Ohio House passes crackdown on dog breeders

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — A bill that would crack down on high-volume dog breed­ing oper­a­tions, dubbed puppy mills, has cleared the Ohio House.

The bill passed on a 91–5 vote Wednes­day, send­ing it back to the Sen­ate to sign off on House changes.

The mea­sure would bol­ster reg­u­la­tions on the care and treat­ment of ani­mals housed in large-scale estab­lish­ments and would dis­tin­guish the facil­i­ties from tra­di­tional dog ken­nels. Those con­sid­ered “dog retail­ers” would have to be licensed.

The bill, which passed the Ohio Sen­ate unan­i­mously in Feb­ru­ary, cre­ates an advi­sory board to pro­vide guid­ance on ani­mal care stan­dards for the facil­i­ties. It also allows the direc­tor of the state’s agri­cul­ture depart­ment to con­tract with local vet­eri­nar­i­ans to con­duct inspec­tions. Annual, rather than bien­nial, inspec­tions would be required. And ani­mal res­cues would have to reg­is­ter with the Depart­ment of Agriculture.

“The Humane Soci­ety of the United States applauds Ohio’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for work­ing to end the cycle of pet over­pop­u­la­tion and the suf­fer­ing of count­less dogs that puppy mills per­pet­u­ate,” said Karen Minton, Ohio state direc­tor for The HSUS, in a writ­ten release. “No dog should be forced to spend a life­time in a small wire cage with no human com­pan­ion­ship or comfort.”

Ohio is one of 22 states with no reg­u­la­tion or over­sight of com­mer­cial high vol­ume breed­ing kennels.

Posted by AP News on Nov 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.