Animal shelters in Virginia are required to engage a licensed veterinarian to develop protocols for the care of animals in their custody, yet the proposed pet shop regulations include no such requirement despite the dozens of vulnerable puppies they offer for sale, who often come from notoriously disease-ridden puppy mills.
If a VDACS inspector finds that an animal shelter has violated state law, the shelter faces civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day until the issue is corrected. But civil penalties like these—and any other meaningful enforcement action—are notably absent from the proposed pet store regulations, meaning that pet stores have little incentive to comply.
