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Why Local Governments Should Be Required to Provide Animal Control Services · The Animal Advocate

0:00
Welcome back to the Animal Advocate, your guide for moving from
0:03
compassion into action. Last week we talked
0:07
about animal control and compared it with animal sheltering,
0:11
covering all the different ways local governments provide or
0:15
choose not to provide animal control services.
0:18
If you missed it, it's a great foundation for today's interview. It's
0:22
episode 19 and you can find it on our website at
0:25
animaladvocacyacademy.com
0:27
backslash19. Now, I know
0:31
there were a lot of nuts and bolts in that episode, but I don't want
0:34
you to get lost in the details. Here's the big picture I need you
0:38
to understand. I've identified a handful of
0:41
proposed laws that I think would be game changers for animals.
0:45
And on the podcast we're taking them one by one.
0:49
First I do a solo episode where I explain the problem and
0:53
the proposed solution. Then the next episode
0:57
is an interview where we go deeper on the whys and hows
1:01
with someone who has real hands on experience. We did
1:04
that with allowing veterinarians to use telehealth to expand access
1:09
and help keep pets in homes. And now we're doing it with
1:13
changing the way animal control works. Here's what I think
1:16
needs to change. Animal control should be a mandatory government
1:20
function that just like police and fire services. When
1:24
you see a stray dog that's injured, hungry or
1:27
potentially dangerous, there should be someone you can call
1:31
every time. But in most communities in this country,
1:34
that's not guaranteed. And that's just wrong.
1:41
Welcome to the Animal Advocate, where we arm animal lovers
1:45
with the information and inspiration you need to become
1:48
effective advocates. I'm your host Penny Ellison, and
1:52
I've taught anim law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania
1:56
since 2006. If you've ever thought
1:59
someone should do something about that, I'm here to guide you
2:03
on your journey to being that someone. You can
2:07
find us on the web@animaladvocacyacademy.com
2:11
and that's where you'll find show notes and resources, and you can
2:15
send us your comments on episodes and ideas for topics you'd like
2:19
to hear on future shows. So on to Today's
2:22
topic.
2:29
Only 13 states require their local governments to provide
2:33
animal control services, and New Jersey is one of them,
2:37
as you'll hear from today's guest. Even with a mandate, the
2:40
system isn't perfect, but it gives us a blueprint for what
2:44
works and what doesn't when we're trying to ensure these services are available
2:48
everywhere. The truth is, this isn't just about
2:52
animal welfare. It is of course, animal welfare. But
2:56
it's also about public safety. Communities need
2:59
reliable systems for handling stray animals, responding to bite
3:03
incidents, and managing rabies control. When local
3:06
governments aren't required to provide these services, both animals
3:10
and people suffer the consequences. Now,
3:14
I'm not naive about this. Animal control costs money,
3:17
and getting local governments to fund new services is never
3:21
easy. But as Brian will explain, there are different models for
3:25
providing these services. And states that mandate animal control
3:29
have found ways to make it work in different kinds of communities.
3:32
The key is having the legal requirement in place first,
3:36
then working out the implementation details.
3:40
So today's guest is Brian Hackett, Director of Government
3:43
and Community Relations at Associated Humane Societies of New
3:47
Jersey. Brian has worked on both the policy and
3:51
implementation sides of animal control, and he'll help us
3:54
understand why some approaches work better than others. We
3:58
didn't coordinate on this, but he uses the same word I used last
4:02
week to describe the current system, and that's patchwork. And
4:05
that's exactly the problem that we need to solve. So if you're
4:09
wondering how animal control works in different communities
4:13
or whether your city or town is even required to pick up stray
4:16
animals, then today's episode will help you connect those dots.
4:20
You'll learn why enforcement breaks down in some places but works in
4:24
others, what accountability looks like when it's built into the
4:28
system, and most importantly, how you can push for
4:31
laws that better protect both animals and people in your
4:35
community, because that's what animal control is about. Brian
4:39
brings real insight from the field, and by the end of our conversation, I hope
4:42
you'll have a much clearer picture of both the problems and the
4:46
solutions that are within our reach. Here's my conversation with
4:50
Brian. So welcome Brian Hackett to the Animal
4:54
Advocate. Great to be here. So
4:57
you and I first connected because I'm on the Dog Law
5:01
Advisory Board for Pennsylvania, and I was doing
5:04
some research for them about how stray dogs
5:08
are handled, because in Pennsylvania, the law says that
5:12
stray dogs can be picked up by local animal control,
5:16
the police, or the dog wardens that work for the state.
