March, 2011- A bill to repeal pound seizure (SF 705/HF 1098) has been introduced at the Minnesota State Legislature. Update May, 2011- the Pound Seizure bill unanimously passed the Senate Agriculture Committee and was laid over in the House Agriculture Committee for possible inclusion in an omnibus agriculture bill.

Learn more about pound seizure

Please contact your State Senator and State Representative to urge their support of SF 705/HF 1098.

1. Type in your address to find out who your State Senator and Representative are.

2. Call, email, or write both your State Senator and State Representative.

3. You will likely speak with an aide who will relay your message. Sample messages:

State Senator: You can say, “As a constituent of Senator __________, I am contacting him/her to urge support of the bill that repeals pound seizure in Minnesota, Senate File 705. This bill is authored by Senator John Marty, and will end the requirement that publicly-funded animal shelters surrender lost or stray pets to research or testing institutions. I would also appreciate it if you would sign onto the bill as a co-author. Thank you.”

State Representative: You can say, “As a constituent of Representative __________, I am contacting him/her to urge support of the bill that repeals pound seizure in Minnesota, House File 1098. This bill is authored by Representative Joe Mullery, and will end the requirement that publicly-funded animal shelters surrender lost or stray pets to research or testing institutions. I would also appreciate it if you would sign onto the bill as a co-author. Thank you.”

Here are a few additional talking points:

This bill will not affect research

• The availability of animals purposely bred for use in research ensures researchers will continue to have a supply of animals for experimentation. This bill merely ensures that researchers will not unknowingly experiment on someone’s pet.

• Banning pound seizure will not bring an end to research in Minnesota; it will encourage and support public trust in Minnesota animal shelters by affirming that the purpose of all animal shelters, public or private, is to care for lost, injured, and abandoned animals, returning them to their owners or placing them for adoption.

Minnesota is one of two states with this law still on the books

• Only Minnesota and Oklahoma require publicly-funded shelters to surrender animals to institutions that request them.

This bill will not affect current practices

• The Minnesota Board of Animal Health confirms that for at least the past five years, Minnesota’s pound seizure law has not been used.

Learn about pound seizure

For even more information, see Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, End Pound Seizure Minnesota, or the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.