Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And we are live. Alright. Welcome back, everyone. We are moving to our next order of business, which is h eight forty one. The bill was recommitted to this committee yesterday, so we actually have positioned the appropriate proposed legislation. So yay. So this is an act relating to animal welfare procedures. We did an introduction in a walk through last week. Now we're picking up testimony. And, thank you to our guests for attending. So I'm just gonna run down the list, in order on our witness testimony, and we'll start with Erica Hall. Please join us.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: How are you today? I'm fine. Thanks. How are you? Cheaper. Thank you, all for having me here. I'm listed on your agenda as one of the co executive directors of Central Vermont Humane Society. I am also the chairperson of the Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board that was created by the legislature in 2015. I'll probably mostly be speaking as a second month humane society, shelter director on these topics. So I only saw this recently, the bill that Chea has been working on for a while. I would love it if we could work more directly with you and with Ledge Council and and tweaking the bill so that, these types of things don't have to wait to come up before the committee when we have little things that we think could, you know, make a difference in how they're worded. First and foremost, what I want to touch on that's sort of throughout the bill a little bit is that, we would really like to see our new director of the division of animal welfare, who, the ACIUB really helped get on board here, to be given authority for rulemaking, because much of what, what has been presented to the legislature over the years that the ACI AB has been submitting annual reports, many of those topics could really be, handled through rulemaking rather than having to go, you know, right into statute and take up all of the legislature's time. I know the rulemaking process does also involve public hearings and a lot of input. So it isn't like our new director would be sitting in her office making rules, all on her own. We there would be lots of input from all of the involved parties. On the bill, and I might be not talking about this in order because my thoughts were kind of all over the place in reading it. There's talk about outdoor cats and being licensed and vaccinated and spayed and neutered. I think the bill needs a little more clarity to specify that those are, indoor, outdoor owned cats. We're not talking about, like, feral cat colonies, because in statute, those are not owned animals. And there are already a number of very concerned, compassionate organizations and people who are working very hard to help with the feral cat population problem. Feral cats are essentially wild cats. They're not people's pets that are just wandering around. So what we're talking about is owned cats that are indoor, outdoor, and that they should be spayed or neutered, especially like the tom cats that are are really creating a problem around our state. And, you know, so one way, besides the requirement and statute for that would be also to allow if they are picked up as strays, if they are brought into shelters, is that we can, as soon as we have an appointment to do so, get them spayed or neutered. Cats, if they are owned, somebody usually claims them pretty quickly. The cats have a very low return rate, to their owners because so many people have a loose relationship with their cats. But it would be helpful to be able to have them spayed or neutered before they're going back into that environment where they're gonna be indoor and outdoor. And also to make sure they're fully vaccinated, we can touch on with the vaccinator program. Right now, as animals come into our shelter as strays, we depending on the timing of it. So we always vaccinate for the distemper combo vaccine because we're allowed to give that. It's not a veterinarian does not have to give that. For dogs, we also do Bordetella because they're going to be going into our kennels, and flea and tick prevention. But we can't give a rabies vaccine until we have a vet, see them. And we have visiting vets there once a week. And so depending on the timing, if my vet is scheduled for a Wednesday and a cat comes in on a Thursday, it sits for a week before I can, rabies vaccinate it or send it to the clinic, which we do on Wednesdays, to be spayed and neutered. And then they would get vaccinated. So, it would be great if there are, certified vaccinators that work for shelters. You know, we're already certified our shelter and one member of our staff to perform humane euthanasia for the public and also for animals that we have taken in that we deem unadoptable. So it certainly is less of a step to be responsible for rabies vaccines. It would also allow us then if somebody comes and claims their animal, especially with dogs. Right now, our process for the towns that we have contracts with is that the, if they don't have proof of vaccines, and proof of license, then they need to leave a $50 deposit with us to take their animal so they can then make a vet appointment, get the animal vaccinated, then go to the town clerk with that proof of vaccine in order to license them. And with vets really overworked, you know, that can sometimes be two weeks before they're gonna get in there and and get an appointment. And so they just don't go is what more commonly happens. And we know this because we often get that animal back as a stray again, and they're still not vaccinated or licensed. So being able to, vaccinate them and charge them a fee to do so, a very low cost vaccination fee, to then get them back out into our community properly vaccinated, and with a certificate in hand that they could go right to the town clerk and then properly license their animal. So that's, the biggest benefit we see to our shelter and to the community animals to being able to do rabies vaccines. You know, we're already very skilled at, keeping good records, as you can imagine. Doing euthanasia's, we have drugs that are, you know, controlled by the DEA. We have to keep very good records. So we and we keep great records on all of our vaccinations for all our animals. So I'm sorry.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The Waters Evans.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Hello. Can you define for us or or what constitutes a strip?