5:20
And the problem with that arrangement is that it doesn't mandate
5:24
that any of them are primarily responsible. So some
5:27
municipalities have decided that they don't want to provide animal control
5:31
services because it costs money and they just leave it to the police
5:35
and the dog wardens. But now, not only do the dog wardens cover
5:39
large areas, so they can often be very far away from where a stray
5:43
dog is. They also, like police, for the most part, don't have any
5:46
kennels. So if they pick up a stray dog, they have
5:50
nowhere to take them. Often they decide to leave it out there
5:54
if there's no local shelter that'll agree
5:57
voluntarily to take it in. And I feel strongly that
6:01
for the safety of animals and humans, everyone should
6:05
have someone they can call that can take a stray dog
6:09
to safety. So that led me to reach out to you about New
6:13
Jersey's system, which is different from Pennsylvania. And I know it's got
6:16
pluses and minuses. So I wanted to talk to you about, you know,
6:20
tell me about how it works in New Jersey with stray dogs.
6:24
Yeah. So it sounds like in Pennsylvania you have
6:27
too many cooks in the kitchen and not enough clarity
6:31
on who, what, where, when, why and how. In New
6:35
Jersey, we have at least what seems
6:39
to be a better structure on paper. But
6:42
we also run into a similar problem that you have in
6:46
Pennsylvania of the mandates in the statute
6:50
not being clear or not being complete enough,
6:53
which leaves a lot of variability into how it's actually
6:58
implemented and practiced out. So, for
7:02
example, in New Jersey, we have state statute
7:06
that requires every municipality
7:09
to have an animal control officer. The
7:13
state mandate is every municipality. There's
7:17
565 in New Jersey. They must
7:20
make an arrangement for an appointed licensed
7:24
animal control officer. The second mandate in
7:28
New Jersey is essentially there needs to be an
7:31
impoundment facility for each of those animal control
7:35
officers to bring animals that are
7:38
stray, sick or injured or otherwise subject
7:42
to the animal impoundment animal control
7:46
requirements in state law. So, for example, we have a
7:49
state law that says any animal, dog,
7:53
cat or otherwise that is sick or injured, that is reported
7:57
or observed by animal control must
8:01
shall be impounded by animal control.
8:05
The problem where the rubber really hits the road here
8:08
is not only are those state mandates totally
8:12
unfunded, which is a whole other issue as to funded
8:16
versus unfunded mandates and state mandates and all of that.
8:19
But practically speaking, beyond the financial piece is
8:24
the state doesn't say who, what, where,
8:27
when, why, or how should you provide that
8:31
animal control and account for that animal
8:34
impound facility. So the problem we have in New Jersey
8:38
is a bit different than you have in Pennsylvania. We know
8:42
who should be doing what, but how they
8:46
should be doing it has variability
8:49
as wide as the horizon. Right.
8:53
So some counties in New Jersey have county
8:57
run animal shelter facilities. Where I live in
9:01
Burlington county, you know, we of course border Philadelphia and, you know,
9:05
Pennsylvania and all that is we have a county
9:08
shelter that is funded by our county tax dollars. And my
9:12
county property tax bill, it goes to the shelter
9:15
and many people are fine with that. But then
9:19
it's up to each municipality within the county
9:24
to provide for animal control. The county does not do that
9:28
since it's a municipal obligation. So what we have
9:32
in that type of scenario is there
9:35
could be a totally different animal control officer in my
9:39
town where I live, but then go two miles down the road and.
9:43
And it's an entirely different animal control officer.
9:47
Maybe it's a for profit animal control company that's used
9:50
by that town, but my town has
9:54
an employed animal control officer under the police.
