BATON ROUGE - Gov. John Bel Edwards has signed a bill into law that will crack down on pet stores that acquire dogs from puppy mills.

The new law will prohibit pet stores in Louisiana from acquiring dogs and cats from breeders with documented Animal Welfare Act violations within the past three years or those whose USDA license has been suspended within the past five years.

Julie Breaux of the Humane Society says the law will help crack down on the worst puppy mill offenders. She says the public should know that when they buy a puppy from a pet store or online, there’s a strong possibility that the puppy was bred in a cruel and unsanitary puppy mill.

The bill, SB 337, will also eliminate brokers from sourcing puppy mill dogs to pet shops. Pet shops will further be prohibited from selling dogs and cats less than eight weeks of age, and they’ll be required to post certain details on each cage about where the animal came from.

Finally, the bill also contains a provision that allows parishes and municipalities to enact stricter local laws governing the sales of pets.

The Humane Society notes that the legislature has acted a total of five times in order to crack down on unscrupulous commercial puppy breeders within the past nine years.