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: So an animal running at large without an owner is sort of the most basic, definition of stray. In our stray contract with our communities, we are even more specific in that if the town knows who the owner is, that's not a stray. So they are responsible for collecting that animal and getting it back to their home. And the reason we've added that to our contract is because there are many repeat offenders in a town, people that just let their animals run at large. And so they had taken to using us as a deterrent, that they would bring the animal to us, and the person would have to come to us to get their animal back and pay our daily, you know, fees. And really, have in their town ordinances, they have things that they can utilize to do that, such as writing tickets, increasing their fines for running at large for each event type of thing. So, I do think that, there is something to be said for, tweaking the definition of stray and to encompass all animals without an owner, even if they're abandoned in an apartment. So right now, we have, this is sort of going off topic here for August, but it's becoming more of a problem in this state as more and more people are either evicted or abandon their apartments and become homeless or they go to treatment or go to jail. There's more and more cases of animals being left behind in the apartment or house. And because animals, in our state are considered property, not looked at as sentient beings, the landlord is rather restricted, in what can be done with that animal. Just like if the people leave behind all their furniture, they're supposed to hold it for a certain amount of time to give the person an opportunity to take it back. So there's a really problematic gray area there because they're not really strays unless they're outside the property. If they're found inside the property, they're property. So we have had to work each one of those situations individually to figure out how we can help the animal in the best possible way. So that would also be nice, just be able to bring those in if they're under our town stray contract, then we could take them, have them for the stray hold, which, by the way, there's no stray hold in statute. So, we generally go with three days, because we find that the animals that are going to be returned are usually returned within one or two days. And the longer that I know a lot of towns have it in their ordinance that it's ten days. I probably wouldn't do stray contracts with towns if we were required to hold an animal for ten days before we could do anything with them. We just don't have that space for that timeframe.

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: Yes. Just curious if you could talk a little bit about why we treat cats and dogs differently when it comes to our expectations around what we let them do.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Our expectations around what?

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: What we let them do.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: In what way? Like, indooroutdoor?

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: Because we don't really tolerate dogs being outside at loose rate. Is that in law, or is that more of an informal thing?

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: I think because of the history of bites, animal bites, and that towns, time, have dealt with a lot more situations where people were injured by dogs, that's not as likely for cats. I'm not saying they don't wreak havoc on other people's property and on other people's birds, that type of thing. I was an animal control officer for fifteen years for Middlesex and Worcester. And I often had to work with people who let their cats out and were like, well, how am I supposed to keep them on my property when they'd be at the neighbors using their garden beds as their litter box? And so creates a lot of animosity, between people. I'm sure there's many factors that have contributed to why there are different laws for each species, but, generally, it's been the the bite factor. And you can see in a lot of town ordinances that they vary. Most towns won't deal with cat issues at all. So if they hire an animal control officer, they consider them the dog catcher still. They don't expect them to handle cats. Because in their mind, that's just normal, indooroutdoor. That answer your question? Yeah. Thank you. I'm surprised that you are allowed to give the shots that you are allowed to give, yet you're not allowed to give a rabies shot, where a pharmacist can give you a vaccination. So we're allowed to give So like the DHLPP, the distemper combos, Bordetella, people can go buy those like, at Tractor Supply and give them themselves. They can't give rabies themselves because there's no proof that those were given. And, you know, rabies is a different thing because it's fatal. And so we really truly do need good records kept that whether animals have been vaccinated. I mean, distemper is not great either, but, you know, it's the issue regarding, you know, animals with rabies, biting humans, transmitting rabies that, you know, makes that such a big deal. So even, you know, even cats, there's an expectation that they are vaccinated for rabies, but with no licensing in towns for cats, owned cats I'm talking about, of course, you know, then there's never any proof. And, I mean, their bites can be bad just because their bowels and they're bad. Like, it has nothing to do with rabies. But, you know, they are prone to getting rabies too. Do you know approximately how many towns currently license cats in Vermont? I don't. I have had towns ask me about it. I know that Williamstown was looking at it, and I referred them to South Burlington because I could find that, they were considering it, and I didn't know if they had passed anything. I think towns, when I look into it, they get a lot of pushback, cat owners. But it I mean, the licensing fees go toward really important things that don't exclude cats. So it it, you know, is worthwhile looking at that. Absolutely. Okay. So the other thing about vaccinator programs is that, in the past, we stopped during COVID because of just the process was cumbersome and a problem. But in the past, we've held vaccination clinics, low cost vaccination clinics for the community. And, you know, usually they're in March because everybody needs to get their vaccination before the licensing date of April 1. And now a lot of towns, they've done it in the past, but more have stepped up. And it would be really helpful to have vaccinators that would be allowed to give the rabies vaccines that are not veterinarians because that is rather limiting for a town or a shelter to hire a vet, to be there for the clinic. And it enables us to keep the cost even lower if it's a shelter worker, doing that. So, I know the bill has language in it about not being able to accept compensation. So I think there needs to be some clarity on that because my first read over, I was like, we're giving vaccines for we're gonna be required to give them for free. That's a bit of an ask for a nonprofit private organization. So I don't think that's the intent. It's more along the lines of if, like, a humane officer is going on-site to inspect a place or to, you know, check out a complaint, that they could be giving vaccines and not charging. But we need to tighten the language on that. The state of Maine does have a vaccinator program similar to what we're talking about. I guess that's title seven, section 3,920 in their statute. Some opportunity there to graciously steal from them. Any questions on that?

[Rep. Robert Hooper (Member)]: Oh, Rex Hooper. Yes. Hi. Sandy's question again. Is there anything special about handling, the content or anything with the rabies vaccine that

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: No. Like, you mean, is it dangerous to the person handling it?