9:58
So without getting into too much grainy,
10:01
nitty gritty, I think that the issue is on
10:05
paper we have good mandates,
10:09
but not enough clarity on, well, you know,
10:13
maybe the town should only have its own
10:17
animal control officer, not these private
10:21
for profit companies. Right. Some towns decide to
10:25
contract out with a private for profit company who is
10:29
then who you would call if you live in that town and you see a
10:32
stray dog. Right. This gets to.
10:35
Typically, if someone has an animal control or any
10:39
animal related issue, it could be animal cruelty. And this
10:42
is another issue I wanted. To ask that are those two. And we talk about
10:46
animal control as if people know what that means and people in animal welfare do.
10:49
But animal control is more what happens to stray dogs?
10:53
What happens to sometimes surrendered dogs? It's not usually
10:57
prosecution of animal cruelty. Are those functions
11:01
separated in New Jersey? Yes, they are. So
11:04
what I say to everybody generally is animal
11:08
control is when there is an issue involving
11:12
an animal where the animal is affecting people.
11:16
A stray dog running at large, a. Dog
11:19
bite maybe barking endlessly. Yeah,
11:23
you, nuisance complaints, you know, dogs barking, dogs running at large,
11:27
you know, a dog bit someone, there's a sick injured cat
11:31
that should be subject to a trap neuter vaccinate
11:35
return program that needs to be addressed. Right. That's animal
11:38
control. Animal cruelty is when a
11:42
human is negatively impacting an animal which
11:46
could come into disorderly persons or
11:50
misdemeanors or criminal indictable animal cruelty offenses. Right.
11:54
In some states you have humane society officers
11:57
or animal control officers that are empowered to
12:02
deal with the animal cruelty as well as animal control.
12:06
And sometimes those issues mend together. Right. If you have an
12:10
animal hoarding situation where you have, you know, an
12:13
animal control issue with tons of cats roaming
12:17
around a property that aren't fixed and are not vaccinated, but
12:21
then you also have animal cruelty because maybe they're starving and they're being
12:24
neglected and being kept in an awful hoarding circumstance. Right. So
12:29
that requires an integrated response between animal control
12:32
and the police. Now, when someone
12:36
here in New Jersey calls about an animal
12:40
issue, we find the problem is that none of the
12:43
dispatchers understand that difference between animal
12:47
cruelty and animal control. So the knee jerk
12:50
reaction is just to refer everything to animal control.
12:54
But animal control doesn't have the statutory ability to enforce
12:58
state animal cruelty law. Right. So that has to be
13:02
referred to the police department. And every
13:05
police department is required to have a municipal
13:09
humane law enforcement officer, which is typically
13:13
someone, a police officer that designated in that police department
13:17
to deal with any criminal animal cruelty matters. And that sounds
13:21
like an advantage to have a specific person who probably maybe
13:25
volunteered for that or has an interest in it or at least has accumulated
13:28
some experience. It's a mixed bag. Right.
13:32
So New Jersey used to have the New Jersey
13:35
spca, which was the statewide
13:39
quasi governmental but nonprofit
13:43
police force that was tasked with enforcing animal
13:46
cruelty law. But we disbanded that because
13:50
of rampant corruption and dysfunction and mismanagement back
13:54
in 2018. So the new structure was basically
13:58
in a nutshell. The state said, you know, we
14:02
don't want volunteer people running around enforcing
14:05
state laws. So since we're already investing so much in.
14:10
Almost every town in New Jersey has its own police department.
14:13
You know, out of 565 towns, I think there's
14:17
only 60 or 70 that are covered by the state police.
14:21
So there are so many police departments, they're already
14:25
tasked with enforcing state law. Animal cruelty
14:29
law is included in state law, so they should just be trained and
14:33
designated to deal with it. Why are we having people call
14:37
about an animal cruelty issue? They don't know if it goes to animal
14:40
control or if it's a county SPCA or if it's the state
14:44
spca. There were so many cooks in the kitchen with that that
14:48
it was streamlined and refined to animal
14:51
cruelty. Call your police. That's it. If it involves
14:54
animal control, get animal control involved. And they should
14:58
mutually work together to address the matter. Right. But
15:02
it's a mixed bag to your question around the state because
15:06
some places you have police departments that have
15:10
officers who care about animals and they take this stuff seriously.
15:14
And other police departments, you call them and you get,
15:18
we're dealing with murders and robberies, Go take a hike. Click. Yeah.
