Some small animal shelters are raising concerns about proposed new state regulations intended to protect Massachusetts pets.
“It makes it almost impossible for our privately funded rescue organizations, foster homes and shelters to stay open if they have to abide by all of these regulations,” said Lisa Burns, who works with the Westfield Homeless Cat Project, which runs a cat shelter in Westfield. “They’re very stringent.”
The regulations proposed by the state Department of Agricultural Resources set out new rules for animal rescues, shelters and pet shops relating to the standard of care for animals. The department will hold a public hearing on the regulations April 23 in Boston.
“In order to ensure the continued health and safety of companion animals in the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources is proposing regulations to strengthen animal care, facility maintenance and record keeping requirements for animal rescue organizations and pet shops,” said Katie Gronendyke, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agricultural Resources, in a statement.
Gronendyke said the department drafted the regulations with input from animal rescue organizations and others, and "looks forward to a robust public comment process to ensure these regulations both protect companion animals and allow rescue organizations to continue to help vulnerable animals find homes.”
The proposed rules set standards for things like cleanliness, space, physical construction, waste disposal and lighting in areas where animals are kept. Animals must be provided with specific medical care, including vaccinations, clean living quarters, fresh food and drinking water.
They rules require a quarantine room for sick animals. They also require an isolation room with a separate entrance where newly acquired cats and dogs must be held for 48 hours after they are brought in from out of state.
There are standards for when an animal can be placed for adoption and foster care. The rules would require rescue organizations to ensure that animals brought into Massachusetts are vaccinated and have health certificates. Rescue organizations would have to keep records on all their animals, and animals would have to be seen by a veterinarian prior to adoption. Rescue organizations would have to annually renew their registration with the state.
Some of the provisions codify existing practice, while others are new.
Some rescue organizations worry that the rules go too far.
Burns said for a shelter like the one in Westfield, which can have 100 cats at once and sees between 500 and 1,000 cats a year, there would be no space to isolate every cat that comes in. “You would have to redo the whole building,” she said.
She said other provisions like a requirement to make all surfaces impervious, rules on record-keeping, and restrictions on bringing animals across state lines would all be onerous for rescue operations.
Anna Zina, who owns In Honey’s Memory cat shelter in Huntington, worried that as a small shelter, which takes in around 20 elderly cats a year, she won’t have a voice in developing the regulations.
Zina said she understands the concept behind the rules and agrees some of them would help animals. But they would make her work more difficult. For example, she would have to seal wood scratching posts, which she never thought of doing. She would have to call an animal control officer every time she found a cat, so an owner searching for the cat could find it.
Zina said she thinks the regulations are “really trying to go after the wrong people.” She wants the state to focus on holding accountable people who mistreat cats, by hoarding or neglecting them, rather than the shelters.
The owner of one small specialized shelter, who asked not to be named because she feared retribution from state regulators, said the proposed regulations could drive her out of business.
The shelter brings dogs in from out of state and relies on fundraising to cover its costs. She said the rules would make it impossible to rely on volunteers to transport dogs, instead of professional drivers. The quarantine provisions would also raise costs.
A spokesman for the Dakin Humane Society, which operates shelters in Springfield and Leverett and provides services to more than 20,000 animals a year, said Dakin officials will attend the public hearing but will not speak to the media before then.
A state spokeswoman for the Humane Society of the United States declined to comment before the group finishes preparing its official comments for state regulators.