Kittens at Common Sense for Animals

Kittens are shown in this file photo. Three Assemblymen have introduced a bill that would explicitly ban piercing or tattooing pets

(Bill Adams/Express-Times)

TRENTON — Have you tattooed your dog? Pierced your cat's ears?

No? Well, three New Jersey lawmakers want to make sure you won’t.

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 bill — which two of the lawmakers said was brought to their attention by animal rights groups — is modeled after legislation passed by the New York legislature that’s awaiting Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature.

The New Jersey bill, like the New York one, exempts farm animals like cows, sheep and goats, which are sometimes branded, tagged or marked in other ways for identification.

"I have two dogs, and I’ll be honest with you, my rules for my dogs is the same as my children: No tattoos or piercings, other than my daughter’s ears," said O’Donnell.

There’s been no publicly documented examples of cats, pooches or other house pets in New Jersey being tattooed or pierced.

Kathleen Schatzmann, state director of the Humane Society, said her organization needs to examine the legislation more before taking a position on it. Schatzmann said she has "not heard about" aesthetic animal tattooing or piercing happening in New Jersey.

But a Pennsylvania woman made headlines in 2011 when she began selling "gothic kittens" with pierced ears.

Even though Pennsylvania law does not explicitly ban pierced pets, the woman, Holly Crawford, was convicted of animal cruelty and sentenced to six months’ house arrest.

And in Brooklyn, a tattoo artist stoked outrage when he shared on the internet a photo of his dog just after he gave it a tattoo. The dog had been unconscious for an unrelated surgery.

The sponsor of the New York bill, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, said in a June press release that piercing and tattooing animals "serves no purpose other than to satisfy the aesthetic predilections of the owner, and inflicts unnecessary pain on the animal, pain that they cannot understand or contextualize."

"Once this bill becomes law, companion animals will no longer be subject to the selfish whims of their owners, who place vanity above the health and safety of their companion animals," she said.

In March, the ASPCA said in a statement that it condones the use of small tattoos on

animals that are used exclusively to mark them as having been spayed or neutered. The New Jersey bill does not have an exception for those types of tattoos. A spokesman for the New Jersey SPCA did not respond to a request for comment.

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