Best Friends Animal Society Helps Beverly Hills Say "No" to Puppy Mills
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) August 19, 2015 -- In a vote that helps the homeless pets in Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting pet stores from selling companion animals from inhumane breeding mills on August 18.
The ordinance requires pet stores within Beverly Hills to exclusively offer dogs, cats, and rabbits from shelters or rescue groups, joining over 80 communities in North America that have enacted similar ordinances to ban the retail sale of milled pets.
Best Friends Animal Society has been on the ground in Beverly Hills since 2007 to raise awareness about puppy mills, where dogs are kept in deplorable and inhumane conditions to produce puppies for the retail pet trade.
More recently, Elizabeth Oreck, national manager of puppy mill initiatives for Best Friends Animal Society, worked closely with council member Lili Bosse and the city attorney's office to create the newly passed ordinance. She also testified at the city council meeting during the ordinance vote.
“We were fortunate to have a very compassionate mayor and city council who understands the importance of taking a firm stand against inhumane pet mills," Oreck said. ""The world watches Beverly Hills. By setting an example for other communities to follow, Beverly Hills will help spotlight the issue and keep our momentum going."
Moving forward stores such as the Pussy and Pooch Pet Lifestyle Center, with a thriving location in Beverly Hills, are leading the way to demonstrate a model that’s an asset to the community.
“It shows that a pet store doesn’t need to support the cruelty of the commercial breeding industry to have a successful retail pet business. By selling pet supplies and offering services such as grooming, training, and day care, a pet store can be both profitable and humane,” Oreck said.
About Best Friends Animal Society
Best Friends Animal Society is the only national animal welfare organization focused exclusively on ending the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters. A leader in the no-kill movement, Best Friends runs the nation's largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals, as well as lifesaving programs in collaboration with its nationwide network of members and partners working to Save Them All®. In Los Angeles, Best Friends leads the No-Kill Los Angeles (NKLA) initiative, which is focused on ending the killing of dogs and cats in city shelters by 2017, and operates two centers, the NKLA Pet Adoption Center in West L.A. and the Best Friends Pet Adoption and Spay/Neuter Center in Mission Hills. Since its founding in 1984, Best Friends has helped reduce the number of animals killed in American shelters from 17 million per year to an estimated 4 million.
Michelle Sathe, Best Friend Animal Society, http://www.bestfriends.org/la, +1 (818) 643-3987, [email protected]
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