there will be much change.
This HAS to be a step in the right direction. Raising awareness is what it is all about.