[Friday, May 23, 2008]
Yesterday, Congress enacted the federal Farm Bill, [B]including
provisions prohibiting animal fighting ventures and limiting the
importation of live dogs into the United States if the dogs are
younger than six months old and imported for the purpose of resale.[/B]
President Bush’s earlier veto of the bill was overridden when the
House of Representatives voted 316-108 on Wednesday, and the Senate
voted 82-13 on Thursday to override, easily exceeding the two-thirds
majority required of both houses to override a presidential veto.

The override was not without controversy, as a printing mistake left
out 34 pages of the vetoed bill that dealt with international food aid
and trade. Realizing the mistake of voting for a different version of
the bill than what the President had vetoed, the House voted again
(306-110) in favor of the complete bill, enough to override another
Presidential veto. The Senate is expected to revisit the measure in
June if necessary. However, both House and Senate leadership have
cited parliamentary precedent regarding such an occurrence as being
constitutional and therefore not needing another vote.

In short this means the Puppies under the age of 6 months CANNOT be imported into the U.S.A for sale/distribution. Up until now very young puppies were being bred here in puppy farms, bought by agents and shipped to the U.S.A for sale in Pet Shops, as breeding stock or to enter a life of breeding hell in a puppy mill. These puppies suffer from health problems, lack of socialisation and many more issues. This is an activity that must be stopped.

Once the Minister for the Environment John Gormley puts through the working groups recommendations for breeding establishments and toughens up our Animal Welfare laws this will make it far more difficult for those breeding primarily for monetary gain to continue exploiting the vunerable dogs and puppies.

We welcome this development.