In March, New Hampshire senators pushed through a sweeping revision to the state’s animal cruelty laws, approving a bill to tighten oversight over commercial dog breeders after a string of high-profile abuse cases.
The version heading to the House floor this week is a whole different animal.
After an overhaul in the House Environment and Agriculture committee, Senate Bill 569 moves ahead with vast changes that supporters say address key constitutional and cost concerns. But its original sponsors have called the changes unacceptable, throwing the bill’s future into doubt.
The latest version of the bill loosens some of the restrictions on breeders imposed by the Senate version; amends the state animal cruelty statute to include a new “animal hoarding” offense; and scraps a requirement that defendants pay for the cost of rehousing their animals before being convicted.
The legislation comes in response to months of headlines surrounding the trial of Christina Fay, a Wolfeboro resident convicted of 10 counts of animal cruelty in December. Fay was found to have abused dozens Great Danes found at her mansion and another site after neglecting and keeping them in squalor.
The dogs were seized by police last June; four later died under Humane Society care. Fay’s example is one of four similar public cases in New Hampshire in the last 18 months, according to the Humane Society.
In the wake of cases like Fay’s, SB 569 picked up broad support in the Senate, passing by voice vote March 22. But after a multiday hearing in which dog breeders and others expressed concerns that the bill would be overly punitive, the House Agriculture committee took a different tack in a 15-1 vote.
Now, the bill’s original Senate supporters say the bill has been modified to the point where it could be unworkable.
“The reason I introduced the bill was to better protect animals,” said Republican Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley of Wolfeboro, who spearheaded the original bill after the events in his hometown. “(This version) actually weakens existing law.”
The new bill retains the definition of who counts as a commercial breeder – a person who keeps seven or more “female breeding dogs,” or who transfers 10 litters or 50 puppies in a year. But it adds a host of exemptions to that definition for breeders of specific categories, including fieldwork, drafting, guarding, working and herding livestock.
It allows the Department of Agriculture to inspect licensed pet vendors that may be in violation, and revoke or suspend licenses as it sees fit. But it strikes a requirement that facilities receive an inspection before getting that license, eliminates regular inspections set up under the Senate bill, and prevents the department from relying on anonymous complaints to carry.
House lawmakers also moved to push out a clause in the Senate bill requiring that a defendant pay a bond for the cost of care to relocate the animals – a sore point for the town of Wolfeboro, which has reportedly incurred $1.7 million in expenses for the care of the animals it rehoused. Under the House version, a study commission would be established to study how best to pay for any confiscated pet moving forward.
Supporters in the House say the changes set a balance between the powers of the state and the rights of dog breeders that the Senate version lacked. To start, they say, forcing defendants to pay relocation fees before the abuse has been confirmed by the court is a failure of due process.
“(The Senate sponsors) were using various legal gynmastics to say that it was not technically a violation of due process,” said Rep. Peter Bixby, D-Dover, a member of the House agriculture committee. But, he added: “If you have to pay out money or lose your animals before you’re convicted, then that’s a failure of due process.”
The House committee’s decision to expand the exemptions to who counts as a dog breeder – and who, by extension, is subject to inspections – was a matter of fairness, Bixby added. And stopping the use of anonymous complaints would the accused violators from frivolous investigations and gives them the right to know their accuser, he said.
But opponents say the changes represent a step back not just from the Senate version of the bill, but from the law as it stands now. Broadening the exceptions to breeders could exempt nearly every potential violator in the state, they argued. And disallowing anonymous reports would hamper the ability of the Agriculture Department to act as a watchdog, Bradley said.
“If you can’t report anonymously and you have to file a written complaint, people are going to fear retribution,” he said. “That’s a common practice to protect whistleblowers.”
Lindsay Hamrick, New Hampshire State Director of the Humane Society, expressed similar frustration, calling the House version “not salvageable.” She argued that the changes would prevent the department from getting ahead of tragedies before they occur.
“We need preventative measures,” she said.
The future of the bill is unclear. If it passes the House floor as written this week, it will likely end up in a conference committee – and set off intense negotiations with the Senate. Speaking Monday, Bradley said he’d welcome further talks but isn’t exactly hopeful.
“I’m always willing for a compromise,” he said. “(But) I’m not sure where this is going.”
(Ethan DeWitt can be reached at edewitt@cmonitor.com, or on Twitter at @edewittNH.)