Biscuit didn’t know why her mom Alexis Schulof was jumping up and down in excitement on Friday morning, but she rushed over to celebrate with her nonetheless.
“She was like, ‘I have no idea what, but we must be doing something fun,’” Schulof said, laughing.
After previously failing on a vote in the Utah Senate, a revived and revamped “Biscuit’s Bill” won final approval from the Utah Legislature on Friday. The bill, HB87, now heads to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk.
The bill was nicknamed after Biscuit, a four-year-old dog who spent more than three years of her life stuck at Salt Lake County’s animal shelter after she was confiscated from her previous owner, who was accused of animal abuse.
Schulof watched the final, 52-14 vote in the House on the Legislature’s website from her home in Salt Lake City — which Biscuit now calls home, too.
In legal limbo while her original owner’s criminal case slowly progressed, Biscuit spent more than 1,000 days in the shelter with no ability to leave because she was considered property under a court hold. Her more than three years of care cost more than $20,000 in taxpayer dollars, according to Salt Lake County Animal Services.
Schulof was eventually able to adopt Biscuit on Christmas Eve last year after her court hold was lifted — but the years in the shelter left Biscuit with emotional scars that Schulof is still working to heal.
With the legislation, Rep. Verona Mauga, D-Taylorsville, wanted to create a way to allow dogs confiscated from abusive situations to be fostered or re-homed outside of shelters while their owners’ legal cases played out in court, which in some cases takes years.
Its passage marks a major milestone for animal advocates, who had lobbied for two legislative sessions to get lawmakers’ approval. Ashley Bales, spokesperson for Salt Lake County Animal Services, said she got “goosebumps” on Friday.
“It gives me a little bit of chills, because it’s the right step forward for these animals … that have already started off on not a great foot,” she said. “So if we can get something passed that helps them move forward and on with their life quicker, it’s amazing. It’s really cool to see.”
A previous version of the bill would have created a court process to allow a judge to review an animal’s custody and place it in an alternative living situation rather than “requiring the animal to wait for the entire case to be resolved,” Mauga said.
But after that version of the bill failed in the Senate amid concerns from Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, that its language was unwieldy, ambiguous and over complicated, he and the bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, proposed a new version, which won unanimous approval from the Senate on Thursday.
The new version of the bill allows animals who are “involved in an animal abuse offense” to be sheltered or fostered “at any appropriate private or public facility” after “reasonable efforts to notify the owner.”
Additionally, if the owner gives his or her permission, the bill allows the animal to be placed “with any appropriate individual that does not reside with the owner,” or with a “public or private” organization that “demonstrates a willingness to accept and care for the animal.”
The bill says that any person or organization that receives the animal “obtains the ownership rights to the animal and shall execute an agreement” to provide care to the animal and “not allow the former owner to possess, care for, or interact with the animal.”
Mauga said the new version of the bill “still resolves” the issue facing animal shelters, which has also created morale problems for shelter staff who watch these cats or dogs languish in their kennels with no ability to be fostered off the shelter property or adopted.
“It just makes it so now there’s an opportunity for animals to be placed, not only in a shelter, but they can go to the Humane Society, they can go to a family or a friend, anywhere where someone can actually care for them in a loving way,” Mauga said.
The new version of the bill, while less complicated, will still make a world of a difference for animals seized from abusive situations by allowing them to not have to spend their days in a kennel at animal shelters for sometimes months or years, said Schulof, who met Biscuit while volunteering at Salt Lake County’s animal shelter.
“To be able to place them elsewhere, even just open up the opportunity for foster homes, it reduces all of that stress. It gives them so much more freedom,” she said. “Even if there are still constraints around it, it’s still such an important step forward for the wellbeing of the animals, for their adoptability later on, and their quality of life. It’s huge.”
This report was originally published at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
