Explore our current animal protection issues

Our Initiatives

FIRST INITIATIVE

End Live Animal Sales in Retail and Online Pet Stores

Issue:

All animals sold in pet stores are suffering. Pet stores across Pennsylvania sell thousands of animals each year. Animals like dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, lizards, and birds are bred in breeding mills, transported to retail stores, and sold like inanimate objects to unsuspecting consumers.

Pet stores source animals from cruel, high-volume breeding mills that sell animals for profit. The breeding mills and pet stores have a shared priority – profit. They do not prioritize the health and well-being of the animals. These facilities have poor sanitation, infectious diseases, overcrowded cages with no opportunity for exercise or proper socialization, with little or no proper veterinary care provided. These inhumane conditions result in great suffering, stress, sickness, injury, and even, death of the animals. 

Animal sales hurt animal shelters and rescues across Pennsylvania. Too many animals who were purchased from pet stores end up surrendered, or even abandoned, putting tremendous stress on local shelters, rescues, and humane law enforcement. With tens of thousands of homeless animals languishing in shelters and rescues across Pennsylvania, why should high-volume mill breeders and retail pet stores be permitted to profit, while animals suffer?

SOLUTION:

Pennsylvania Voters For Animals supports the enactment of state-level legislation that will prohibit the sale of live animals in pet stores across Pennsylvania. We support legislation that will allow pet stores to provide local shelters and rescues the opportunity to hold in-store adoption events. And the money raised from adoption fees will go to the event-sponsored shelters and rescues only. 

SECOND INITIATIVE

End the Practice of Non-therapeutic Animal Mutilations (Declawing (Cat), Tail Docking, and Ear Cropping (Dog):

Issue

Cat Declawing 

Cat declawing is a complex surgical procedure that involves multiple amputations of the last bone of each of a cat’s toes. This surgery is both traumatic and can have long-term harmful health and behavioral consequences for cats. Declawing, in non-therapeutic cases, is ethically wrong and inhumane. Declawing essentially limits cats’ ability to defend themselves. Contrary to unsubstantiated claims, cat surrenders to animal shelters do not increase once a declawing ban is passed. The British Columbia SPCA conducted a collaborative study and found no increase in cat surrenders following the enactment of declawing bans. To learn more, visit journals.sagepub.com.

To date, these Pennsylvania cities have enacted Declawing Bans: Allentown, Easton, Etna, and Pittsburgh. 

Dog Ear Cropping and Tail Docking

In Pennsylvania, it is permissible under current law for licensed veterinarians to perform tail docking, ear cropping, and dew claw removal for dogs. However, the majority of these procedures are considered not medically necessary and performed because dog breeders and owners want to maintain “desirable” breed standards. Sadly, these procedures can be permanently disfiguring, painful, and cause great suffering. Dogs who do have their ears cropped are puppies (typically one week to 12 weeks old). The trauma of the surgery and the ensuing taping and retaping of the ears to force their ears to stand erect after surgery can be agonizing for the puppy. Similarly, puppies are usually several days old when their tails are cut off or “docked.” Puppies and dogs use their tails for communication and coordination. Essentially, tail docking eliminates an important mechanism of expression for dogs to communicate with other dogs and their human companions. Non-therapeutic tail docking and ear cropping procedures are cruel and have been banned in many European countries. 

SOLUTION:

Pennsylvania Voters For Animals supports the enactment of state-level legislation in Pennsylvania, which eliminates non-therapeutic animal mutilation surgeries: cat declawing, ear cropping, and tail docking.

THIRD INITIATIVE

End Animal Killing Contests

Issue: 

Pennsylvania is host to a large number of animal-killing contests each year. These brutal events target native wild animals such as foxes, bobcats, coyotes, raccoons, crows, squirrels, and groundhogs. And sadly, it is still legal to hold pigeon shooting contests in our state. Contestants compete for prizes and awards for killing the most, the largest, the smallest, and even the youngest animal. These contests masquerade as “conservation,” “wildlife management,” or “hunting,” but instead they increase the potential for human-wildlife conflict and violate standard hunting principles. Native animals targeted by these killing contests play pivotal roles in helping to maintain healthy, functioning ecosystems. Killing contests are a blood sport that devalues the lives of animals and promotes abject violence.

SOLUTION:

Pennsylvania Voters For Animals supports the enactment of legislation that will ban all animal killing contests, including pigeon shoots. 

FOURTH INITIATIVE

End Traveling Animal Circuses

Issue: 

Wild and exotic animals held captive by traveling circuses spend most of their lives confined in small cages or enclosures, deprived of their natural habitats and social structures, and subjected to stressful and abhorrent conditions. Animals such as elephants, big cats, bears, primates, kangaroos, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, zebras, tapirs, seals, sea lions, and even sharks may be subjected to physical and emotional abuse, harsh, punitive training methods, and forced performances for human entertainment and profit. Captive wild animals in traveling circuses often suffer from physical and psychological health issues due to unrelenting stress and prolonged confinement. They are also at a higher risk of injuries and accidents during transportation and performances.

While several states have recognized the ethical concerns surrounding exploiting wild and exotic animals in circuses and have implemented bans (or restrictions on their use), the state of Pennsylvania has yet to do so. The cities of Pittsburgh, Sharpsburg, and Whitemarsh Township have enacted bans on traveling animal circuses. 

SOLUTION:

Pennsylvania Voters For Animals supports the enactment of state-level legislation that will ban all traveling animal circuses in Pennsylvania.

FIFTH INITIATIVE

End Roadside Zoos

Issue:

Many endangered and native wild animals are held captive in roadside zoos across Pennsylvania. Animals such as bears, tigers, lions, camels, primates, giraffes, and other animals are confined to small, unsanitary cages, and denied the opportunity to live their lives naturally and freely. These roadside zoos often fail to have veterinarian-approved feeding plans for the baby animals, who are often taken from their mothers too early in their development. These zoos fail to provide basic veterinary care and often lack care standards for sick and injured animals. And too often, they do not provide the animals with adequate shelter during extreme weather conditions. Keeping animals held captive in substandard conditions is not only inhumane, it can be dangerous. There are numerous documented cases of humans attacked by animals who escape their cages and/or their handlers. Roadside zoos are not educational. They are not entertainment. Roadside zoos are profiteers who engage in intentional animal cruelty.

SOLUTION:

Pennsylvania Voters For Animals supports the enactment of state-level legislation in Pennsylvania, which will ban all animal roadside zoos

SIXTH INITIATIVE

Shutdown Puppy Mills (Commercial Dog Breeding Operations)

Issue: 

Puppy mills are commercial breeding facilities that put profit over the well-being of the animals. Dogs are often confined in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, with little to no regard for their health or socialization needs. The dogs are often bred repeatedly, which often leads to physical, behavioral, and genetic health problems. They are deprived of basic veterinary care, proper nutrition, clean water, exercise, and socialization, which can result in behavioral issues and a suboptimal quality of life.

Sadly, Pennsylvania has a high concentration of puppy mills across the state. Lancaster County has been labeled the “Puppy Mill Capital of the East” due to its large volume of puppy mills. To shutdown puppy mills in Pennsylvania, once and for all, strict legislation needs to be enacted that prohibits the operation of all commercial dog breeding facilities and puppy mills, once and for all.

SOLUTION:

Pennsylvania Voters For Animals supports the enactment of state-level legislation in Pennsylvania which will prohibit all puppy mills and commercial dog breeding operations. 

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