May 18, 2008

WELLINGTON, Fla. -- It’s a scene Palm Beach County Animal Control sees far too often, the sad-looking faces of cats and dogs waiting for a new home, in an area where some 30,000 animals were sheltered last year, with more than half of them euthanized.

Dianne Sauve, director of Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control, wants to continue to reduce the number of unwanted animals being put to sleep. She already successfully fought to have the county’s hobby breeders required to provide the names and addresses of their customers.

Now Sauve wants pet stores to report the same information regularly, as well as where they’re getting their animals. The ordinances regarding pet store record-keeping are being rewritten now, and the County Commission is expected to approve them soon, Sauve says.

“Because from my perspective, watching a line of animals go to their death every single day, and knowing that every day starts with a list of who is going to die, it seemed like a no-brainer to me,” Sauve told Pet Pulse.

The initiatives will help animal control officers enforce Palm Beach County’s new “Spay or Pay” ordinance. In February, the county was the state’s first to mandate the sterilization of all cats and dogs. Those in violation are subject to fines.

“By getting the records of who bought these puppies, whether you’re a hobby breeder or a commercial vendor, we now have a tracking mechanism in place at six months to say, ‘By the way have you sterilized your animal yet?’” Sauve said.

“But the much bigger picture is how are these animals being bred? Where are they coming from? What horrors are they going through from being born and being sent around the country as chattel? And what happens during their transport until they're finally bought by someone?"

While the proposal also takes aim at reducing traffic from puppy mills to local vendors, some Palm Beach County pet stores will carry on, business as usual. At The Wellington Pup, the owner already hands over the breeder and new owner information.

“With every puppy sale, we have information on where the puppies are coming from, address, name, license number of the breeder,” said Mike Barerra, owner of The Wellington Pup.

Barerra says he supports the probe for more information because he believes the changes will eventually benefit the industry as a whole.

“That's one reason we're in favor,” he said. “So that people that have dying dogs are punished. Or maybe taken out of the dog industry to stop giving it a bad name.”

Such cooperation has Sauve hoping it catches on in more counties nationally, she says, all for the sake of saving animals from the possibility of death row.

“It's like any other issue, it takes a few foot soldiers,” she said. “Or people on the front lines to take the hits and for other people to say, ‘Wow, if somebody else can do this, if another government can do this, maybe we can too.’”

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