Give Pets a Second Chance: Get Rid of Class B Dealers
posted by: alicia graef 25 days ago
Unfortunately, there are some situations where pet owners can no longer continue to care for their animals. While owners may try their best to give their pets a second chance at having a forever home, they may be unwittingly putting them in situations where they can become the victims of Class B dealers.
Class B dealers are animal brokers who find and sell dogs and cats to schools and research institutions for a profit. Their methods of acquisition range from going to shelters, answering classified ads, and in some cases stealing pets who are left unattended outside. Class B dealers also buy animals from “bunchers,” who collect animals from random sources.
Class B dealers are regulated by the USDA and are responsible for following guidelines of care outlined by the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). However, even the AWA only requires minimal care standards and there have been multiple violations where animals suffer with no food, water or veterinary care, among other issues, and there is little or no accountability.
“Currently, over half of the Class B Dealers selling random source animals to research labs are under investigation by the USDA for allegedly failing to comply with the law,” according to the ASPCA.
The Pet Safety and Protection Act, sponsored by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Rep. Michael Doyle (D-PA), has been proposed to amend the AWA in order to ensure that animals used in research are obtained legally.
According to the ASPCA, if the Pet Safety and Protection Act is passed, the AWA would be amended so that the only people who would be allowed to sell dogs and cats to research facilities would be:
- Dealers who have bred and raised the animals.
- Publicly owned pounds or shelters that obtained the animals from their legal owners.
- A person donating a dog or cat whom they have bred and raised, or owned for at least one year.
These categories of people are already allowed to sell to research. The Pet Safety and Protection Act would not change that or give them more rights than they currently have. This bill would eliminate Class B dealers and take away any incentive for others to illegally source animals for a profit.
While this may not help the thousands of animals who are legally obtained for research purposes, it will help animals like Cruella from unnecessary pain and suffering.
Read more: aspca, animal welfare, animal research, class b dealers, pet safety and protection act
comments
No animal whatsoever should be used, whether raised for that purpose or not should not be used for any kind of research or experimentation. There's plent of hardened criminals, sex offenders and what not sitting in prison. Why don't they just use this scum instead of innocent animals. This law should protect all animals.
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ok,nuff of the crap!! why do we have to experiment on animals?? there not human,(lucky them)so if you want people medicines and the like to be researched properly,why not on humans? use some of the trash from the prisons,and believe me i look on harden killers and drug dealers,and sexual pervers as trash,and tell me why we couldn't use them instead of animals??then we'd know the results we get are good or bad for the rest of ua !!
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No animals for research! Definitely !
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You are a smart group of people I am glad to associate with. My first instinct was that this bill does continue to allow the selling of animals to experimental laboratories which I will not support. No home bred puppies for experiments and torture. Let's have a bill that prohibits it entirely. It is already proven that humans and animals are just too different to support any experiment "for the benefit of humans". We need a law that outlaws animal experiments and makes those who do criminals. Europe have laws to that affect. Let's not get sucked into to his bill. No way will I support any bill that indirectly or directly endorses such horrific treatment of our fellow creatures we share this planet with.
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I cannot support this bill because it still sends helpless animals to labs where they are literally used as guina pigs in a situation that would be called "torture" if we were talking humans! Good grief - this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater! When will we grow up and stop considering everything else on the food chain lower than us and therefore available to testing, fighting, racing, ad naseum - to SERVE humans in some way! What an outrage!
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All kind of research on animals should be forbidden, and it is terrible that in 21st century pounds still exist.
However, this all together, sounds like horror, dogs will never live their owners, no matter what, so people should always find the way no matter how their situation is hard to keep their beautiful pets
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We are long past the stage where we have to torture innocent animals for "research" We have computers and virtual reality where you can experiment to your hearts content and it hurts not one living being-we have mapped the human body, animal bodies-bones, organs, blood vessels, hair, skin every part of a human or animal has been photographed, MRI scanned, PET scanned, CAT scanned and we can model anything we want on a computer-what a great use for the machine rather than use it for e-mail, playing games or other inane activities-we have the ability to program the computer to simulate anything we want it to including the effects of drugs, cosmetics, pesticides, etc. on a living body-we do not need animals for research anymore and that practice should be outlawed, banned and criminally prosecuted if it continues-from monkeys all the way down the chain to beetles and flys- they are all living beings and should not be captured, tested, tortured until they die and then be disposed of like so much trash. How dare the shelters sell abandoned or surrendered pets to such a fate-they are supposed to find homes for animals not torture chambers. The next time I need a pet you'd better believe I'll adopt from a shelter if only to prevent the animal from being sold to a lab. I am outraged that this is legal.
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This law is not good enough - there is no good reason for animal "research" a.k.a. TORTURE.
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No animals for research!
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Laws should be passed to outlaw completely any reason for using animals for experimets of any kind. These laws should be enforced by prison time and large fines without exception. Are we returning to being savages are we call ourselves civilized? If we were civilized we would not prey on creatures that cannot defend themselves.
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