State lawmakers continue to grapple with how best to prevent animal cruelty.
The House passed a bill last week that differs substantially from a Senate-passed version.
Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley says the House-amended bill would actually weaken state law. He is a sponsor of the original bill, which was drafted after an animal cruelty case in his hometown of Wolfeboro.
He says the rescue of 75 Great Danes from squalid conditions shows how weak New Hampshire's law is.
“The state doesn’t want to get involved in animal cruelty cases," Bradley said. "They didn’t want to get involved in the Wolfeboro case ... said that the law was not clear enough to give them oversight.”
Bradley discussed the bill on NHPR's The Exchange.
Representative Peter Bixby said the House bill offers more realistic solutions for the problem.
The bill began in the Senate, so it will be sent back to the Senate, which may concur with the House amended version, or non-concur with the changes and request a committee of conference to reconcile the differences. The bill could also die in the Senate, if senators neither concur nor request a conference committee.
Listen below to Bradley and Bixby as they speak at length about the legislation. They were joined on The Exchange show Monday by Bill Boyd, who has a kennel for his 27 sprint sled dogs, and Lindsay Hamrick, state director of Humane Society of the U.S.:
