Jersey Lawmakers Want to Ban Pet Tattoos
We honestly didn’t know there was a fad for tattooing or piercing one’s pets — though we’re at once overjoyed and grossed out by the thought of Lassie wearing six nipple rings — but apparently it’s enough of a thing that New Jersey lawmakers want to ban it.
Or maybe not.
Assemblymen Carmelo Garcia, Jason O’Donnell and Raj Mukherji (all D-Hudson) on Monday introduced a bill (A3588) to clarify that under New Jersey law, tattooing or piercing a pet amounts to animal cruelty.
Garcia, the lead sponsor, said, “It’s important to protect animals from those who see them not as living beings, but as a doll or a toy which they can play with, harm or discard.”
“This bill makes it clear that piercing or tattooing any creature amounts to needless mutilation,” he said. “And anyone who knowingly or purposely subjects an animal to these and other forms of cruelty will be penalized.”
The paper adds: “There’s been no publicly documented examples of cats, pooches or other house pets in New Jersey being tattooed or pierced.” Oh. Well then.
But there was a 2011 case in Pennsylvania of a woman selling “gothic kittens” with pierced ears. If you want your pets to display some righteously metal attitude, then, you’ll have to confine yourself to putting sunglasses on them.
