A new law in California requires pet stores to sell only rescue animals
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Why don't they force the breeders to have better conditions for the animals, and include livestock and lab animals along with it?
By doing it this way they aren't acknowledging there is a demand for certain breeds of dogs unlikely to be found at a shelter. The market is going to find a way around this, either by dealing with the dealers' directly (or through some sort of "finder") or going out of state.
Either way, the poor conditions for animals are going to continue in some shape or form, and no one is going to be able to set up a breeder farm that treats its animals ethically without finding a way to sell their animals, which means jumping through yet another hoop.
It's just dumb, kind of insulting to the voters, and I suspect the politicians for this were intending to avoid taking the heavy donors of the farming/pharmaceutical industries to task while still trying to cast themselves in a progressive light.
Breeding dogs isn't hard / has a low barrier to entry. You need a male and a female and a place to house the puppies. Conditions could be generally terrible. Enforcing licensing is unrealistic - who's going to do the inspections? Who's going to pay the inspectors?
Further, there are too many dogs and cats, period. Disincentivizing commercial breeding (making it harder to sell) is a _good_ thing, and rerouting some of the animals who would be killed by shelters who can no longer accomodate them is also a good thing.
Regulation is difficult because of unintended consequences. So given a choice between "ban pet stores from selling bred animals" and "create a new bureaucracy to oversee animal conditions" (then pairing it with something like a transfer tax), the former is a lighter market touch.
And if we want to get realpolitik, mongrels tend to have stronger genetics than pure-breds ("Life finds a way"), so this is probably long-term good for pets in general.
'Cross-breed' is term I've heard involving pure-bred ancestors.
E.g. this adorable Bassador on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_crossbreed#/media/File%3...
1. There's too many humans, killing humans to reduce the population isn't really a palatable solution to anyone. 2. There's too many cats/dogs, killing them seems much more reasonable to some, and awful to others. They're in the sweet spot between family and wildlife. 3. Pests (deer, rabbits, etc) are over-populating, killing them is pretty much A-OK.
Personally I see a cultural issue akin to wastage. Especially in the US, we love to buy and throw stuff out all the time. I would hypothesize that people who buy/rescue mutts and less desirable breeds are more likely to abandon them after some time. Others who spend thousands of dollars on a specific breed they like will be more likely to keep it the duration of its life.
I see the solution as more of a tax. Stop letting people get cats/dogs for $20. I also don't think inspections are unreasonable. The government already inspects half of the industries, what's one more?
At least in my area, any expensive breeds (any pure breed that's not a Chihuahua or Pit Bull really) are scooped up by rescues almost immediately. Then if you want to adopt one, you have to go through an interview processes ran by people who are temporarily caring for the dog who are looking for reasons to disqualify you.
The approval process is completely arbitrary and far too invasive. The president of the ASPCA was turned down by a rescue a few years ago, and he wrote about the process.
Regarding adoption, rescues are more invested in what homes their animals go to because they often are making a promise to take back any animals they take resposibility for. They don’t want animals to go back to the shelter, so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course. But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.
Just looked at my local shelter website. 78 dogs for adoption at the shelter. Not a single pure breed that wasn't a pit bull. And 90% of the dogs were pit bull or pit bull mixes.
>so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course.
That's the problem rescue workers are in a poor position to make this determination. They are in a perfect position to suffer from confirmation bias, plus they are too emotionally attached to the dogs.
They need more objective standards. When the Head of the ASPCA can't meet your standards, something is wrong.
>But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.
And there are rescue organizations that buy dogs from breeders. Sure rescue organizations do a lot of good, but they could be ran a lot better I think they need more oversight.
Not getting on the specific argument, but any such kind of tax, it should be analogous to the buyers income/wealth, and not to the price.
Such that a poor person and a rich person have a proportionally equal penalty for buying the item -- else it's just a restriction on poor people.
A static price is not a prevention, but a disincentivization. Enabling people to do something they are otherwise economically incapable of doing is how we got the 2008 recession. Granted this is a whole different level, but the point is the same. A functioning economy reflects the value, not the means. And as a result, some are less able than others. A price point that makes it difficult for someone to afford a pet will (presumably) make them think twice before taking on a responsibility they might not be able to handle.
