The Retail Pet Ban has a new name and new language for the upcoming 2020 Washington Legislative Session!
The new bill, known currently as the Humane Pet Sales Bill, builds on California's model with stronger provisions to prevent unscrupulous pet stores from funneling puppy/kitten mill animals into an unsuspecting public and help legitimate rescues promote animals through adoption. At the end of October, Ava and I received amazing news from our local member of the Washington Federation of Animal Care and Control Agencies whom we had been working with over the summer. It was confirmed that Pasado's Safe Haven, a fantastic animal advocacy organization based in Monroe, Washington, would be leading the effort to introduce and pass the Humane Pet Sales Bill, with support from a variety of stakeholders, including the Federation. Just last year, Pasado's Safe Haven led the successful effort to ban the practice of using puppies and kittens as live collateral in pet sales financing schemes. They also supported successful efforts to strengthen our state's anti-animal fighting law and limit dog breed-based discrimination. Over the past few months, we have had the honor of working with this incredible animal welfare organization and are ecstatic to share the product of these efforts. The Humane Pet Sales Bill is a modification of the retail pet sales bill introduced last year. It is designed to not only combat puppy and kitten mills, but also promote successful adoptions from legitimate rescues. Among other measures, the bill requires basic best practice adoption steps such as use of an adoption questionnaire and transparency of any medical issues. It will not impact responsible breeders who sell directly to the public, as it is intentionally focused on eliminating the few bad actors responsible for funneling the vast majority of puppy/kitten mill animals. Attached to this update is a link to the one-page document from Pasado's Safe Haven detailing the bill itself. As of today, the Humane Pet Sales Bill is currently in the process of being pre-filed for the start of this year's session, where it will be assigned a bill number. As we move closer to the start of this very exciting (and very short!) legislative session, we encourage all of you to continue to reach out to your representatives regarding your support of this bill. Ava and I's next goal is to speak to our local political organizations and persuade them to pass resolutions in favor of the Humane Pet Sales Bill. We will provide the bill number as soon as possible to aid in these efforts. Once more, we would like to thank you all for your support. We cannot stress the importance of constituent passion enough, and it warms our hearts to see it here. Click here to read more about the Humane Pet Sales Bill! Bellevue, WA 12/09/19
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