Hopefully your family did not get a new pet as a holiday surprise.

If the gifts this season did include a member of the animal kingdom, ideally it was a considered choice for a family ready to accept the costs, responsibilities and challenges of property caring for a fury (or scaly or feathered) friend.

As we continue rounding out the year by examining laws taking effect Jan. 1, the costs of pet ownership factored into two House bills. One, HB 2500, was the subject of a March column: A proposal from state Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield, to waive animal shelter adoption fees for Illinois veterans, allowing one free dog or cat adoption every two years.

Another, which completely slipped my attention until this week, is HB 3236, from state Rep. Jonathan Carroll, D-Northbrook. That plan bans financial institutions from offering loans for cat or dog purchases.

As noted in March, our family has rescue mutts. Our adoption fee covered micro-chipping, vaccines and the spay/neuter procedures at a partnering veterinarian. The rescue and its volunteers incurred expenses transporting the dogs to the suburbs and foster care, plus general website and office costs.

Nonprofit status helps – our rescue runs a year-round resale shop as a fundraiser – but Benton’s bill amounted to an unfunded mandate on agencies trying to make positive contributions on shoestring budgets. Still, the measure passed the Senate 56-0 and the final version cleared the House 107-2. I remain hopeful for funding mechanisms involving veteran service groups or pet food and supply companies that might ease shelters’ concerns about making ends meet.

Our family also bought a cat from a breeder in 2015. She’s a Siberian and as such poses no problems for allergy concerns. That made her considerably more expensive than the way I got our first cats (a lady at the newspaper office said her father-in-law wanted two kittens off the farm yesterday), but we never would’ve started the process had financing been on the table.

When he introduced the bill in March, Carroll said the intent was targeting puppy mills and other disreputable breeders that enhance profits by selling customers on high-interest installment plans. A legislative summary from Senate Democrats said the idea was to “protect purchasers from loans that can balloon up to 200%, oftentimes for an unhealthy pet.”

The governor signed the bill in July, noting it “Forbids retail installment contracts, retail installment transactions and retail charge agreements for the sale of cats and dogs by making such contracts unenforceable.”

Consumer and animal protection remain politically popular. Carroll’s bill cleared the Senate 56-0 and the House 100-11. Both bills have good intentions, and each remind that pet ownership is a financial commitment not to be taken lightly.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on Twitter @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.