The Los Angeles City Council is considering an ordinance to prohibit the selling of commercially bred pets in retail stores for at least three years.

Veterinarians who are used to making a difference with scalpels and syringes are now wielding pens as their instruments of choice to oppose proposed pet medication rules. More than 560 individuals or organizations have submitted comments to the FTC regarding proposed H.R. 1406 - the federal mandate concerning prescription writing - and other controversial topics that were discussed during the FTC’s Oct. 2 pet medications workshop.   The majority of the comments are from individual veterinarians and practices, several national associations and organizations, and more than 20 state associations, although some were contributed by parties supporting H.R. 1406.   The FTC extended the commenting period until Nov. 1, so people still have time to gather their thoughts and submit them for consideration.

Veterinary practices in the process of interviewing prospective employees might want to think twice before requesting their social media passwords. Illinois recently became the second state to prohibit employers from requiring prospective or current employees to hand over social media passwords or log-in information. Similar legislation is under consideration in California, New York, and Washington, and the issue is being debated at a higher level with the U.S. Congress considering the proposed Social Networking Online Protection Act and the Password Protection Act of 2012.

Pet owners in California no longer have to worry whether they will be asked to declaw or devocalize their companion animals when applying to rent an apartment.

Four low-cost spay and neuter clinics in Alabama will potentially be forced to close because they employ licensed veterinarians but are owned by non-veterinarians.

According to NBC News, Chinese government officials are refusing to allow inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to collect samples from four jerky manufacturing sites.

A new bill signed into law in Massachusetts will prohibit anyone convicted of cruelty to animals from working with any animal, including in veterinary hospitals.

Feeding a raw protein diet can endanger the health of both people and animals, according to the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA). AAHA plans to release a position statement discouraging pet owners from feeding raw protein diets later this week. The second major veterinary group to take a stand on raw protein diets in recent weeks, AAHA says it is doing so because it wants to strengthen the valued relationship between human and animal. "We value the relationships between our pets and their families – we want to strengthen the human-animal bond by keeping both pets and people as healthy as possible," said Michael Cavanaugh, DVM, executive director of AAHA. AAHA joins the likes of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which passed a policy discouraging the feeding of raw protein diets at its yearly conference in San Diego in early August 2012. AAHA leaders say its statement on raw protein diets was actually developed and passed by its board of directors prior to the AVMA policy. According to AAHA, the statement was developed without any input or knowledge from the AVMA. The text of the AAHA statement emphasizes the danger of feeding pathogenic organisms to animals that may then shed those organisms through their stool, creating danger for both humans and animals that may come in contact with it.

Suing for emotional distress is reserved for the deaths of humans, not animals, the New Jersey Supreme Court recently ruled. On July 31, 2012, the court ruled that a close relationship with a pet could not be considered at the same level of a close familial relationship. "Although we recognize that many people form close bonds with their pets, we conclude that those bonds do not rise to the level of a close familial relationship or intimate, marital-like bond," Justice Helen Hoens wrote for the court in a 5-0 decision. According to nj.com, Joyce McDougall, sued after her 9-year-old maltese-poodle mix named Angel was mauled by a larger dog owned by Charlot Lamm in 2007. McDougall, a divorced mother of three living alone with Angel, sued for emotional distress and the cost to replace the dog, estimated at $1,395.

A ruling by the Oregon Court of Appeals has opened the door for animals to be considered victims of crime, according to the East Oregonian.