DuPage and Will Counties May Ban Sales of Dogs and Cats at Pet Stores: Politics Tonight

Illinois state legislature hopes to ban sales of dogs and cats at pet stores in Will and DuPage counties. I speak with Suzanne Hart, Will County Board Chairperson, with Paul Lisnek, host of Politics Tonight on CLTV.

I have no issue with responsible breeders. I point out that the American Kennel Club (AKC) is out in front fighting these bans, supporting pet store sales. Yet, in their own book, The New Complete Dog Book, 22^nd Edition, they maintain you need to personally meet breeders, something that’s impossible to do when purchasing a pet from a pet store.

No one wants to put pet stores out of business. In fact, Dog Patch Pet & Feed, in Naperville, Illinois, switched their business model a few years back from selling dogs from unreliable sources to adopting pets, and, by all accounts, they’re thriving. Pet superstores have never sold dogs or cats and never will; they adopt.

Hart and other proponents leading the charge to ban pet store sale of dogs and cats include Senator Michael Connolly, a republican. The perception—one that Hart, Connolly, and others want to bust—is that these initiatives are typically led by democrats.

I point out that individual veterinarians are, of course, mostly in support of fighting the puppy mills and banning sales of dogs and cats at pet stores (regardless of the what the Illinois State Association suggests). Also, the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America and Veterinary Professionals Against Puppy Mills support banning the sales of dogs and cats at pet stores.