{"id":380261,"date":"2025-11-15T07:58:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T07:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/380261\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T07:58:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T07:58:22","slug":"new-bills-move-to-strengthen-protections-for-pets-in-jacksonville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/380261\/","title":{"rendered":"New bills move to strengthen protections for pets in Jacksonville"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. <\/strong> \u2013 Jacksonville\u2019s Animal Care and Protective Services (ACPS) is set to receive new tools to offer better protection to animals in breeders and pet shops. <\/p>\n

The Jacksonville City Council recently passed a bill that mandates staffing requirements for these facilities<\/a>, aiming to prevent overcrowding and unsafe conditions. The new rule requires breeders and pet shops to have at least one paid employee for every 32 dogs or cats during normal business hours. <\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>More tables and toasts are coming to downtown Jacksonville. Here\u2019s what the new sidewalk rules mean<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

ACPS Division Chief Michael Bricker explained that some breeders and shops have housed over 100 animals in recent years, making enforcement challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not really had a way to enforce that,\u201d Bricker said. \u201cBut now, thankfully, we have two special investigators…their whole goal is to make sure that pet shops and our breeders are running it in an efficient way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to staffing changes, a second bill introduced by Councilman Raul Arias<\/a> proposes updates to outdoor leash and tethering rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we overlook the animals,\u201d Arias said. \u201cWe all have a heart for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One notable change involves the city\u2019s \u201cStray Hold\u201d policy, which currently requires stray animals to be held for six days while ACPS waits for owners to claim them.<\/p>\n

Bricker noted that reducing the stray hold period could alleviate overcrowding at shelters. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we had like 450 dogs at one point, and we have 264 kennels,\u201d he said. \u201cEliminating or shortening the stray hold will create spaces for us in the shelters, so we don\u2019t have the overcrowding issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council member Arias acknowledged community concerns, particularly from seniors who may not know where to look if their pet goes missing and from people who might be on vacation, unaware their pet was lost. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I love about policy and legislation is that once you file something, it opens up the conversations,\u201d Arias said.”<\/p>\n

He said he plans to hold several meetings to gather feedback and explore solutions to ease these worries.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville\u2019s Animal Care and Protective Services (ACPS) is set to receive new tools to offer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":380262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,47119,5310,3188,723,7310,7926,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-380261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-animal-care-and-protective-services","10":"tag-city-council","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-pets","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115552656147889316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}