[Rep. Robert Hooper (Member)]: Or is there anything that what's the justification for it being veterinarian only as opposed to something that didn't change when it should

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: have been. Well, some of that is being able to attest that that was done. Right? So that that the the vaccine was given by a medical, you know, person qualified to do so. And I think that we would still want so like in our shelter, we have a vet of record that oversees all of our medical practice in the shelter. And I think the definition for people that would be able to do this, they should be under the scope of a veterinarian, a practicing medical person. They could even be a human medical person. For example, I'm rabies vaccinated. And that was given to me by a human nurse, vaccinator. So, you would want from

[Rep. Robert Hooper (Member)]: the administrative

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: side. Functional. I mean, give vaccines to animals. Can you repeat that? You said you were rabies vaccinated? I am rabies vaccinated. So it's a prophylactic vaccine. It's a series of three vaccines so that I am now protected if I am bitten. So I thought you said, but I just wanna make sure I just Yes. So most veterinarians and employees in clinics that are handling animals, animal control officers. Yep. I'm trying not to get bitten, but if I was Oh, and

[Rep. Robert Hooper (Member)]: then us. Didn't want you to bite us either.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Oh, well, no. I'm not rapping. And one other benefit is that human, we get our titers checked every couple of years to make sure that we actually still have a response. Our animals are not having their titers checked. But so, yes. Rest assured. I won't foam at the mouth and bite you, I promise. Any other questions on the vaccinator part? Some of you, I know, have been here for a while and may remember H-six 26 from a couple of years ago. The stripped down version is actually what got us the division of animal welfare and Lisa. When that bill was written with a collaboration from a lot of folks from the Vermont Humane Federation and many of us on the ACIAB, we spent a lot of effort in looking at, the fact that shelters and rescues are not registered, licensed, expected, no oversight whatsoever. And that used to belong to the Department of Ag. And when they gave it up, there really wasn't we have, like, our 12 brick and mortar shelters in the state, and there wasn't an explosion of rescues at that time. But since then, it really has just grown. Social media has, you know, really changed how everybody feels about rescuing animals. And so there is a huge amount of rescues in the state, but we don't know how many. We don't know who they are. We don't know what they're doing. We don't know if they're following any good protocols for bringing animals into our state, or behaviorally sound. And so, we feel very strongly that needs to get some oversight. So to start, very least, organizations that want to do this work should be registering with our new division of animal welfare. And so then at least we can determine, are there 100 of them or are there 300 of them? And from there, hopefully through a rulemaking process, the Division of Animal Welfare can start looking at what are the good standards for care for these animals. And everybody should be abiding by that. And then how do we license people that are? How do we follow-up with inspections? And, you know, help keep Vermont on the right track because, it's kind of the Wild West out there, at the moment, and there are some basic things that, you know, rescues need to be doing. One of, the asks in this bill is to, and, of course, we'd have to be registering our rescues and shelters first in Vermont, but then also registering the rescues that are sending dogs to our Vermont organizations. So they would be registered here in Vermont. The language is a little iffy on that. There was definitely some confusion, so I think we would wanna tighten that up. We can't require them to register in Texas. But we can require that Texas organization to be registered here. Know then what here they're connected to. So that we can have some kind of oversight and ability to get information about the animals that are coming into the state and their vaccination status, their health status, and their behavioral status. We get a lot of calls at our shelter from people who have adopted a dog from out of state, have attacked them in their home within the first few days, have attacked their animals after and then they're calling us to surrender this animal to us. Some of them, they're not connected to a Vermont shelter, and that's another thing we need to be looking at down the road. But when they are connected to a Vermont shelter and they're unwilling to take that animal back, we need to have some guidelines, in place to to help our community with that. So, if you ever have a chunk of free time, feel free to look back on H-six 26 as it was introduced.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: That was a good bill.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: That was a great bill. And so that can give you a sense of where we would like to get. This is something that ACI AB, If you go back and read our reports that we submit every January, we have been asking for this year after year after year that we have all encompassing bills. And that working away at little bits and pieces of animal welfare is not doing justice to the animals of our state or the people that love them. I guess I covered both those paragraphs. Inspections. So right now, as as I mentioned, there's no inspections of shelters or rescues. I think there's something somewhere that still refers to them being inspected, but that's gone. So I think your bill, Chea has something in there that talks about that. There's no requirement. We don't have to reregister, reapply apply for a license, we're never inspected. Those of us that have been shelters in Vermont for Well, CVHS, we've been more than fifty years. We had a fifty year anniversary five or ten years ago. We didn't change anything when the registration, licensing, and inspections stopped. They're good practices. So we still have all those protocols that we practice in our shelters. And I would be comfortable saying that the other brick and mortar shelters in the state are doing the same. I can't say that for rescues. Many of them are foster based. Right now, there's not even a mechanism, you know, to to find out what kind of homes those animals are all in while they're being fostered. And then, you know, there's no guidelines laid out for those rescues that they need to follow. So, we would like there to be granted at least the authority for the new division of animal welfare to be able to get stop orders and warrants for those organizations and to do inspections and seize animals from those organizations as needed. And also for the ones that don't register but are supposed to, that they would have that same authority over them because they'd be in violation.

[Rep. Robert Hooper (Member)]: Yes?

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: Do you have any thoughts about how the local and state authority will work together or? So

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: when you say local authority, are you talking town officers or more like law enforcement?