15:22
Okay. So we've separated animal cruelty enforcement, which is a
15:25
criminal proceeding, from animal control.
15:29
And you talked about that New Jersey has a mandate on municipalities
15:33
to have an animal control officer and have somewhere to take
15:36
animals, but that they handle it differently. It sounds in your county,
15:40
the county pays for, out of tax dollars, a shelter where the
15:44
municipalities could take those animals. But there are other
15:47
models where it's not quite that clean.
15:51
Right. So there are quite a few counties in New
15:54
Jersey that do not have a county
15:58
shelter facility. So if you live in
16:02
one of those counties, some of them are more populous counties
16:05
up towards the New York City areas. These are very, very
16:09
populated, large counties that do not have a county animal
16:13
shelter. So when you don't have a
16:16
municipal or a county run animal
16:20
shelter facility where those towns can bring
16:23
animals that need care, what you have is
16:27
a patchwork of coverage
16:31
where private animal sheltering
16:34
facilities that are most, if not all are
16:38
501 nonprofit charitable organizations
16:42
that run animal shelters like Associated
16:45
Humane, where I work. We are the largest animal protection
16:49
organization in New Jersey. We have four animal shelter
16:52
facilities throughout the state. We are the largest
16:56
contractor for municipal animal services
17:00
in the state. What does that mean? Essentially, the
17:04
reality of what that means in plain speak is
17:07
our private charitable organization is assuming the
17:11
burden of providing animal services
17:16
to municipal residents for that
17:19
municipality, often at a cost
17:23
that we are always bleeding red because the municipality
17:26
never pays what it actually costs to do this work work, even
17:30
though they are the ones legally obligated to provide those
17:34
services. Right. And this is where we circle back to the state
17:38
mandate. State statute simply says
17:41
every municipality in New Jersey must have animal control and an
17:45
empowerment facility. It does not say who, what, where. When, why,
17:49
or how or who pays for it. Because you're getting into the same situation that
17:53
I've had. I've had discussions with shelter leaders in Pennsylvania
17:57
that use that same phrase almost, almost verbatim,
18:01
that we are shouldering the burden that should be a
18:04
public burden. That is, you know, where the municipality
18:08
has decided that they don't want to pay for animal control. You know,
18:12
we're having to raise money as a nonprofit to do that
18:15
work. And isn't that, especially if you're talking about strays and
18:19
public safety? Public safety is supposed to be
18:23
a municipal or state function. So there's just the
18:27
overlap of private entities trying to pick it up. And then, you know, I want
18:30
to, by the time we're done here, I want, I want to come to what
18:32
would the ideal situation be? Because it's clearly not
18:36
that the nonprofits pick up the slack. Right.
18:40
I think it's so important for
18:43
podcasts like this and radio shows and
18:47
animal shelters, anyone who understands how this really
18:51
works and to educate the public about what the
18:55
realities are. Because the tragic thing I see so
18:58
often is you have well meaning people.
19:02
Sometimes they're Just average members of the public. Sometimes they're
19:06
animal rescue folks. It spreads the gambit. But you
19:09
have people who want to bash the
19:13
animal shelters or they want to criticize the
19:16
SPCAs or the Humane societies. You know, you're
19:20
not taking in enough animals. You're euthanizing too much. You're not
19:24
doing this. And we are just charities that
19:27
are bearing the burden of municipal officials
19:31
not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And look,
19:35
this is not to say that all animal shelters, all
19:39
humane societies, they're not perfect. There's always things that they
19:42
could do to improve and better their operations. I'm not saying
19:46
that's not the case. But we have to level the
19:49
responsibility and the criticisms in the right
19:53
place. We need to empower and encourage
19:56
and support the entities that are stepping
20:00
in because they care about animals and people so much.
20:04
We're stepping in to take this huge
20:08
burden on our own shoulders at our own
20:11
expense, largely because we're underfunded perpetually.