If what somebody learnt from life is that "they have to pay for poor people's kids", then indeed some are better for all of us to not have been born in the first place. But those are not necessarily the poor people's kids.
If a person cares about a particular breed they typically buy directly from the breeder anyway. That way they can check on the pedigree of the dog. At the same time they can see the condition of the dogs. The people who buy from pet stores really want a dog similar to a particular breed but don't particularly care about the breeding much less the conditions of the puppies at the puppy mill.
My wife & I work with a rescue and the breakdown tends to looks like:
RESCUE ANIMAL conditions: abysmal when rescued; then the most loving fosters and homes around breed: "brown dog" cost: ~ $200-$400 depending on fees owner: really wants a dog (our screening is quite strict)
PET STORE ANIMAL conditions: unknown, but lots of rescues come from backyard breeders that willingly or not have terrible conditions breed: looks like whatever is hot this year (yorkie cross, french bulldog, chocolate lab) cost: $hundreds to thousands owner: wants a type of dog but cost, effort or timing prevents planning with a breeder
BREEDER conditions: usually pretty good if they're a registered breeder or breed, though the females have more litters than breed: very specialized, registered cost: $thousands owner: wants a very specific dog for various reasons, willing to plan 6+ months in advance, disposable income
Interestingly the type of people who adopt rescues are very similar to many of those who buy the expensive breeder animals.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/guidance-on-keepin...
It feels a bit panopticon to require all breeding animals to be registered, but technologically it's now quite easy. Allowing neutered animals out of the control system would be a compromise so this doesn't affect the average pet owner.
Many breeds operate breed registries anyway. It's just the "puppy mills" we're trying to do away with.
is “panopticon” now fashionable? in any case, i quibble with your usage here. the panopticon is not merely a tracking apparatus, but an apparatus of self-discipline. it’s function was to control, and it illustrates a systemic application of micro-power (discipline you apply to yourself) on large populations.
that’s why it was insidious and that’s why it was interesting. you’re losing this interesting and essential feautre the way you throw around this word.
but that doesn't fit the situation here anyway. the animals are not being tracked continuously and in every way, but rather, just their existence and general health at a few checkpoints. you are being forced to be good stewards and record keepers of your own bovine, so there are some inspections and certifications of the facilities for example.
these animals are usually meant for (wider) human consumption, so you might disagree, but i don't see that as overly onerous.
That could also be described as a bit panopticon, but is the counterargument not the same: children and animals should be raised with care, under threat of law, because we can assume in the current world they will suffer otherwise?
People get very easily upset by this kind of child welfare thing, regarding it as distrustful, but it's very necessary.
This is a very good move, as the only impact it will have is shutting down the puppy mills.
https://www.humanesociety.org/news/horrible-hundred-2017-unc...
Or put it differently: force pet stores in California to sell only pets that were treated humanly.
I think the weak federal rules that are referenced in the story here are preemptive, so, it's quite possible that California can't adopt stricter rules.
In any case, it's a lot easier to enforce a “sell from shelters only” rule than one that requires state enforcement of standards on out-of-state suppliers.
They are attempting to reduce the abuses by increasing transaction costs by removing the main retail channel; this is not intended to prevent sales of specific breeds by breeders.
> The market is going to find a way around this, either by dealing with the dealers' directly (or through some sort of "finder") or going out of state.
Yeah, people who have an intense desire for a specific breed (or a non-rescue for some non-breed reason) will still have a number of other avenues less convenient than the pet store. That probably won't cut mills out entirely (but it will narrow the convenience advantage they offer over conventional, reputable breeders), but then a solution doesn't have to be total to be an improvement.
Well, there's a demand for all kinds of things, doesn't mean it should be satisfied (or that "the market will find a way around it" means we should make it open).
The article states that the law allows for purchasing animals directly from a breeder.
Can you describe the conditions of cats and dogs with today's breeders in a few sentences, instead of just saying "poor"? At least by quoting someone else.
