Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Pet Industry Regulation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Subcommittee approves pet-shop recordkeeping changes to align with animal shelters
Summary
SB 903, amended after stakeholder negotiation, requires pet shops that sell dogs to retain specified acquisition and disposition records for two years and make them available to the state veterinarian on inspection; the committee reported the bill 11–0.
Senator Stanley presented SB 903, a bipartisan bill that requires pet shops selling dogs to maintain records about acquisition and disposition (including date acquired, description, identifying marks, source, and disposition) and to make those records available to the state veterinarian during inspections or upon request. The bill was amended to reduce record-retention from five years to two years, remove a public-submission requirement, and make the records available to the state veterinarian rather than submitted annually.
Supporters included the Virginia Federation of Humane Societies, the Humane Society of the United States and the Virginia Alliance for Animal Shelters; pet-shop owners and the Virginia Pet Advocate Alliance said the senator worked with them on changes and supported a compromise that targets ‘‘bad actors’’ while limiting burdens on compliant businesses.
VDACS and the state veterinarian's office told the committee that inspections of shelters and pet-related facilities are familiar work; VDACS said existing shelter inspections provide a model, and the bill was sized to be enforceable given current inspection capacity.
Vote and next steps: The committee adopted the amendments and reported the bill unanimously, 11–0. The amended bill moves to the next stage of consideration.
