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On this day in vegan history · October 6, 2006

The PETS Act Becomes Law

A nine-year-old boy sobbing over a confiscated dog named Snowball became the image that got Congress to write pets into disaster law.

The PETS Act Becomes Law
Wikimedia Commons / Tom Lantos

The facts

Signed
October 6, 2006, by President George W. Bush
Public Law
109-308
Sponsors
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), introduced September 22, 2005
House vote
Passed 349-24 on May 22, 2006

President George W. Bush signed the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act on October 6, 2006, requiring states that want FEMA disaster assistance to account for household pets and service animals in their emergency evacuation and shelter plans. The bill grew directly out of Hurricane Katrina, when rescuers in New Orleans routinely turned pets away from buses and shelters, leaving thousands of animals to die or fend for themselves. Representatives Tom Lantos and Christopher Shays introduced the legislation after a photograph of a boy separated from his dog, Snowball, during the Superdome evacuation spread nationally. It passed the House 349-24 and the Senate by unanimous consent before Bush signed it into Public Law 109-308.

In their words

The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.

  1. The dog was taken away from this little boy, and to watch his face was a singularly revealing and tragic experience. This legislation was born at that moment.

    Rep. Tom Lantos, on the Superdome incident that prompted the bill

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. State and local emergency preparedness operational plans address the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals following a major disaster or emergency.

    White House press release describing what the law requires

    Source: George W. Bush White House Archives

Why it still matters

It was the first federal law to treat pets as a planning obligation rather than an afterthought in disasters, and it reset the assumption that an evacuation could reasonably require leaving an animal behind.

Sources

This history is still being written.

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