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: I think I'd love to hear about all of that, how that all will

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: I know that from some of the local town officers, town clerks, town managers, they would love a little more of assist from the state. And I think it is Vermont has reached a point. When we started asking for this comprehensive plan so that all towns would be doing things the same, We weren't really in a crisis and it would have been a lot easier to implement and tweak as we went along. We're in a crisis right now because the humane societies who have been stepping up and helping with the town situations and the state situations. We are right now so full from our own local communities that need help because people we have, as you all know, have a housing crisis in Vermont. So people are losing their housing at an alarming rate or are being told they can no longer have animals in their housing. So our surrender rates are way up, adoptions are slower. So we don't have ample space to just help and take in these animals. So there's a whole another bill that I have the opportunity to testify on tomorrow also about seizures and humane societies being able to help in those ways. Because it's really critical that we have timeframes that can work to keep animals moving through the shelters. We shouldn't be holding animals forever. So, like, with towns that are asking for help, I'm not taking we have a number of towns in Orange and Washington County that I have contracts with. I'm not adding anybody new. And they've they've been asking just the past couple of years because they the whole situation with strays has changed. People aren't reclaiming their strays because some of them are dumps. Right? They're just being let go. And, so towns are looking and struggling, looking for a place to keep these animals. I think eventually, the state's gonna have to step up and make those arrangements somehow, whether they're regional, whether it's that one statewide. But we crossed over into being a little over a month that didn't have this problem, to we now have this problem. And that the humane societies, we are private nonprofit organizations, and we just can't keep covering for the state. So there has to be some things put in place to help with all of that. I do see towns and state need to work together. And it's one of the reasons that we wanted to get from the animal cruelty investigation board's perspective. We wanted to have standards for cruelty investigation that are the same town to town because we were just seeing them all being handled very differently depending on who was investigating them. And so that's why we've pushed stuff

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: from, like, having humane officers that encompassed, like, everybody to you know, it's law enforcement. These are crimes. We need law enforcement to investigate them. So I do wanna be conscious of time. Rep Hango and Waters Evans and myself have a committee of conference on another matter at 11:30, and we'd like to take a little bit of a break. So and I would I'm not trying to, like, rush here.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: No. No. No. I'm done with my notes, and and I truly could talk all day. So you have

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: No worries.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Shut me off.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So, okay, wonderful. Well, thank you for that. We definitely look forward to like taking your input and your expertise and working with you to let hone this stuff in.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Great. Well, thanks for having us and thanks for reaching out and listening to all the experts that involved parties here because we're happy to to share. Thank you.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And up next on my list via Zoom, have Era.

[Erin Forbes (Executive Director, Merrymac Farm Sanctuary)]: Morning.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: How are you?

[Erin Forbes (Executive Director, Merrymac Farm Sanctuary)]: Still mourning for a little bit longer. So I I think, Nick, did you I think everybody kinda got maybe the bio of who I am, but I'm the executive director at the Mary Mack Farm Sanctuary. And I can kinda skip, like, sort of the beginning part if you guys got the email or sort of my, you know, document of does everyone kinda know who what Mary Mack Farm Sanctuary is? Okay. So I don't really need to go over all of that because I've testified a few weeks ago on stuff. But, you know, Chea and I've met over the summer when she came to the sanctuary. Lisa and I've been staying in touch with sort of you know, I believe in everything that Erica just said is completely I wholeheartedly was agreeing with everything she was saying. The oversight and stuff that's going on on the shelter side of things is completely the same as basically we look at from the farm sanctuary side of things. So imagine everything with small animals and then take it up to big animals as well. So one of the things that I was going to touch base on the 08:41 is that kind of down at the further down on sort of go ahead. Someone Okay. Further down on sort of talking about that, you know, we're so it's amazing we have Lisa, but now it's sort of like, what do we where do we go from here? And she's done this great research on the first year. And basically, like, I feel like looking at we all kind of know the good, the bad and the ugly. Right? Like, Lisa has all these amazing she has the background to take us forward. But like her hands are tied from the sense of like, we don't really need the funding to create like a full committee at this point. So one of the things that, you know, obviously I run a nonprofit and most of the humane society, and they're all nonprofits. One of the things that we do at Mary Mack is we work all over New England with many different organizations and part of being part of GFAS of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries is we work across state lines all the time and work with a bigger picture. And so I guess one of my thoughts on, you know, the animal welfare division is how do we ultimately get Lisa the help that she's gonna need to make the division actually function at all? Because, you know, like she doesn't have you all know what from, you know, age six to six of what she's been able to do this past year. But then, you know, where I guess the question is sort of where do we go from here? One of my thoughts was, you know, what about formulating? I think this came up in your bill, Chea, is like a nonprofit component to the state formation of like, what if you had the Friends of the Animal Welfare Fund, that was a nonprofit component under the state component, just sort of like, I compared it sort of the Department of Ed, like, you know, the Division of Education in the state is a state funded thing, but then they fund a ton of other nonprofits within the Department of Ed. So if you think about it, the Department of Ed, they can't fund all their special needs programs, so they have a ton of, you know, basically all these small schools that are nonprofit schools within the state. So it's like a state. It's a public and a private. Does that make sense to you guys? No. So it's the same thing, and other other states do this with animal welfare. Maine has some crossovers, so I think one of the beautiful things that we can do, kinda like what Erica was saying, is, like, looking at states. Some of our bordering states have some really nice programs where the state part has the animal welfare division, but then under that, you might have the animal welfare fund or something that's a nonprofit. And there's advantages of that that I know Joanne's up here. I can see her at the top, but there's there's benefits of that because there's funding available from grant sources that the grant sources can't give the state, but they could give a nonprofit money. So one of the things talking about of, like, how do you build a division or how do you how do you build out, like, if if there's not a lot of money, you know, you all know from all the stuff that Lisa said, like, you know, doing the potential for license plates or potential for dog licensing money to come that way, and that that's gonna be a a slow trickle of money or potential money coming in. How are there other ways to fund this program or get this off the ground a little bit more? And so that was one thing I was thinking about that kind of came across in my head was, you know, there's a lot of money in the animal welfare world out there. Have I to tell you, I mean, I run an I run a nonprofit animal welfare, you know. So we had a great year of fundraising. So to say that there's no money out there is there is good money out there. I think Vermont as a whole and I've brought this up and many people have brought this up, Vermont as a whole cares cares about animal welfare. But people can't write a check to the state agency to form a committee. But if there's a subcommittee that's a nonprofit, that would be a potential way to help fund spay neuter programs or vetting in rural areas. Or we were talking I was talking to the people who have the mitzvah van in Montpelier that runs low cost programs, but they don't have enough gas money to go to rural areas. So we have this amazing van, you know, that could go to areas, but they need better funding to get up to, like, the Northeast Kingdom to do vetting, you know, like rabies clinics and even for livestock animals, you know. So that was just one thing I was thinking about. The other part that I this was kind of last minute that I was coming on here, so I threw these things together very last minute, and we with the cold weather, we've been it's been a lot, so I'm trying to keep my staff alive and animals alive in the midst of, you know, extreme cold weather right now. So bear with me on I've kind of thrown thrown a lot together very last minute. But one of the other things that I think that we have a real need for is training in humane welfare, and that's something that I don't know how much of that plays into Chea's bill right now, but I do think it plays into sort of the overall what do we do with Lisa and and how do we make this work to have since she doesn't have a huge she doesn't have a staff right now. So how do we have the game wardens and the, you know, ACOs and other people, and I know Joanne did a training that Humane World put on that was at Vermont Law. That was really great. But the I've spent a lot of time with game wardens lately out in the field. We did a big rescue last week in Warren, And I have to tell you all that, like, most of the game wardens, they don't have the hands on training to know how to body score an animal, how to negotiate with the humans that have those animals. So we we've kinda done an injustice to sort of dump that they are out there to be in charge of the animal welfare from a livestock. Okay? So we're not they do dogs and cats as well. So but we we need to further I think the last training, and Joanne, you probably know, like, was before COVID, but we need to we need to do that next step of training. And I sort of proposed on that that like Humane World endorse it and the Humane Societies, and we come up with not as much like sort of the legal part so Lisa can say to them, this is what you can say to somebody, this is what you can't say to somebody, but also that we give them really detailed stuff of this is how you body score a goat and actually teach them you you can't do a drive by in your car. You actually have to take your hand and go down their vertebrae and actually truly teach people how to do to do this work because right now we don't have the staff. Like, Lisa doesn't have five people who work for her that can be spread out throughout the state that can do that work. So that's something we're really missing. We have a lot of really starved and neglected animals that are coming through that are like, talked with, we have about a vet team of about 15 vets that we work with and large animal medical, they are seeing more starved goats and sheep this year than they've ever seen anywhere. And, you know, I spent the entire weekend, the really cold weekend with 12 pigs in Waterbury case that we were on the phone all weekend with trying to figure out. There's no real state guidelines of what are the parameters of what those pigs actually needed to have. So that's something that same thing in a training book, we need to say as a state, you know, and that was something that