Yup, being poor sucks. Have to drive a shitty car instead of a BMW, have to have a mutt instead of a Standard Poodle. The social injustice of it all...
Fortunately a pet is not a basic necessity.
A $2,000 "rescue" animal for sale at a pet shop clearly isn't a rescue. (Especially if it comes with a purebred certificate!)
My wife volunteers for a bulldog rescue, and we have adopted 3 French bulldogs (in addition to many cats over the years). If my wife had her way we would live on a farm and adopt every animal in need.
Is this true at a city level? There are many popular breeds and it’s hard to imagine that there would be sufficient inventory at all/most times.*
> Rescues also typically stop people from doing stupid things like bringing an English bulldog into a house with small children.
How so? Maybe if you adopt from a diligent rescue organization, but if the only organization in contact with the customer is a commercial pet store, the diligent vetting will likely go out the window.
Note: I’m all in favor of rescue animals, and several family members have adopted rescues from petsmart’s years-old program. I’m just not sure statewide legislation is the way to go here.
It's not. Expect more shabbos goys: "Dog Fight: Dog rescuers, flush with donations, buy animals from the breeders they scorn" https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/...
Commercial pet store != rescue organization. I used a rescue organization as an example of a way to find a specific breed if the local pet store or ASPCA didn't have one. Rescue organizations are also typically diligent as I noted.
In that case, one has to settle for some different breed and not one of the more exotic ones. Oh, the humanity!
The approval process is completely arbitrary and far too invasive. The president of the ASPCA was turned down by a rescue a few years ago, and he wrote about the process.
Also, a Washington Post article on the subject of adoption difficulty that mentions the ASPCA President’s rejections [1].
Thanks for sending me down an interesting path!
[0]: https://greatergood.org/blog/2016/01/05/why-i-was-turned-dow...
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/02/02/m...
Sure, the interviewers would do well to relax a bit and not reject applicants for selfish reasons, but ultimately their job is to put a pet in a home with the best interests of that pet in mind. If even the ASPCA president can't sail through that process, then that's at least somewhat reassuring that pets ain't going to be placed in abusive/neglectful homes.
But from what I've read and the experiences myself and my friends and family have had, rescue interviewers are more often than not looking for perfect homes not simply trying to avoid abusive/neglectful homes.
Is it better to place a dog with someone who works 8 hours a day, or to euthanize it? (there are many people who'd say euthanize, but I disagree)
That's the case for a few highly sought-after breeds, but not the vast majority.
If it were the case that demand exceeds the supply for unwanted dogs, there would be no need for rescue organizations.
>but if you're unable to take work off (at least at first) to spend time with your dog (especially while your dog is getting used to its new home/family/"pack"), you might not be the right fit.
There definitely aren't enough jobless people to handle the supply of unwanted dogs. Kenneling a dog is much more stressful than moving a dog to a new home. Unless you have a particularly damaged dog (which could be the case of course), there's no need to take off work for more than a weekend (provided you aren't gone too long , and you have a fence or someone to walk the dog). It's a dog not a baby.
One of the reasons that so many dogs end up in shelters and rescues is that people think this way. What people need to realize is that in many ways a dog is just like a baby that never becomes self sufficient.
> If it were the case that demand exceeds the supply for unwanted dogs, there would be no need for rescue organizations.
Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter). In these cases the organization is really a matching service. Older dogs are hard to place no matter what, particularly ones that already have health problems from years of neglect, abuse, and breeding.
No analogy is perfect and you shouldn't attempt to apply them beyond the scope of the intended similarities. A dog isn't like a baby in that babies require many hours of attention per day. Dogs do not, and the vast majority of dogs are fine being alone for a few hours.
>Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter).
In my area the shelter has been taken over completely by a rescue organization. They conduct the rescue type perfect fit required interviews for all adoptions. They definitely do not have more applications than dogs.
How do you know this?
>Rescue organizations typically have more applications than dogs (very different than a general shelter).
Implying that general shelters do have more dogs than applicants. Since I'm talking about a general shelter...
