State legislators Tuesday approved a bill that would allow towns and cities to spay or neuter every animal they bring in and charge the family that adopts the pet for the procedure.

“This is best practice… This bill takes a proactive approach,” Rep. Linda M. Gentile, D-Ansonia, said before the House overwhelmingly approved the bill.

Only about 60 percent of the nearly 3,000 dogs adopted from shelters in Connecticut are neutered, leading to too many homeless dogs lingering in shelters, Gentile said.

The bill now heads to the Senate for final passage.

Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

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