After an influencer couple went viral in August when their dog died at a boarding facility, a California congressman has introduced a bill to hold facilities more accountable when pets are harmed or killed.Republican Rep.James Gallagher introduced the legislation, called “Dunkin’s Law,” named for the couple’s Bernese mountain dog.
It would expand the state’s Animal Welfare Act “to provide for the protection of companion animals held or cared for at certain facilities,” according to the bill’s text.The bill would classify pets as “sentient beings” and allow owners of pets that were harmed or killed at boarding and similar facilities to bring action against the facilities to recover damages and other lost expenses.“There needs to be greater protections and teeth when something like this happens,” Gallagher told NBC News on Tuesday.He said he hopes not only that the legislation protects families of pets that were hurt or that died but that it also ensures that no-kill shelters do not euthanize dogs and cats in “these horrific ways.”“Make these people actually live up to their word, have accountability, especially for the kind of mistreatment and neglect that we’ve seen in these cases,” Gallagher said.“Hopefully, what it ultimately leads to is this doesn’t happen, that the disincentives are so strong that these guys really up their game and we don’t have bad actors.”Two events prompted Gallagher to introduce the bill, he said in a release accompanying the announcement.The first occurred in June, when Humboldt County sheriff’s investigators uncovered mass burial sites at a Northern California animal rescue facility.
As part of an investigation into the shelter, officials recovered intact remains of 117 dogs, as well as other skeletal remains.Preliminary examinations of some of the dogs’ remains showed evidence of gunshot wounds.“What investigators uncovered in Humboldt County is absolutely sickening,” Gallagher said in...