“Ollie’s Legislation” Amongst 5 Animal Welfare Payments That Clear Home
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JULY 25, 2024…..Representatives went 5 for 5 on approval of animal security and remedy payments Thursday, mounting a late-session push for higher canine kennel oversight and a ban on using sure unique mammals in touring exhibits.
The Home authorized the payments, a number of of which have lengthy been priorities for animal rights advocates, with no opposition as legislators cruised into the ultimate week of formal enterprise for the 2023-2024 time period.
One of many payments (H 4919) would impose new statewide guardrails round kennels and boarders, an space the place reform supporters say oversight is missing.
These services would must be licensed for a most variety of animals below their care directly, they usually’d even be inspected by native officers at the very least yearly. The state would even be tasked with crafting guidelines and rules round kennel greatest practices, damage reporting, care necessities and extra.
Kennels and industrial boarders would wish to report accidents to animals or folks, and state regulators would then make investigative studies about these incidents publicly out there on-line in the event that they wind up bringing enforcement motion in opposition to a facility.
Supporters dubbed the measure “Ollie’s Legislation,” named for a Labradoodle from Longmeadow who died in 2020.
Amy Baxter, Ollie’s proprietor, recounted at a State House event final 12 months how she dropped him off at a “doggie day care,” and Ollie then sustained main accidents. He died eight weeks later after a number of surgical procedures, and Baxter stated the kennel proprietor was not forthcoming about what occurred.
Rep. Carole Fiola stated the established order leaves oversight of kennels and comparable services as much as every of the state’s 351 cities and cities.
“By means of these provisions, we hope that the tragedy that Ollie endured won’t ever occur once more,” Fiola, a Fall River Democrat, stated.
One other proposal the Home unanimously backed (H 4915) would ban circuses and different touring acts from utilizing elephants, massive cats, primates, bears and giraffes.
Animal rights activists and a few lawmakers have been pushing for years to ban occasion organizers from parading out these animals, arguing that the practices trigger inhumane residing situations.
Ten different states prohibit using unique animals in exhibits and exhibitions, and 15 Massachusetts cities and cities even have prohibitions in place, based on the MSPCA.
“The invoice each protects public well being and security and ensures that our state not helps the merciless touring unique animal acts business, the place animals endure from excessive confinement, abusive coaching, negligent veterinary care, and scarce alternatives to specific pure behaviors,” stated Liz Magner, animal advocacy specialist on the Mass. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The invoice exempts performances at everlasting, fastened services if the concerned animal lives there and for permitted movement image filming. It additionally explicitly permits these lined animals to be transported for the aim of veterinary care or to maneuver residence from one everlasting location to a different.
A few of the most well-known occasions have backed away from utilizing massive animals in recent times. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey closed its circus in 2017 after phasing out using elephants, and relaunched in 2023 without animals.
The Home additionally unanimously authorized laws (H 4911) that might increase the timeline for reporting animal cruelty and overhaul Division of Youngsters and Households rules governing foster and adoptive youngster placement into properties with canines.
Households with sure canine breeds considered as greater threat for aggression will be disqualified from fostering or adopting youngsters, based on invoice sponsors, who argue that caseworkers ought to as a substitute take a extra holistic view of every pet and its particular person temperament.
Rep. Jack Lewis informed his colleagues that when he and his husband have been fascinated about adopting a second youngster or changing into foster dad and mom, a DCF social employee visited their dwelling and requested in regards to the breed of their bulldog, Brownie.
“If that DCF social employee, well-intended as she was, had put down pit bull combine or one thing else alongside those self same phrases, my household wouldn’t have been in a position to welcome extra folks into our dwelling, and I wouldn’t have the enjoyment of now having the variety of youngsters that I now have,” Lewis stated. “That is what right this moment’s invoice is all about.”
The 2 different animal payments the Home authorized Thursday would create a fee to check misrepresentation of pets as service animals (H 4197) and replace veterinary technician licensure (H 4912).
All 5 measures face an unsure destiny within the Senate.