20:15
And we have to deal with the messes that that are created
20:18
because either the municipal or the county or the state officials
20:22
are not properly funding and accounting for
20:26
crucial animal services. And we always have to say,
20:30
it's not just animal services. It's not just bringing a
20:34
stray dog to the pound. This is a comprehensive
20:38
community approach to public health,
20:42
public safety, and animal welfare that are all
20:46
integrated. When you have animal hoarding, you have
20:49
mental health, you have public health issues, you have animal
20:52
welfare concerns. All of these situations and cases
20:56
transcend multiple concerns, multiple
21:00
areas of government programs, and just
21:04
social impact, that it's always on the
21:07
burden of the animal shelter, and we're the nonprofit. I said this to a
21:11
health director of a city yesterday when we were negotiating a contract.
21:16
I said, you think that's too much money, what we're proposing in a
21:19
monthly cost? I said, we could take in one case from
21:23
your city that will cost us that monthly fee in one
21:27
case. You said that brilliantly, Brian. I just
21:30
agree with everything you said. And in fact, you nailed
21:34
the reason that finally got me to start this podcast, and
21:38
that was looking at all of that online
21:41
criticism of shelters. But being part of the shelter world
21:45
and saying, I understand how it looks to the public because it's
21:49
very confusing. It's different in different places and who's responsible for
21:53
what. But there is a ton of what I think is largely
21:56
unfair criticism of shelters. They'll say
22:00
things like, well, if you don't have an officer that can get out in an
22:03
hour, why don't you Hire another officer. It's like, well, we're not funded by the
22:06
state. This is charitable money that you have to raise to get an
22:10
officer and a vehicle and insurance and everything else. And a
22:14
big chunk of that should be, in my view, a government function.
22:18
Maybe not, you know, rehabilitating and adopting out all the animals,
22:22
but certainly the chunk that deals with human safety
22:25
should be. And like you said, getting the different. It's not just an
22:29
animal problem, it's a social service problem, it's a housing
22:33
problem, and getting all of those different entities to work together.
22:37
Right. And that's where we, as people who love
22:40
animals sometimes fall into the situation
22:44
of we care about animals so much. So that's what we're always thinking about
22:48
and that's what we always want to talk about. But we have to put
22:52
ourselves in the shoes of a municipal official or county
22:55
official in all of the things they're dealing with, all of the
22:59
things on their budget, all the things on their plate, and say, you know, maybe
23:03
they don't care about animals or they don't understand what goes
23:06
into all this. So we need to show
23:11
how these issues are integrated into all of the other things
23:14
they're currently doing and that they care about. Right. You have a city
23:18
or a county health department. They're dealing with vaccines and
23:22
public health. Well, trap, neuter, vaccinate, return for cats.
23:26
We want to make sure all these outdoor cats are properly vaccinated.
23:29
Keeps them safe, it keeps the public safe. Right. Well,
23:33
why do we not round up cats and euthanize them anymore? Well,
23:37
not only is that unethical, it's inhumane, it's contrary to best
23:40
practices of the National Animal Care and Control association, but it
23:44
also doesn't contribute to protecting public health. You're
23:48
right. Speak to the priorities. Because the legislator may care
23:51
about animals, but times are getting tougher and they're balancing a lot of
23:55
priorities. And you have to speak to that, the financial priorities in
23:59
particular, as in maybe if we had better
24:02
programs to help people retain their pets, it would actually be
24:06
cheaper than rounding them up and holding them in a shelter and eventually
24:09
euthanizing some of them, that you might be able to provide people
24:13
a boost at a more effective cost.
24:17
Right, right. And, and I, I think looking
24:21
at this holistically, in what are the
24:24
policies and practices of a city
24:28
or a county when it comes to animal services?
24:32
Right. I, for example, am very
24:35
hesitant to contract for animal services through
24:39
our Organization for Animal Control and Animal Sheltering.
24:42
If a city is going to fight me on Having a
24:46
trap, neuter, vaccinate, return ordinance. Why should I
24:50
contract with you at our burden and our
24:54
expense if you're going to turn around and expect
24:57
us to jeopardize our nonprofit
25:01
mission because you just expect us to round up all the stray
25:04
cats and kill them? Yeah. That gets to the
25:08
heart of a problem of having almost this dual mission
25:12
of animal welfare and maximizing animal welfare and
25:15
animal control. Sometimes those two things are kind of viewed as
25:19
diametrically opposed because one is protecting people from animals and
25:23
one is protecting the animals themselves. In an ideal world,
25:26
Brian, you've experienced a lot of different types of
25:30
systems for animal control. If you were going to a state
25:34
legislature or a local governmental body, what do you think
25:37
is the best system? Well, I think it's clear that
25:41
we need state mandates
25:44
requiring these services because they're so
25:48
vital. So first, making sure
25:51
the state mandate is clear and depending
25:55
on how it is mandated, determining some type of
25:59
funding mechanism for that state mandate. I
26:03
personally like a county system.
