{"id":118841,"date":"2023-05-26T15:08:31","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T19:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=118841"},"modified":"2023-05-26T15:08:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T19:08:31","slug":"mcneill-honored-by-humane-society-for-her-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=118841","title":{"rendered":"McNeill honored by Humane Society for her work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo from: https:\/\/pahouse.com\/McNeill\/PhotoGallery?g=5650<\/a><\/p>\n

Legislators, advocates promote Victoria\u2019s Law<\/strong><\/p>\n

ALLENTOWN, May 26 \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Lehigh Valley legislators, animal rights organizations and the Humane Society of the United States held a news conference in support of a bill introduced by state Rep. Jeanne McNeill that would ban pet stores from selling animals from puppy mills.<\/p>\n

At the Lehigh Valley Humane Society, more than a dozen officials and advocates drew attention to the problems with puppy mills and touted McNeill\u2019s legislation as part of the solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is well-documented that puppy mills are inhumane commercial dog-breeding facilities, yet they frequently supply pet stores with puppies,\u201d said McNeill, D-Lehigh. \u201cOnce these pet store puppies are sold, consumers often spend thousands of dollars caring for sick puppies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who fosters for local animal rescues, I have seen the horrors that result from inhumane conditions propagated by the puppy mill industry here in Pennsylvania. Just like Victoria before she was adopted, dogs and cats are weak, malnourished, neglected, subjected to overbreeding, and have little or no veterinary care. It\u2019s important that we protect those who don\u2019t have a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNeill\u2019s bill would drive the Pennsylvania pet market toward more humane sources such as shelters, rescues and responsible breeders, stop the sale of puppy mill dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores, protect consumers from misleading sales tactics, and require advertisers to include license numbers on their ads so consumers have access to information on breeders.<\/p>\n

McNeill\u2019s pet retail sales legislation would be named Victoria\u2019s Law after a German shepherd who passed on an incurable genetic disease to more than 150 puppies before being rescued from a Pennsylvania puppy mill.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy making these changes, more pet stores will partner with shelters and rescue to promote adoption and decrease the demand for the animals produced at puppy mills. Responsible breeders will benefit and continue to provide pet owners with healthy, socialized dogs,\u201d McNeill said. \u201cThis is the best way to honor Victoria and stop the terrible process currently in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPets are beloved family members and that\u2019s why a bill like Victoria\u2019s Law is so important,\u201d said state Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh. \u201cWe want to give both pets and their owners the best possible chance at happy life together, and that means working to shut down the puppy mill pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRepresentative McNeill\u2019s compassion and drive is contagious,\u201d said state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Lehigh. \u201cShe deserves a great deal of credit for her work in protecting animals from abuse, both as a legislator and as a human being who shows what it means to care when others have shown blatant disregard for animal welfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNeill also said she was surprised at the news conference by being the first legislator to receive the Humane Society\u2019s \u201cVictoria\u2019s Champion\u201d award for leading the way to end the puppy mill pipeline in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge swift passage of Victoria\u2019s Law to put an end to the cruel puppy mill-to-pet store pipeline in Pennsylvania once and for all,\u201d said Kristen Tullo, Pennsylvania state director of the Humane Society of the United States. \u201cWe\u2019d like to congratulate Representative McNeill, who is the first legislator in Pennsylvania to be given the \u201cVictoria\u2019s Champion\u201d award for leading the way to end the puppy mill pipeline in Pennsylvania as well as to thank her 54 co-sponsors for their leadership on this important bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 400 localities in the U.S., including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Wilkinsburg, Sharpsburg, Bellevue, and Allentown, as well as the states of California, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, and New York, have passed similar laws.<\/p>\n

The bill is currently before the House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee for consideration.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nAmy Giancoli Hartman
\nHouse Democratic Communications Office<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo from: https:\/\/pahouse.com\/McNeill\/PhotoGallery?g=5650 Legislators, advocates promote Victoria\u2019s Law ALLENTOWN, May 26 \u2013\u00a0Lehigh Valley legislators, animal rights organizations and the Humane Society of the United States held a news conference in … Continue reading McNeill honored by Humane Society for her work<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5716,69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allentown","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/victorias-law-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/118842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}