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: We just lost your volume.

[Erin Forbes (Executive Director, Merrymac Farm Sanctuary)]: Oh, sorry. What are the parameters of cows and pigs when it's 50 below, you know, wind chill? That was questions coming up over that weekend that we had the extreme temperatures. What is a wind block? What, you know, we in the state of Vermont, we don't have true guidelines that say, so a game warden's going out to look at a site, and, you know, there's no determination that is going to allow them to say whether those animals are gonna be seized or, you know, guidelines that they they could say to an owner, like, you know, your livestock guardian dog with its 30 below weather, there's no water here. There's no, you have no protection for your animal. Your sheep have no hay. Your sheep have no water. No one's living at the property. And no reporting of that is also being really done or concluded. And that was the other thing, kind of going back to my earlier stuff is the need for oversight and also reporting is that we're not doing a great job of actually putting all of that together. So we have, just like dogs and cats, with agriculture, there's a lot of repeat offenders. For instance, the pigs in that situation, it's been a two year complaint going on. But the agency of ag did a thing two years ago saying you need to have x, y, and z, but then there was no follow through and no oversight that was ever done. So then it becomes really hard to come back in on a weekend of really extreme weather and say, you haven't done any of those things, so we're gonna slap you with either a ticket or a citation or potentially take your animals away. So our follow through on a lot of these cases, whether it's dogs or cats or pigs or horses, is not great. So that's one thing. I think the creation of a website, the creation of tracking information, tracking numbers is a real thing we need to do, and I think that that was brought up in Chea's bill of just, you know, ways that we can begin to look at, like, either repeat offenders, areas of concerns. I know that, like, from a reporting standpoint, like, the police and the game wardens are able to track some of that. But a lot of people are hesitant to call the police and actually report something, and they wanna call us or they want to call Dorset Equine or they want to call the Humane Society and that we all need to be really good about saying to them, need to call the police and you need to go through these standards because that way it gets recorded and untracked. And I put just an example on, the thing of, you know, for example, like a notebook with training materials or something that would be available for appropriate pig housing. So for somebody, it's like the dummy's guide to, like, you know, if you're out at a location, you can show somebody. We're not saying you have to go build a huge barn. You can do a lot with, like, pallets and some straw and plywood and tarps. Right? Like, that's basically what we were advising someone over a weekend. That's kind of what I put together for you guys. I mean, I think better oversight of backyard oh, that was the other thing. I heard I keep hearing sort of not as much with this bill, but sort of like the idea of, you know, I think that the word oversight just keeps coming up, and I think the agency of AG, we get some pushback on livestock animals because like horses, for instance, are still considered livestock. And I know there's been some discussion of taking horses out of that and putting them more in maybe companion animal category, but Agency of Ag, I would hope would be supportive of the work that the animal welfare division is doing because, and this is where I think we need to approach this. The big agricultural farms, they have a lot of oversight. They have great oversight. They have the USDA. They have they have people coming in and watching stuff. Right? What we're where we kind of get into trouble is, like, the next level down. Does that make sense?