26:07
I see the county run organizations in New Jersey
26:11
where Cape May county or Burlington county or Bergen
26:14
county, where you have a large facility with
26:18
county backed resources, with good staff
26:22
that everyone in that county understands, this is
26:26
the facility, this is the people, these are the programs. And,
26:30
and then that county facility has a
26:33
nonprofit Friends of the Burlington
26:37
County Animal Shelter, which that nonprofit
26:41
fills in gaps and supports the county shelter and
26:45
works with municipalities. I really like how that
26:49
model works. How much of it can be mandated in
26:53
state statute, I'm not sure, but whatever is
26:56
mandated, I think it has to be be clear. There must
27:00
be an animal control officer, there must be an
27:03
animal impoundment facility who has primary
27:06
jurisdiction and where is the funding coming from?
27:11
And meeting those questions I think would
27:14
make things much clearer. For example,
27:18
again, you know, New Jersey mandates that every
27:21
municipality has animal control. Now we have
27:25
municipalities that have 300 plus thousand people and we
27:29
have municipalities that literally have 100 people.
27:33
Then that's where you're saying that the county model makes a lot of sense because
27:36
every municipality shouldn't have to have a shelter, right? Not
27:39
every municipality can or should have its
27:43
own shelter because maybe a large city could or should
27:47
have their own shelter. But the town that I was a councilman in for a
27:51
short period of time, we had a couple thousand people. We were a small
27:54
town, we didn't need our own facility. We could have
27:58
done shared services or we could have been under a county structure
28:02
where the county ran a facility. But interestingly, with the current
28:05
mandate as it is, counties don't have to do any of that.
28:09
It's only the municipalities. So the counties
28:12
that run their own shelter, they're doing that out of kind of
28:16
their own good graces. That's amazing. Right.
28:20
So the county government is taking that function
28:24
on. And sometimes I wonder, where did
28:27
that all even start? Because it's the municipal obligation.
28:31
And this is a problem we're running into in some places. Where? There
28:35
are some towns in New Jersey that have no animal impoundment
28:39
facility, which is a violation of the state statute.
28:43
It's a public health crisis. Because if a vicious
28:46
dog bites some young girl's face off, well, where is
28:50
that animal control officer going to bring that dog so it's not a threat to
28:53
public safety? Well, there is no place to bring it, so they just let it
28:57
run wild, or they ask an animal rescue to hold onto
29:01
it, which is not permitted. Right. That's why I just
29:05
think that the system has to, at a minimum, have a solution to that
29:08
problem for every one of the citizens of the state. And for the
29:12
longest time, it was animal shelter
29:15
nonprofits that were perpetuating the problem.
29:19
And I don't say this as a criticism because they were stepping
29:23
in because they care about animals so much and they saw a need and
29:26
wanted to help. But in doing that, it was
29:30
perpetuating the government officials to not have to do what they should
29:33
be doing because, well, oh, the Humane Society
29:37
will handle it. Out of sight, out of mind. We don't have to worry about
29:41
it. Well, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost
29:44
in a lot of places. Because we have a situation in
29:48
Salem county right now where most of the
29:51
municipalities in the county have no animal shelter
29:54
because the animal shelter that was servicing them said, you know
29:58
what? You guys not only are not paying what this
30:02
costs us, but you're not even doing the proper local
30:05
policies with TNVR and backyard breeding
30:09
that you just want to keep dumping the problem on us and then not
30:13
even paying us properly to deal with it. We're done. We're
30:17
cutting you off. This is going against our mission. This is a
30:20
tremendous strain. You're on your own. And now all the
30:24
towns are saying, woe is me. Oh, no, we
30:28
have no one. We have no. Well, you knew this was coming down the
30:32
pike. For a year, you were begged
30:36
to do the right policies to make this easier for the shelter.
