Herald-Times
By Mike Leonard
331-4368 | mleonard@heraldt.com

4/2/2009
One of the more confounding aspects of the legislative process is that just about any subject can turn into a dogfight.
Take the animal cruelty/anti-puppy mill bill that passed the Indiana House by an 80-14 vote in February. It looked, for all the world, to be a pretty
common-sense bill that expanded the definition of animal cruelty beyond deprivation of food and water, and it set up definitions and standards to fight the scourge of puppy mills.

And it was gutted in a Senate committee on Tuesday in a “strip and insert” maneuver that the bill’s author said leaves it a shell of its former self.
The choreographer of the “strip and insert,” state Sen. Brent Steele, R-Bedford, represents Indian Creek, Clear Creek, Salt Creek and Polk townships in Monroe County. He could not be reached on Wednesday afternoon. A GOP staffer said the Bedford attorney left the Legislature feeling ill and wasn’t returning phone calls.

Steele nonetheless crows on his Web site: “This bill sends a clear message that Indiana will no longer be a safe harbor for those who fail to provide proper care for dogs.”

“It’s unbelievable,” said Ann Sterling, a Bloomington resident and Indiana state director for the Humane Society of the United States. “This amendment not only removes ‘shelter’ from the animal cruelty code but it also uses the USDA standard, which does not even require dogs to ever leave their cages, in addition to many other things.”

Like other government standards you sometimes hear about in advertising, the USDA standards are minimum standards. Not optimal standards. The lowest hurdle. “The USDA standards mean we can still have cages of dogs stacked on cages of dogs. We can still have the dogs standing on wire floors their entire lives. We can still keep dogs in cages their entire lives. And dogs can still be bred their entire lives, from 6 months to 14 years. We still have an incredibly inhumane situation here,” Sterling went on.

“We’re one of only 10 states that don’t require shelter for animals in extreme weather conditions, and Sen. Steele removed that from the House bill,” she said.

The House bill’s author, Rep. Linda Lawson, D-Hammond, said the Senate version of her bill should be of particular interest in Bloomington. “In
addition to the many things taken out of the bill was the inclusion of language that says a local jurisdiction can’t set higher standards than the USDA’s,” she said late Tuesday. “You have higher standards in Bloomington and Monroe County. Senator Steele’s language would take away your home rule.”

Sterling said polling in Indiana shows that 90 percent of Hoosiers support anti-animal cruelty legislation, and more than 80 percent want to see a
crackdown on puppy mills that churn out hundreds of dogs — of which many wind up being euthanized at animal shelters.
So why the opposition? Some breeders expressed concern about being regulated at all, even though Sterling and Lawson say they’ve met with a
number of reputable breeders who said they endorsed the legislation once they learned what it actually did and did not do.

The wild thing is that NRA lobbyists were seen wandering the halls of the General Assembly, buttonholing legislators to let them know that the NRA supported Sen. Steele on the animal cruelty/puppy mill bill. Apparently, they argue that once people start regulating dog breeding and cruelty standards, who knows where they’ll stop?