San Clemente rejects plea to revisit vote against pet

San Clemente rejects plea to revisit vote against pet President of the Pet Project Foundation, the primary support group for the San Clemente/Dana Point Animal Shelter, joins an Orange County advocacy group in calling for the City Council to again consider banning pet stores from selling dogs and cats as a means to target mass-breeding 'puppy mills. Walshe recalled that in 2005, the shelter and its Pet Project Foundation volunteers nursed 35 Pomeranian puppies back to health after they were seized from a house in Dana Point, where they were "very sick and dying. "I do not think we have any kind of stuff like that around here. "That cost PPF well over $20,000, getting them all well again and ready for adoption," Walshe said. Walshe told the council that some pet stores that are no longer able to sell puppies "are inviting shelters and rescue groups such as ours to showcase their animals for adoption. In 2011, 12 pit bull puppies arrived at the shelter with parvovirus. San Clemente has no pet stores that sell dogs and cats. Walshe said dogs from puppy mills often are bred inhumanely and that many people who bought them no longer want them. Stephen Terry, co-founder of the group, said that as other cities prohibit pet stores from selling dogs and cats, stores that do so will move to cities that allow it, like San Clemente. But Mayor Jim Evert later reiterated his view that not all pet stores are alike and that they should not be targeted - puppy mills ought to be. Walshe asked the council Tuesday for a ban on the basis that "each year, thousands of perfectly healthy pets are put to death because of the huge excess of their numbers, driven by the greed of the puppy-mill trade and inhumane commercial breeders, for which it is all about the big bucks. Councilwoman Lori Donchak, who cast the lone vote in favor of the ban, asked her colleagues this week to put the issue on a future council agenda for reconsideration, with a fuller report from city staff. San Clemente rejects plea to revisit vote against pet Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 05/05/2012