It ain't just about demand; it's about demand among those with reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog.
"Kenneling a dog is much more stressful than moving a dog to a new home."
That's not guaranteed, or even statistically likely. If that were as true as you seem to believe, then these animals wouldn't have ended up in a shelter at all; they would continue to exist in abusive/neglectful homes, because obviously that's better than being in a kennel, right?
The interview process is meant to ensure (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that the dog's not going to end up right back in the shelter (or - worse - not end up in the shelter due to a false sense of trust in an abusive or neglectful new owner). Making that "easier" for the applicant increases that risk.
Even with that risk aside, the dog's going from being in a kennel situation (with a lot of other dogs and different people present) to being comparatively alone. That's a pretty sudden and potentially-hard adjustment. Sure, some dogs are able to adjust in a weekend (with or without other dogs as companions); for most, that's probably cutting things pretty short.
"It's a dog not a baby."
It's a reasonably-intelligent animal that's prone to experience PTSD from neglect/abuse. Its well-being is more complex than just ticking off boxes, even for a dog that seems well-adjusted at first glance.
I think right now you're operating on the assumption of a best-case (or at least better-than-average-case) scenario. The people who evaluate adopters of pets have to also consider worst-case, since that's, you know, their job. Sometimes they can be a bit overzealous, yes, but it's not like they'll permanently bar you from ever adopting if there are fixable issues with you adopting an animal at that particular moment in time.
That's the problem. I don't have the same standard for what is "reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog" that dog rescue volunteers tend to, and I don't think they are better qualified to determine that. In fact I think that because of confirmation bias and their attachment to the dogs, they are the worst people to make that decision objectively.
>That's not guaranteed, or even statistically likely. If that were as true as you seem to believe, then these animals wouldn't have ended up in a shelter at all; they would continue to exist in abusive/neglectful homes, because obviously that's better than being in a kennel, right?
Your conclusion doesn't follow. It can both be the case that taking the average dog to a kennel for boarding is more stressful than moving it to a new home on average, and that some percentage of dogs will end up abandoned. Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders.
>The interview process is meant to ensure (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that the dog's not going to end up right back in the shelter (or - worse - not end up in the shelter due to a false sense of trust in an abusive or neglectful new owner). Making that "easier" for the applicant increases that risk.
What is that risk? I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes. They can just randomly decide that need to work from home, have a fence with at least half an acre of grass, have lived in the same place for 5 years, and have a perfect credit score--despite not knowing whether those things are necessary or even well correlated with dog well being outcomes.
>Even with that risk aside, the dog's going from being in a kennel situation (with a lot of other dogs and different people present) to being comparatively alone.
Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less.
>It's a reasonably-intelligent animal that's prone to experience PTSD from neglect/abuse. Its well-being is more complex than just ticking off boxes, even for a dog that seems well-adjusted at first glance.
It's an animal that has evolved to read human emotions. This ability makes us much more likely to anthropomorphize dogs. There are complications, but most of the time it's well being really is just--did I tick off the boxes, does the dog seem fine, and does it have any disruptive behavior problems. This is coming from someone who cared for many healthy and not so healthy dogs through the end of their lives--including an 18 year old dog who was mostly blind, deaf and incontinent for many years (and someone who was responsible for caring for numerous litters of puppies when my parents ran a small poodle breeding operation when i was a kid).
>Sometimes they can be a bit overzealous, yes, but it's not like they'll permanently bar you from ever adopting if there are fixable issues with you adopting an animal at that particular moment in time.
Many of the problems that will bar you from adopting are things that aren't easy to fix. Like, you need to work from home, you have kids, or your yard isn't big enough.
>also consider worst-case,
That's the problem, rescue workers are suffering from a serious case of confirmation bias. They only see the results of worst case scenarios, they don't know what the average case is.
That is indeed the problem. The complaint here seems to be that your standards are lower than theirs. That doesn't always mean their standards are too high; it could very well mean your standards are too low.
> I don't think they are better qualified to determine that
These people are (hopefully) trained specifically to determine that. It's possible you might happen to have even more training or experience in that regard, but most people don't.
