State Sen. Michael Gianaris, D-Astoria, has found the next animal welfare law for the state Legislature to debate — animal devocalization.

Gianaris recently introduced S.6904 in the state Senate. Much like legislation passed earlier this year to ban cat declawing, legislation banning surgical devocalization in dogs has been introduced in each legislative session since 2009-10 but hasn’t made it to the floor of the legislature.

The legislation would allow only licensed veterinarians to perform surgical devocalizations of dogs or cats and only when the procedure is medically necessary to treat or relieve an illness, disease or injury or to correct a congenital abnormality that is causing the animal pain or harm. Anyone who performs a surgical devocalization on an animal would have to report the number of procedures to the state Education Commissioner at the end of the year.

Gianaris wrote in his legislative justification that surgically removing a cat’s meow or a dog’s bark takes away the animal’s only way of communicating without fixing the issues causing the excessive noise.

“Dogs and cats vocalize for a number of reasons,” Gianaris wrote. “They use their voices to communicate to other animals and humans feelings of happiness, fear, playfulness, boredom, pain, or aggression. Vocalizing is also used to greet or warn others, or to gain attention. A person does an animal great physical and psychological harm when electing to have them devocalized, which can result in problematic animal behaviors. Instead, there are therapies and other proven techniques which can help to manage this behavior without surgical intervention.”

Massachusetts, Maryland and New Jersey outlaw the procedure unless it’s medically necessary. California and Rhode Island have similarly made it illegal to require the devocalization of animals as a condition of real estate occupancy. Pennsylvania law specifies that the procedure must be performed by a licensed veterinarian using anesthesia.

A June 2018 report by the American Veterinary Medical Association says between 3.2% and 7% of dogs seen by veterinary behavioral practices are evaluated for excessive barking, though other surveys have reported 13% of owners identified excessive barking as a concern, with excessive barking making up the majority of animal-related complaints in some municipalities.

The AVMA notes that resumption of a normal-volumed bark can reoccur within months of devocalization surgery, while the surgery itself can result in scar tissue, noisy breathing, collapse or heat intolerance. The report states 24% of dogs can require a second surgery.

The study quotes the American Kennel Club as saying “debarking is a viable veterinary procedure that may allow a dog owner to keep a dog that barks excessively in its loving home rather than to be forced to surrender it to a shelter. Debarking should only be performed by a qualified, licensed veterinarian after other behavioral modification efforts to correct excessive barking have failed.

“As with other veterinary medical decisions, the decision to debark a dog is best left to individual owners and their veterinarians.”

The AVMA, on the other hand, opposes non-therapeutic devocalization of dogs except after behavioral modifications and management methods have failed and as a final alternative to relinquishment or euthanasia.