Littleton just lately handed a regulation banning the retail sale of cats and canines, becoming a member of 15 different Colorado cities in a bid to lower business breeding operations, in accordance with the Finest Associates group.
The ordinance, which handed the Littleton Metropolis Council with a unanimous vote on March 5, was first launched in January and follows a slew of comparable makes an attempt to extend animal welfare in Colorado after the state’s “pet mill” invoice, or Humane Pet Act, didn’t go in 2020. The invoice would have established requirements for the care and remedy of canines and cats by breeders and prohibited the sale of canines and cats in public locations and pet shops.
The time period “pet mill” refers to services inside the business pet trade that preserve canines in cramped situations and pressure them to breed earlier than abandoning or killing them when they’re not able to reproducing, in accordance with the USA Humane Society. Income are prioritized over the well being of animals, which regularly leads to puppies with lifelong well being points.
The Humane Society estimates that there are no less than 10,000 pet mills in the USA and that fewer than 3,000 are regulated by the U.S. Division of Agriculture.
The Littleton ordinance offers exceptions for canines and cats bought in pet shops that have been obtained from animal rescue organizations, kennels or fosters, and for breeders who breed and rear animals on their property.
Andra Sheppard, a retail assistant at Zoey’s Place, a pure pet market in Littleton, wholeheartedly helps the ban.
“I believe [puppy mills] are horrible. They’re not treating the animals correctly,” she says. “They aren’t going to be wholesome in the long term. Lots of animals from pet mills go in a short time after they’re bought, so it causes trauma for households, however most significantly, so many animals are being introduced into the world with out care.”
Aurora banned retail cat and canine gross sales in 2022, the identical yr Colorado Springs voted down an identical measure. A statewide effort in 2020 didn’t go.