> their attachment to the dogs
If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time. I suppose it's possible that they might have to have a certain number of rejections from the general public before volunteers/staff are eligible, and similarly possible that there are volunteers who don't qualify to adopt (though I'd question whether they're qualified to volunteer).
Most volunteers and paid personnel with whom I've interacted seem to be painfully aware that they can't take in every animal in need, and thus have to take comfort in animals going to good homes. Keyword there is good homes, though.
> Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders.
That'd be surprising, since it makes no economic sense. It's possible (probable, even) that breeders might be discarding dogs they can't sell (this is how my mom got one of her two beagles; she couldn't get pregnant, so the breeder was trying to get rid of her), but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion). Not to mention shelters tend to be overcrowded as is; outright buying more dogs is only going to make that worse.
I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence.
> I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes.
I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric). There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either.
> Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less.
They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!). That's usually done with multiple dogs at once for efficiency's sake.
> they don't know what the average case is.
I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity.
> They only see the results of worst case scenarios
And their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again. If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog?
That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things are true); rather, there seems to be something beyond "being a normal human being" that is raising a red flag. I don't know enough about your specific situation to know what that is.
It does sound like maybe you've had a bad experience at a particularly-strict shelter and are extrapolating to shelters in general (and to be fair, I'm probably doing the same with my own experience with shelters). Or perhaps you just happened upon a time when particularly-strict volunteers were on shift. A different time or place might help; not all shelters are going to be so strict about things (especially kill shelters; given the choice between a suboptimal adoption situation and killing a dog, they'll probably choose the former).
Trained by whom, and to what standards. In most cases there’s woefully inadequate oversight and little credentialing required to conduct adoption interviews.
>If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time.
That happens frequently. It’s one of the reasons many rescue organizations have a bad reputation. Stories of foster “parents” adopting dogs after applicants have already wasted time on the application process are common.
But that’s not what I mean by attachment. I meant that their standards are too high because they are emotionally attached and aren’t looking at the situation objectively.
>but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion).
No, California law did nothing to outlaw breeders or make it illegal to buy from breeders. It only affects retail locations. Buying from a breeders is perfectly fine.
>I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/investigations/...
>I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric). There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either.
Rescues are completely non-transparent and based on the rescues I’m familiar with are basically ran like the wild west.
Your experience may be different, and of course it would be. There is little regulation or oversight. The quality is so varied from rescue to rescue--that’s a huge part of the problem.
>They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!).
The average person is going to spend more than the amount of time a dog gets during a daily walk. And just like homes, the contact time a dog may get in a kennel is is variable. If you are going to compare the average case, a dog in a private home is going to get more contact time than one in the average kennel.
> they don't know what the average case is. I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity.
They don’t see that as the average case, they see that as the best case, which is balanced out by all of the worst case scenarios they see.
>their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again.
That’s not their primary job. If that were their primary job, they would euthanize every dog they got and not risk letting anyone adopt any of them.
>If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog?
Or seeing only worst case scenarios makes them paranoid.
>That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things are true); rather, there seems to be something beyond "being a normal human being" that is raising a red flag. I don't know enough about your specific situation to know what that is.
This is a huge problem, and it has nothing to do with me. The ASPCA and multiple animal welfare groups are encouraging rescue organizations to lower their standards. Here’s a few quotes and links from experts:
“Because people in animal welfare often see terrible things befall pets, and because of genuine concern for the animals, we’ve sometimes gone overboard in terms of regulating, requiring, constraining, screening and even getting in the way of successful adoptions. After all, even a home that’s good instead of perfect will be better for pets than an animal shelter. A growing body of research is suggesting adoptions done with less intrusive methods of pet-adopter matchmaking are just as effective as, and even more successful than, those with lots of hoops to jump through”
https://www.maddiesfund.org/removing-barriers-to-adoption.ht...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/02/02/m...
https://www.aspcapro.org/blog/2014/05/27/go-ahead-try-it-ope...