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Mhmm.

[Erin Forbes (Executive Director, Merrymac Farm Sanctuary)]: So homesteading, maw and paw, backyard. You know, You have a couple cows. You have a couple chickens. You have a livestock dog. You have some barn cat. You know? Whatever. And so we're we're seeing, like, more neglect. We're not seeing neglect like a huge, like some of the big dairies that are still around in Vermont. Like they have they have oversight. So what we're seeing is the smaller farms like where there's maybe, I hate to say, like lack of education maybe leads to poor choices for those animals or situations that maybe could be prevented with better information or education. And, you know, the scarier thing is we see less vaccinations, we see more risk of biosecurity things in some of those situations than anywhere else. So that's kind of where I bring that up is that the animals in Warren we just got out, we were called in by the game wardens to help with two pigs. Body scores very low, drinking each other's urine, similar to the pigs we pulled out of Williamstown. About a tenth of a mile up bushwhacking, straight up a hill, no water, no food, no shelter, and then there were four goats up there that initially were not necessarily seen that they maybe potentially were gonna be taken out of there. Same thing, no food, no water, no shelter. Their body score was all at a one. They were also drinking each other's urine. When we did get them back to the sanctuary, two of them had, when we had the vet come out the next day, two have lung infections, respiratory infections, and were actually, two of them were, have like basically urinary tract, like infections from drinking each other's urine. They were standing, all four of them were standing in about five feet of their manure. There were also four geese taken off the property that had no food, no water, and their door was wide open. I mean, and we were up in the middle of nowhere. So, you know, what initially was thought that we were taking in two animals, we left with 10 animals. And did we have Should we have taken 10 animals? We did it because we have a really good relationship with the game wardens, and no one was living at this property. It was a divorce situation where everyone was gonna like try to be taking water up to a very remote area in Warren. And it's not something that's gonna go to a court case because we know how those work. They tend to not go anywhere. So it was a surrender situation, but it was it was really bad, like really bad. So, you know

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No, I don't I don't doubt the severity of it. So, you know, it was good that you were there to address all of the issues, not just like the two animals that triggered the call. So

[Erin Forbes (Executive Director, Merrymac Farm Sanctuary)]: Yeah. It's just one of, like, probably a million of them out there. That's the problem is we got home from that, and then it was, you know, what about the 11 pigs in a pile in Waterbury and a three legged pig walking around with, you know, going into 30 below or 50 below wind. So, and that, I mean, that was the whole weekend thing right after we had taken in these other animals. So I just, I bring that up not as a like red, I mean, I bring it up is that these scenarios are happening all over our state. So, you know, we need a better tracking system, we need better communication, we need to have better networking. I mean, we know that we can't take in all those animals. That was a Sunday morning call from Lisa, like a conversation of we to have better resources all throughout the state. We can't take in 12 pigs on a Sunday morning, you know? But maybe like we work with pooling grains, work with like, you know, we work with farms all over the state of Vermont. So maybe we have emergency, you know, kind of like humane world would or some of the bigger organizations, have emergency farms and situations where we can move animals. Like the more we network and the more we build up this division, we know we have sort of that like those scenarios throughout the state that we can count on for help, if that

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: makes No, thank you. And I think that's a good segue into some of our testimony that we have back. So thank you. Yeah. Any questions? Yeah, I'm just, we're gonna do right now, because we're kind of tight on clock right now, we're gonna hold questions till the end, because I wanna get to our other two guests right now. So,

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: continue

[Erin Forbes (Executive Director, Merrymac Farm Sanctuary)]: to Okay, I have to take off though, because we actually have cow that we have to sedate.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Well thank Thanks, you very much for your

[Erin Forbes (Executive Director, Merrymac Farm Sanctuary)]: I hope you guys can move forward with, you know, we really need some help and some guidance, so we're here to help with that, but, you know, we need to we need to hopefully Lisa can have some authoritative sense of power so we can help her. She's got a huge team of people who believe in her.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you so much for your time.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Pamela, how are you?

