California Says Goodbye To Puppy Mills
The region makes a pioneering decision by banning pet stores from selling farmed dogs, cats and rabbits. Animals must come from shelters or rescue centers.
Californians will soon stop seeing windows in pet stores with a scene that is familiar to us: that of puppies alone or huddled together that have only known life in a kennel and that we cannot get out of there without becoming accomplices of the industry. that you trade with them.
And this is so because California has passed a pioneering law in the fight for animal rights. It has become the first state in the United States to ban the sale of farm-raised dogs, cats, and rabbits in pet stores.
Only animals from shelters or rescue centers
The ban will take effect in January 2019 after the state of California has passed AB 485, which will prevent stores from selling animals that do not come from shelters or rescue centers.
It also provides for the possibility for shops and shelters or associations to collaborate in order to find a home for abandoned or rescued animals through adoption.
It is a step. The measure will not prevent the continued commercialization of these animals. Nor will it prevent hatcheries from existing. However, it encourages adoption and ceases to support a practice that favors the breeding of companion animals as a business, under conditions that most of the time leave much to be desired.
Puppy and pain factories
The measure represents a victory for those who are fighting to end the sad conditions in which animals for sale to individuals are raised. Currently 99% of the dogs, cats and rabbits sold in pet stores come from factory farms.
These puppy farms, known in the United States as puppy mills, are authentic factories and have been widely criticized for keeping animals crammed into tight spaces and forcing them to breed relentlessly.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) supported the bill considering that, on farms or hatcheries, animals “tend to live in unsanitary and saturated conditions, without veterinary care, food, water or socialization. “.
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), another large organization that ensures the protection of animals, has also supported the initiative and recalled that irresponsible animal husbandry leads to the serious situation of their occurrence 1, 5 million sacrifices a year in the North American country.
Fines for stores that break the ban
The sector has criticized the measure claiming that it will prevent individuals from having guarantees about the medical history of the animals and will make it more difficult to find certain breeds.
To prevent fraud, the law provides for a fine of up to $500 for stores that violate the ban and are found to continue to sell animals that have not been rescued.
At the same time, the law contributes to raising awareness about the dynamics behind the sale of animals and the existence of alternatives that do have animal welfare as their object.
The sale not only objectifies the animals, but the mentality on which it is sustained is one of the main causes of abandonment.
More than thirty California cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, had already put limits on the industrial breeding of companion animals on farms or in farms. Also some Canadian cities. Passing the law across the state of California could encourage others to follow suit.
In Spain animals raised in puppy mills are also sold
The state of California marks a possible path. When we buy an animal in a store we contribute to an industry that prioritizes economic benefit over animal welfare.
In Spain many pets are sold that come from farms in eastern countries. The Foundation for Advice and Action in Defense of Animals (FAADA) denounces the conditions in which animals are raised on many of these farms, which also tend to blow up the market of local legal breeders with their prices.
According to the FAADA, it is not known how many puppy mills there are in Europe or how many animals are transported, because not all follow the legal channels. However, truck accidents and traffic controls have revealed that animals arrive from countries such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Romania.
Adopting better than buying
We have the option of adopting an animal, be it one rescued from the kennel or from other associations that welcome abandoned or rescued animals.
By adopting, we do not force any living being to reproduce out of our selfish interest, we do not support an industry that often raises animals in abusive conditions and offers a home and care to animals in need.