And here's a good explanation of open adoptions
Rescues are by no means perfect, but we should be careful not to ignore the good they try to accomplish.
me too! i grew up out in the country for a period of my youth and the thing i really miss is the animals.
and good on her for volunterring! i adopted a dog last year and just started volunteering in the kitten nursery of a local rescue organization (they’re so cute!). volunteering (and then fostering) is a good way to see the range of animals and their behaviors before you make a commitment and also streamlines the adoption process.
Edit: I actually want to know the answer to the first question.
For these same reasons I also wouldn't have a pit bull in the house with a small child.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-baiting [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog
Of course, it all depends on training. I'm with you on not believing an adult rescue in a house with a small child is a good idea. One you rescued as a puppy and made sure was well-trained, though? Sure, sounds like the perfect babysitter in canine form.
This is true of most (probably all) dogs, of course. Smaller dogs thankfully do less damage on average, but they also tend to be a lot more inherently aggressive ("Napoleon complex" and all that; they have to be as a survival strategy). Especially as rescues, they're the ones more likely to bite small children, since even small children are bigger than them and more likely to severely injure them.
It is also finally time we start moving away from pets being "products" and towards them being living things.
Should the US have altogether banned the sale of meat for human consumption after Upton Sinclair published The Jungle? What a ridiculous notion.
Take your own advice as well. Government regulation is not always good. FDA is not a fantastic organization as which you allude to.
Planes being certified is not a controlling of source. You know that you can apply for a experimental license and can fly experimental airplanes without having to do your so called "certified".
Licenses and certifications don't mean anything. The state licenses drivers all the time, doesn't mean it is safer by doing that. Malpractice still occurs even when doctors are licensed. Accidents still happen with government regulation.
Please stop and think before _you_ write.
Regulation is also not a binary yes or no, on or off value. Something can be regulated not at all or regulated to an infinite degree.
Regulation has a lot of negative externalities it places upon society and we need to be cognizant of those trade-offs when we use it.
I'm generally very supportive of regulation that mandates transparency or that information be made available so that the consumer can better make their own choices (nutrition facts, those energy usage stickers on appliances, etc, are not perfect but solidly a net win IMO) because it tends to have very little by the way of negative trade-offs. I would really prefer to see CA try some sort of softer approach that nudges consumers toward the "right" pet purchasing decisions rather than going for the ban hammer right away.
Edit: why is this an unacceptable opinion?
Whenever I'm nearby I go in just to see the cats, but also to see all the "I've been adopted!" signs, that seem to make me feel just a bit better about things.
I certainly wouldn't call the conditions anything less than "acceptable". It's not a palace but they're not caged. They're in a maybe 8x8 room full of cat toys, blankets, water, food, gyms, etc.
(Disclaimer: I have never bought a pet at a pet store)
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om...
It's also something people should be aware of when selling or giving away a pet on craigslist.
Those people who wanted something very specific will likely have gone to some breeder anyway.
I can only assume that any shop that wants to make any money is going to put the best looking animal out front regardless of its source.
https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/puppy-mill-dogs-sold-a...
"People may still buy dogs or cats directly from breeders."
So I guess pets stores will have to become breeders? Do they have to breed them at the store or can it be done elsewhere? Does the person doing the breeding have to be your employee or can it be a contractor? California is so full of these silly laws.
Which they still have by going directly to a breeder instead of relying on a middleman (which is exactly what people who actually care about breed purity and all that jazz actually do).
I think the new law is a bit draconian, but weak counterarguments like this one ain't gonna get it overturned.
I don't see this solving the problem it was intended to solve.
Which is the case with some pit bull owners unfortunately.
It is likely that pet stores will see this (possible behavior issues) as a liability, with the result being less stores will carry pets at all.
https://www.humanesociety.org/news/horrible-hundred-2017-unc...
Sometimes that history is an aggressive one and the animal is going to need a LOT of attention to train out undesirable habits. I have such a dog and we went through such a period.
Is the 17 year old at Petsmart trained for those types of rescue animals? I sure hope so.
This reminds me of people who are clamoring for a minimum wage hike with a closet full of sweatshop clothing.