“A short report this month, for reasons too tedious to relate.  But, we press on.

NC:  Beginning with some good news for a change, congrats to the NC voters for electing some not entirely dysfunctional legislators.  Some of the brightest are supporting HB1009 and SB849 which permit the transfer of military service dogs their handlers upon their retirement or to surviving family members of fallen servicemen handlers.  The only effluent in the punchbowl with this is, for inexplicable reasons, this only applies to certain town and counties within the State.  Why this isn’t a State-wide law is beyond me (or better yet, Federal law…maybe our Dear Leader could actually put his Executive Orders to good use for a change and mandate this nationally?).  If you’re a resident of NC, do take a minute to call your Rep or Sen and say thanks, and tell them to get busy doing the right thing State-wide.

NJ:  Continuing, for no good reason, with this month’s effluvia theme, what better place than NJ to visit next, heading up our Bad News Department, in the form of SB63 which, like zombies, Eastern Airlines and socialism, utterly refuse to stay dead.  This floater of a bill is the height of the “pet safety” extremists agenda, who approach the level of “gun safety” nuts with their willful stupidity while celebrating the triumph of their zealotry over any shred of sanity and logic.  This hideous bill, if you haven’t been taking careful notes, seeks to:

—  For utterly no good reason, repeal the existing NJ Pet Safety Act.  A sensible Act that actually conforms to the AKC legislative model when it comes to protecting the rights of puppy purchasers and sellers.

—  Replace the NJPSA by requiring sales of dogs to be conducted only face-to-face, exempts only breeder-breeder sales “necessary” to preserve the breed, and even those require NJ Dept of Health pre-approval.  Are these morons kidding?

—  Limit pet stores to only purchasing their inventory from state shelters or certified rescue organizations (but then fails to compel either type of organization to actually sell to pet stores.

Consider the utter stupidity of this bill; buyers will not be able to purchase anything other than a rescue animal…thus ensuring that basically only mutts will be available for sale…breeders will be unable to sell purebred dogs online or over the phone…and this list of horrors just goes on and on.  It’s supported by pages of junk “science” and claim made by pet safety nuts, all of which are utterly false.

If you live in NJ, click on this link, call your Senator and get this insanity stopped.  http://www.akc.org/government-relations/legislative-alerts/nj-repeal-consumer-protection-restrict-breeders-opposition/