[Pamela Krause (Executive Director, VT-CAN; Board Member, Vermont Humane Federation)]: Good morning, everybody. My name is Pamela Krause, and I'm the Executive Director of Vermont Companion Animal Neutering, VT CAN for short. We are a nonprofit spay neuter clinic, and I am also a board member of the Vermont Humane Federation. And the Vermont Humane Federation VHF is comprised of 19 local organizations representing 13 out of the 14 counties. And we're very supportive of this bill. I want to thank Representative Waters Evans for introducing it, and also all the work on 06/26, as was mentioned before. We enthusiastically support adding funding mechanisms, as described in Lisa's report. We support the requirement for insuring organizations, rescues and shelters. Anybody really in the pet industry should be insured. That's page 14, line 12 to 16. And we have a few concerns about outdoor cats, which we mentioned before, but one thing is I deal a lot with people who do TNR, trap, neuter, return. And the focus is helping farmers in Vermont. We don't have a lot of street cats like they would in New York City. We have a lot of cats that are part of a farm. They're working cats. They may have been dropped off. Just about every farmer that comes to our clinic says, We've another drop off. And sometimes they're pregnant and the population explodes. So we don't want to do anything that will harm the farmers who graciously feed the cats that are dropped off or that multiply on their farm. So just some concerns, as mentioned before, about the definitions to make sure that it is clear what owned cats are versus There's no definition even in our regs about feral or community cats. So we want to make sure it's clear that farmers caring for cats that aren't really owned are not included in that. That's one of the big things. Protect our farmers. And there was a question about rabies, and I did want to just address that. Most of the vaccines, I suspect, purchased at a place like Tractor Supply will not be any good once they're taken home and given to an animal. The distemper, the FVRCT and the dog distemper, they have to be kept cold. They're reconstituted for one thing, but they have to be kept cold. And if they're out for more than thirty minutes, forget it. They're no good. Rabies, although you don't reconstitute it, it's not a modified live virus, it's a killed virus. But it has to be kept cold. So there are things that have to be considered for making sure that the rabies that are given are effective. If they've been frozen we've had frozen shipments we have to return them. If they've been left out too long or they get warm, if on a hot summer day they arrive to us and all the ice is melted, we don't use those. So those are just small things that I just wanted to bring up that were asked. And we absolutely support registering and licensing shelters, rescues. At the very least, at this point in time, we need a registration process so we can figure out who's who in the state. As Erica mentioned, the rescues have gone rogue. It's crazy what has happened. In 2010, and how many years ago was that, there was a bill because I was concerned by what I was seeing at our clinic with rescues that I didn't really even realize existed and how prolific I thought they were back then. And it basically just required that if they're old enough to have rabies, they have rabies and just a very, very cursory health certificate. And since then, it has exploded, and we have some egregious cases that we're dealing with. Google Canine Gem. They're no longer in Vermont, but if you Google them, they were on the news in New York. All kinds of citations. I think she was arrested. Just animal cruelty. And yet we had no ability to do anything about it when she was here. So I could go on, but I will not. But there are really, really sad and very bad situations. The other thing is we don't want any child, any person to get hurt. We have people And I started Vermont CAM because I want to deal with a pet overpopulation problem, minimize euthanasia for healthy animals, for space. But when an animal has a bite history, and an animal is considered dangerous in a different state, we don't want that animal coming here. And currently, people are so desperate to save them all, or save the ones, because of pleas on social media, like Erica said. But they may have a bite history and they come here, and then what do we do with them? Most of the time, that animal will need to be euthanized. So what did we do? We let the animal come in from out of state, long transport, which I think is cool to bring an animal all that way here just to euthanize it after it bites somebody here. God forbid a child is attacked and killed, which is happening in other states. So we just really need to tighten those things up, because we need to know what's happening in our state and who the rescues are, what they're doing, and make sure that they're doing things correctly. The rescues that do it well, it great. And the shelters that take in and work with partners for out of state animals, wonderful. Wonderful relationships. But it has to be done well. And then I think it was mentioned before on page 10, line 16, the rabies vaccinators. The intent, I don't believe, was to have it be humane officers, but to have trained veterinary employees and brick and mortar shelter staff who are trained and trained to keep records. Those should be added. And as mentioned before, Maine has a good prototype for it, good example. And then the other thing was page 14, line four. The licensing of out of state organizations. It's just backwards. The intent was that Vermont would do the licensing, and we would set forth the criteria Lisa would set forth the criteria for who can ship animals in, and then they would be given a license, and Vermont would collect the licensing fees. There's all kinds of rules in every state, so we can't control what they do, but we can make a license for them if they want to send them here and be sending partners. And then on page 12, lines five to 14, that was the part that was mentioned about rescues and shelters being registered. That probably just needs to be crossed out since it doesn't exist anymore. And then I just want to echo, if it's possible, just kind of put a bug in your ear, Representative Waters Evans, to maybe meet with you in a small group and ledge counsel, if needed, Wordsmith and get the things that we've all gone over. Just rather than doing the committee, because there's a lot of little things, and I don't know if we want to take the whole committee time.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: I'm happy to talk any time.

[Pamela Krause (Executive Director, VT-CAN; Board Member, Vermont Humane Federation)]: Wonderful. Any questions for me? I wanted to ask, because I'm cautious of your time, but questions? Oh, we're the home of the $85 Fed, like Lisa mentioned the other day.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Great point.

[Pamela Krause (Executive Director, VT-CAN; Board Member, Vermont Humane Federation)]: Make t shirts.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: We are on YouTube.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Thank you for your time. Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And, Joanne, how are you? Thank you for your patience.

