DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News ) – The SPCA of Texas and the Texas Human Legislation Network are praising the City of Dallas banning the sale of dogs and cats at local pet stores.
City Council voted this week to pass the Humane Pet Store Ordinance, which would fine anyone caught violating the order up to $500.
The ordinance was put in place in an effort to stop puppy mills from supplying local pet stores with animals bred cruelly and potentially plagued with illnesses.
The SPCA of Texas’ Maura Davies said the organization has seen it happen too many times.
“Those puppies many times have gotten sick. That illness can then cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the people and cause anguish for the animals and a lot of pain for the people too,” she said.
She said the ordinance will prompt people to turn to shelters and non-profits for pets and help with ongoing overcrowding.
“It is a good day in Dallas knowing that this new breeding practice and open more doors to helping more animals get adopted,” said Davies.
The new ordinance will impact stores like Petland which said it only works with licensed breeders.
Dallas joins Austin, College Station, El Paso, Euless, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Sherman and Waco in cities that have passed a similar ordinance.
The Texas Humane Legislation Network helped city officials draft the ordinance.
Stacy Sutton Kerby, THLN Director of Government Relations said more cities across Texas are taking control due to what she described as lack of action from the United States Department of Agriculture.
“Local governments have realized that they’re the ones who have to step into the gap to protect people and puppies in their cities because the federal agency that is tasked with overseeing these large commercial breeding facilities that are out of state and ship puppies to Texas…they’re just not doing enough,” she said.
Kerby said despite this recent win in Dallas, there’s more work to do at the commercial breeding end of the puppy mill pipeline.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to make sure that the people who are operating these facilities are operating clean, safe facilities…frankly there’s a lot of unlicensed activity that happens. THLN is going to work really hard to make sure that people who are in the business commercially breeding cats and dogs get licensed if they need to be licensed and to make sure they operate clean, safe facilities,” she said.
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