Federation Council passes Duma-approved bill on training hunting dogs
MOSCOW. Feb 28 (Interfax) - The Federation Council approved a bill limiting contact training of hunting dogs using live prey on Wednesday.
The State Duma earlier passed the version produced by the two chambers' conciliatory commission on February 14.
That version stipulates that the training of hunting dogs is only allowed on hunting premises and only using methods that do not allow the cruel treatment of animals or the infliction of physical harm.
The training of dogs using animals kept in conditions of artificially restricted freedom is only allowed if fences are used to prevent the infliction of physical harm on the animals.
The provisions dealing with the training of hunting birds were removed from the document.
The original bill, co-authored by State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, was passed by the State Duma in December 2017 but rejected by the Federation Council. Some senators said the adoption of the law in this form would destroy the hunting industry, so it was decided to create a conciliatory commission to make improvements to the document. The commission drafted a new text.