[Joanne Bourbeau (Northeastern Regional Director, Humane World for Animals)]: I'm well. Thank you. Thank you for, including me this morning. My name is Joanne Borbo. I'm the north Eastern Regional Director for Humane World for Animals, which was formerly the Humane Society of the United States. I live in Whitingham, Vermont. I'm also a regular instructor of animal cruelty investigations at the Vermont Police Academy along with Robert Whipple, and I chair the statewide Vermont disaster animal response team, here in Vermont as well. And VDART is a member of the Vermont Humane Federation. I was also very involved in the development of the pet dealer law several years ago that's referenced in the bill. I'm gonna be submitting written testimony, so I'm just gonna kinda fill in some of the blanks. I don't wanna repeat, some of the things that have already been said, but just echo, you know, support for additional funding for the department. That's vital. I also just want to thank sponsor Waters Evans and this committee for your work on 06/26 last year. I talk to a lot of, I do training, I've done a lot of responses here in Vermont and frustration that has been building up to this point has just been palpable here. And, since the bill creating Lisa's position was passed, by the legislature, I think the animal care control community here in Vermont is finally feeling hopeful. So I wanna thank you for your, you know, really, careful attention to all these details. And I know it's a lot of information and a lot of a lot of changes that we're proposing. We have we do also have concerns, in the bill about, the the spayed neuter, requirement for outdoor cats. I won't go into it, you know, in great detail because it's in my written testimony, but echo some of the comments that were made earlier on that. And as far as the rabies vaccinator program, I just wanna mention that, the humane officers are mentioned in here and the current definition of humane officer is actually a law enforcement officer. So I don't think the intent is to train law enforcement officers to give rabies vaccinations. The definition also includes municipal ACOs who work for police departments. Departments. But since there are so few of those in the state, probably just a handful, our animal cruelty advisory board has decided they're not gonna develop the training that they would need in order to qualify to be a humane officer or a humane agent. Agent. So, just wanna point that out. We worked on the Maine law that was Humane World, worked in Maine on that law that, created the rabies vaccinator program and we're more than happy to work with the legislature on, developing some recommendations, for this bill that would be a little bit more inclusive and probably closer to, you know, what was intended. I did wanna mention, think Pamela just said this as well, on page five, lines 16 through 19, it talks about giving, the director of animal welfare the authority to inspect pet dealers, shelters, kennels, etcetera. I'm not sure that there's a definition of kennel in title 20. There might be, but not one that I could easily find or or know about. So that I don't know if this would be struck or if we would work on this. So right now, as has been mentioned, shelters and rescues are not regulated by by the state or any authority, but pet dealers are and so are pet shops. So there are existing animal welfare regulations, that used to apply to shelters and rescues that exist. So my question is whether we'd be using these existing regulations or really bringing Vermont, into the twenty first century because, there are, like the Association of Shelter Veterinarians has a document that they that they refresh, annual, biannual, whenever it's needed, that really has best practices around this. And the Remake Maine Federation has already started the process of, drafting some potential regulations, not only of shelters and rescues, how they operate here in the state, but again, how animals are brought into the state in a in a, you know, a safe way that that takes public health into, you know, primary thoughts. So there's some work that's already been done on that that we can work on, but Lisa needs to have the authority to do so. I would respectfully, request, or suggest that, a a letter c be added after line 15 and give the division of animal welfare the authority to develop rules and regulations around shelter and rescue management operation. I would love to see importation regulations as well. I don't know if that's biting off more than we can chew at the moment, But I think it's really important that they have that authority, and then we can work with Lisa on developing those regs and making sure that they're up to the standard that, you know, across the country that we would like to see Vermont have as well. So that was one thing I wanted to mention. And the other one oh, on page 12, lines five through 14, There's a mention here, and I know this is existing law, but since the secretary the secretary of Ag is mentioned on line nine of that page, I'm not aware that that shelters and rescues are I know they're not being inspected, but I I don't know if they still have to issue get certified, like, a a license in order to start their shelter. That could be the case, but question I why the secretary would still be the enforcement authority if they don't currently have authority to license and inspect animal shelters right now. So that may need some may need some attention, that section as well. But overall, we're we're we're very excited to see this bill, and and I I know you're aware of five seventy eight that the judiciary is taking up as well, and really, you know, seeing the importance of of making sure that our animals are safe and the people who are trying to help animals are safe. And, would be happy to work with the committee legislative council, anybody who wants to listen on on any new iterations of the bill. But again, thank you for for its introduction and for your work on it.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Thank you so much.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. No. Thank you to our four witnesses. I want to open it up to questions for any of the three remaining guests right now. Just keeping in mind, we got about five minutes before we have to break because we have to get ready for a committee conference, which this room is hosting. So, questions for our guests? Right. Rev Nugent.

[Rep. Kate Nugent (Member)]: I just want to thank everyone for your testimony. It means a lot, I'm sure, to a lot of people. And not that I'm the only one that's grateful, but I appreciate all the effort of joining. Yeah. Great ideas.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Oh, this is a long time coming.

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Rep Waters Evans?

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: I echo Rep Nugent's thanks and gratitude for it. And I know that it is 66, I believe, when when we first saw it, I think it was 68 or 69 pages. It was. And I think when we finished, it was maybe nine. And I understand that it's frustrating. And like once you see that there's a future for all the things that we want and need, it's it's frustrating to see things move so slowly. As you know, funds are tight, but I'm confident that we can find a way to. I hope that we can and I appreciate all of you and your insights and stuff. And I sure would love to do everything right now. But I don't think that's a possibility. So I appreciate everyone's patience, kind of figuring out where we go next to set it up so that the director of animal welfare and the division of animal welfare can be successful and that we can really sustain something that's moving forward for a long time. And that is growing over over a period of time. So thanks.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Just I was doing search on there because what caught my thing was when people are evicted or people move out and they abandon their pets and the landlord has to take care of them, that time frame is between fifteen and sixty days. How do we help those pets too? That there's something I don't know if that's something housing has to do or something we can add in to assist those landlords to take care of these these animals or the shelters. That that caught me that I had to look that up. The time frame, it's crazy.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Taking notes, that caught them.

[Pamela Krause (Executive Director, VT-CAN; Board Member, Vermont Humane Federation)]: Seems to me that came up in general and housing years ago, when we talked about evictions and involuntary

[Erica Hall (Co-Executive Director, Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: giving up your home.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, everyone.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes. No, thank you, everyone. And we're going to go offline as the House Committee of Government Operations and Military Affairs. We will be back in twelve minutes on the same channel for the conference. And then, back to our regular configuration as the House of Media and Government of Military Affairs. We will be, taking a look at H 669, which is the act relating to Internet lottery sales with an introduction walk through and and, also bringing in commissioner Knight to discuss that one. So that is our 1PM. Thank you everyone. That was a dense morning.