Hundreds of postcards, with the viscera of underfed golden retrievers living in filthy conditions, are flooding the governor’s office in New York. One Massive email campaign was launched by national animal rights groups.
However, the pet store industry and its lobbyists have also lobbied. Zoom meetings were held with the governor’s staff; a pet store employee created a independence campaign Videos featuring well-groomed dogs have gone viral on TikTok.
Of the hundreds of bills that Governor Kathy Hochul must decide whether to sign before the end of the year, few seem to carry more emotional weight than the bill affecting the welfare of a constituency that cannot even vote: puppy.
After years of debate, New York state legislators passed an invoice in June with rare bipartisan support banning the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in New York pet stores, leading to a bitter conflict between animal rights groups and the store industry. pet.
Over the past few weeks, they have redirected their lobbying efforts to Ms. Hochul, meeting with her office to resolve their case as she decides to sign or veto the bill, alleging that both sides accuse forcing lies and spreading misinformation.
If Ms. Hochul signs the bill, New York will follow the lead of California, Maryland, Illinois and other states have passed similar bans restricting commercial breeders, sometimes called puppy mills or kitten factories.
Breeding facilities for many years source of fierce controversy Because, according to animal rights advocates, they operate without close supervision and keep dogs in cruel and inhumane conditions, often resulting in the sale of sick puppies to consumers. use.
The bill seeks to shut down that pipeline by banning the sale of animals in more than 80 New York pet stores — common in windows displaying pups costing thousands of dollars — and encouraging residents to New York adopts pets from alternative shelters. People are still allowed to buy animals directly from breeders, an effort to allow potential pet owners to visit and buy from responsible breeders.
Jennie Lintz, puppy mill initiative director at the American Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “New York remains one of the largest markets for these businesses, so the bill could have an impact not only here but nationally.”
Pet stores have fiercely opposed the law, arguing that the bill would get them out of businesslead to hundreds of workers being unemployed, make it difficult for people to get pets in the state, and potentially lead to an underground pet market – arguments that supporters of the bill have dismissed as overblown. exceed.
One of the industry’s biggest grievances is the fact that animal activists have viewed most of the livestock industry as abusive. It argues that the unsanitary dog breeding facilities that have been the target of accursed investigations are not representative of the industry as a whole.
“Don’t pretend that no one is doing this the wrong way, but they are few and far apart,” said Mike Bober, president and chief executive officer of Pet Advocacy Network, a national pet trade association. . “We are deeply offended and disappointed by the fact that people are deliberately and intentionally misrepresenting the state of the country’s livestock.”
Hochul, a Democrat running to the end of her term in November, has not publicly shared her thoughts on the bill and her office has said it is still reviewing the law.
More than 2,000 dog owners in the country are largely regulated and licensed by the federal governmentbut animal rights advocates argue that the minimum standards of care they must provide are antiquated, inadequate and rarely enforced.
In New York, the state attorney general’s office has filed a lawsuit in recent years against some pet stores, including those in Albany and New York Cityaccuses them of deceiving consumers and selling puppies that are sick or abused and come from unauthorized breeders.
In 2021, Attorney General Letitia James sued Shake a Paw, which operates two stores on Long Island, for having a doctorate health certificate, subjecting customers to unforeseen veterinary costs, and sold at least nine dogs that died of serious illness shortly after they were sold. The The shop owner flatly refused accusations.
Lawsuits helped support the ban, although the industry believes that banning the retail sale of puppies will lead to a range of undesirable consequences, including more online scams and fewer legal protections for consumers adopting sick puppies.
While New York is home to about 40 commercial breeders, according to the ASPCA, the majority of puppies are sold at pet stores in the state. imported from breeders elsewhere, mainly in the Midwest.
Emilio Ortiz, manager of Citipups, a pet store with two locations in Manhattan, said the company carefully sources the hundreds of puppies it sells each year from about 30 different breeders across the globe. across the country that, he says, exceed federally mandated standards and provide “living conditions for their dogs.” “
Mr Ortiz, who has been meeting with state lawmakers and the governor’s office to campaign against the bill, argues that the biggest obstacle facing the industry is the “distorted view and public narrative” that All breeders and pet stores are the bad guys. In response, Mr start making videos seeks to show a behind-the-scenes look at how stores treat the pets they sell. Mr Ortiz has more than 300,000 followers on TikTok and his videos have garnered millions of views.
“It was an uphill battle,” he said. “We are just small businesses compared to some of the big national organizations that raise millions of dollars and have this marketing machine behind them. Usually people just hear about these horror stories, so I wanted to show people what was really going on.”
He added: “We would completely go out of business” if Ms Hochul signed the bill, noting that about 90% of the store’s revenue comes from selling puppies.
Supporters of the bill have argued that animal stores could adapt by switching to selling pet supplies, although the industry argues that it would require stores to make significant investments to make reconfigure the floor plan originally designed to house live animals.
Pet stores will be allowed to partner with shelter and shelter organizations to organize adoption events, although they will not receive any adoption-related fees. Mr. Bober said that all but two of the 28 pet stores selling puppies in California went out of business two years after the ban went into effect in 2019, according to data compiled by his trade association. .
State Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat and self-described animal lover who introduced the bill in New York, set aside concerns about the industry’s business, saying the ban has a more basic goal: to stop treating animals as commodities, or “an item on a supermarket shelf. “
“I don’t think we should sanction animal torture as a measure,” said Gianaris, deputy majority leader and owner of rescue cat, Alley, and a Cavapoo hybrid, Fred. way to keep people. , which he says he bought from a reputable breeder. “I hope the governor doesn’t take long as long as the entire Legislature has to figure out the right thing to do.”
Although many Republican lawmakers voted for the bill, it didn’t gain serious traction in Albany until Democrats took full control of the Capitol four years ago. The act was passed by the State Senate in 2020 but stalled in Congress.
Some moderate Democrats in Congress oppose the bill and propose more targeted alternatives to regulating the pet trade, while a number of loud animal activists denounce the bill. forced Carl Heastie, speaker of the council, to oppose the act.
That changed on the last day of this year’s legislative session, when the 150-seat Congress passed the bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat from Manhattan, with just 15 votes. against.
Libby Post, executive director of the New York State Animal Welfare League, an organization representing shelters and rescue organizations, which supports the bill, said: “The last stronghold of the demagogue partisans are puppies and kittens.
The pet store industry has accused shelters and rescue organizations of hypocrisy, arguing they operate with little regulation in New York, even though the second bill on Ms. aims to change that by implementing unified standards of veterinary care and rescue housing. animals.
Post said that banning the retail sale of the animals would relieve stress on New York’s more than 100 shelters and 400 rescue organizations, many of which she said were too many dogs, including including people acquired during the pandemic but may have been abandoned. after they are called back to their workplace.
“What goes on in a puppy mill is completely inhumane,” Ms. Post said. “And New York is complicit in animal cruelty as long as we allow the sale of milled animals.”
