Residents of unincorporated Kern County who advertise dogs for sale are required by a new law enacted in February to include license numbers in their advertisements, but most people don’t.

The rule requires anyone who sells a dog to include the license number of the litter's parent in the advertisement. If the person placing the ad offers more than one litter of dogs for sale in any 12 months, they must get a commercial animal facility permit and include that permit number, too.

The goal of all these rules is to get people who sell animals to take more responsibility for what they are doing since irresponsible breeding contributes to the county's animal overpopulation problem, said Animal Control Director Guy Shaw.