MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - At the October 1st Meridian Township Board Meeting, the Board discussed an ordinance to prohibit cat and dog sales at pet stores.

The intent of having an ordinance that would prohibit pet stores from selling cats and dogs is to decrease the demand for kittens and puppies bred in kitten and puppy mills and decrease the burden that pet store kittens and puppies that end up in animal shelters.

According to The Humane Society of the United States, an estimated 10,000 puppy mills produce more than 2 million puppies per year in the United States.

The ordinance would also prohibit selling, delivering, offering for sale, bartering, auctioning, giving away or otherwise transferring or disposing of cats and dogs.

Meridian Township Trustee Dan Opsommer asked the Township Board to consider amending the Code of Ordinances to prohibit the sale of cats and dogs at a pet store.

Other Board members also expressed amending the ordinance and proposed a different approach towards these pet sales.

"I think it draws people in the little kids want to go in and see the puppies and the kitties I just hate to think that if you have got a really reputable commercial operation who wants to sell you know pet stores that want to sell pets I don't know I just think we are going a little too far that maybe we can do this a little differently" said Trustee Kathy Ann Sundland.

"I strongly believe that by giving these pet store business owners a different ideology with regards to the industry, you are helping these businesses from a profit standpoint, an educational perspective and setting a new precedent of a more humane peaceful existence for us all ... that from someone who was in the same business longer than most" said Anita Bobetich, former owner of Precious Pet Cottage, a puppy-selling pet store, in a letter to Maryland Senators.

The Board decided to further discuss this ordinance to address any animal humane and advocacy rights.