Pet Establishment Licencing & Inspections

Under the New Brunswick SPCA Act, ​“pet estab­lish­ment” means (a) an ani­mal shel­ter, (b) a pet retail store, or © a ken­nel. A ken­nel is defined as an estab­lish­ment where dogs are bred to be sold or board­ed for money.

If you main­tain a pet estab­lish­ment under any of these three cat­e­gories, you must be inspect­ed and licenced by the NBSP­CA on an annu­al basis. Groom­ing busi­ness­es, vet­eri­nary clin­ics, premis­es that board and sell live­stock and rid­ing sta­bles are among the types of oper­a­tions that are cur­rent­ly exempt from the pet estab­lish­ment regulations.

A pet estab­lish­ment licence is a cer­tifi­cate issued by the Province of New Brunswick after a facil­i­ty has passed an inspec­tion by the NBSP­CA. The licence has a num­ber spe­cif­ic to you that must be used when adver­tis­ing lit­ters of pup­pies for sale. In accor­dance with sub­sec­tion 24(1) of the SPCA Act, a per­son who oper­ates a pet estab­lish­ment with­out a licence is com­mit­ting an offence.

A pet estab­lish­ment licence is required for (a) any breed­er and sell­er of dogs in New Brunswick, (b) ani­mal shel­ters, © pet retail stores sell­ing ani­mals, and (d) any place where dogs are board­ed overnight.

A pet estab­lish­ment licence costs $250/​year for breed­ers, overnight board­ing ken­nels and pet retail stores. A licence for shel­ters costs $100/​year. When a licence is issued it is valid for one year.

To obtain a pet estab­lish­ment licence, you must pro­vide proof that you are in com­pli­ance with local zon­ing by-laws or zon­ing reg­u­la­tions made under the Com­mu­ni­ty Plan­ning Act. Con­tact your local com­mu­ni­ty or Region­al Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to request con­fir­ma­tion (by email or let­ter) that you are per­mit­ted to oper­ate a pet estab­lish­ment at your loca­tion. Once you’ve received this doc­u­ment, for­ward it to the NBSPCA’s head office at info@​nbspca.​ca and com­plete the online appli­ca­tion for a Pet Estab­lish­ment Licence. If you don’t have access to the inter­net, a paper copy of the appli­ca­tion can be mailed to you.

Once the appli­ca­tion has been received and pay­ment has been made, an Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cer will sched­ule a time with you to com­plete the on-site inspection.

There are dif­fer­ent require­ments for in-home breed­ers, pet retail stores, ken­nels, and shel­ters. The APO will go through check­lists with you and work with you to improve any defi­cien­cies. Upon pass­ing your inspec­tion an offi­cial licence will be issued and mailed to you. You must dis­play it in your facility.

Licence num­bers must be post­ed on all adver­tis­ing mate­ri­als (e.g., busi­ness cards, fly­ers, Kiji­ji ads, etc.) Your offi­cial licence must be promi­nent­ly dis­played in your facility.

Pet estab­lish­ment licens­ing ensures that all dogs and ani­mals are kept and brought up in a clean and healthy envi­ron­ment. It also ensures that breed­ers and own­ers com­ply with a cer­tain stan­dard of care. Pet estab­lish­ment licens­ing is not intend­ed to pro­vide assur­ance about the qual­i­ty of an indi­vid­ual ani­mal offered for sale by a pet estab­lish­ment or about an indi­vid­ual animal’s con­for­mi­ty to breed stan­dards or reg­is­tra­tion requirements.