30:40
And finally when they broke loose because they couldn't take it
30:43
anymore, now you're crying victims saying, woe is me.
30:47
Well, you know, and that state mandate means they need to figure it out, I
30:51
guess. I mean, they don't have the option to say just not doing it like
30:54
some towns in Pennsylvania, do you? Correct. Well, Brian, we could
30:58
probably talk about this all day, and we have many other things to talk about
31:01
since you brought up trap, neuter, vaccinate return
31:04
programs and backyard breeding. So we'll have to have another discussion
31:08
or two on those. But thank you for all the information that you provided
31:12
today and thank you for the work that you do.
31:15
Thank you for shedding light on this because there's a lot of
31:19
possibilities and potential out there. But until we hold the
31:23
government officials feet to the fire and really put pressure on this,
31:26
it's going to continue to be business as usual, which is nonprofits
31:30
bearing the burden of a government obligation. That is
31:34
true. Thanks very much. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Penny.
31:38
Today's conversation with Brian really drove home why we need laws that
31:42
require local governments to provide animal control services.
31:47
He showed us that even in New Jersey, where it's mandated,
31:50
implementation varies wildly, but at least there's
31:53
accountability and a legal framework to build those improvements
31:57
on. Without that mandate, you have stray animals
32:01
roaming the streets, suffering and making the overpopulation problem
32:04
worse if they're not spayed or neutered. And nonprofit
32:08
shelters end up trying to pick up the slack without any public
32:12
funding to do what should be the government's job. And that's just
32:15
not the way it should work. So here's what I want you to take away
32:19
from all this. If you live in one of the 37 states that
32:23
don't require local animal control services, that's a
32:26
problem you can help solve by proposing a bill to your state
32:30
legislature. And whether your state mandates animal control or
32:34
not, if you're seeing gaps in service in your community, you could
32:38
work directly with local officials to try to improve it. If you're ready
32:41
to take action on this or any of the other policy changes we've been
32:45
discussing, you can find resources to help
32:48
you@animaladvocacyacademy.com just click on
32:51
free Resources. And here's something I'm really excited about.
32:56
Next month, we're launching a private podcast series called the Four
32:59
Cs of Legislative Advocacy for Animals. This is a
33:03
framework I've worked on for turning passionate animal lovers like you
33:07
into confident, effective animals advocates who actually get
33:10
bills passed. I've broken down everything I've learned into
33:14
a system that shows you how to identify winnable issues,
33:19
build the right coalitions, and navigate the legislative process.
33:23
Even if you've never done anything like it before. If you sign up
33:27
for our newsletter, you'll be the first to get access to this new private series.
33:31
I can't wait to share it with you because I know how powerful it is
33:35
when you can combine solid knowledge with a supportive community
33:39
of people all working towards the same goals. That's
33:42
exactly the kind of systemic change that moves the needle for animals.
33:47
Instead of just managing the symptoms like overcrowded shelters,
33:51
stray animals with nowhere to go, we're trying to address the
33:54
root causes through better laws and policies.
33:58
So here's your action step. Find out whether your state mandates
34:02
animal control services. If it doesn't, that's a bill worth
34:06
proposing in your state. If it does, look at how
34:09
well it's being implemented in your community and work with local officials
34:13
to strengthen the system.
34:17
That's it for today. The Animal Advocate Podcast is brought
34:21
to you by the Animal Advocacy Academy. You can find
34:25
episodes and show notes@animaladvocacyacademy.com
34:30
along with a link to our Facebook and LinkedIn pages where we discuss
34:34
our podcasts, and we'd love to discuss your thoughts and experiences
34:37
there. If you're interested in learning more about protecting
34:41
animals, subscribe to the show so you get every episode when it
34:45
comes out. If you have any questions on this or any
34:48
other topic related to animal law, email them to
34:52
podcastnimaladvocacyacademy.com
34:55
and we'll make sure to get them answered. We'll either email you back
34:59
or feature them in a future episode, or both.
35:03
And remember, compassion is great, but
35:06
compassionate action is infinitely better. Until
35:10
next week, Live with Compassion.