All over the entire country, shelters are killing far fewer animals than they did ten years ago. MSN has nothing to do with it – increased public education and voluntary s/n are what have done it, nationwide.

AB1634, as written, would have had virtually no effect on the sources of the problem – feral cats, unplanned and unwanted litters, as well as irresponsible breeders.

AB1634 exempted commercial breeding, BYBs, and “just one litter” family breeders. It would have devastated responsible breeders. The bill, as written, basically made it almost impossible to be a responsible breeder, while giving irresponsible breeding a pass.

It had particularly bad effects on new responsible breeders (who aren’t breeding yet, but have intact dogs - so they don’t need a business license), on working dog gene pools, and on rare breed gene pools – truly devastating effects, as many of those gene pools depend on animals owned by people who are not truly breeders - dogs that are later leased or used at study by breeders.

AB1634 is indeed a bad bill, and Judie Mancuso’s rants about “all breeders are the same, there is no such thing as a hobby breeder, all they care about is the money, the money, the money” ad nauseum pretty much sum up what was wrong with it. Honestly, she did more to recruit opposition to the bill than I think she may have realized.

Send a a link to one of her interviews to a breeder email list, let them listen to her for five minutes, and people from all over the country would send $.

She has no idea what a responsible breeder is, doesn’t believe there is any such thing, hasn’t heard a word through the whole discussion on why people object to the bill, and has no problem whatsoever with making it impossible for responsible breeders to continue.

No one here is objecting to voluntary spay neuter, and I believe everyone here cares about reducing euthanasias. I’d bet everyone regularly blogging here has more info on petpopulation.org, Nathan Winograd, national euthanasia statistics, and Merritt Clifton’s latest annual summaries than either Sam or Alice. Which, BTW, is probably WHY we have a different opinion. Funny thing about facts - they tend to mess with your preconceptions.

It isn’t possible for a good breeder to “operate just as you do today” if this bill passes – it isn’t even possible, in some cases, to have good assurances that rare breed and working dog gene pools will even survive. It’s that stark - existence or permanent loss.

Responsible breeders have ALREADY cut their production, and cut their production. They’re not breeding for the market. We’re at the point where it CANNOT be cut much further and have these gene pools survive.

The problem is not “too many animals.” If that was the problem, then the price would drop, commercial and BYB breeders would stop breeding, and you’d have equilibrium. Remember the law of supply and demand? When you have dogs that are practically free, and can’t find homes, and dogs that cost a thousand dollars or more, and can find homes, then there are other things going on.

The problems (plural, not singular) include unplanned and unwanted litters (which can be prevented by education and low cost s/n), a mismatch between those unplanned and unwanted litters and what people actually want, an oversupply of pits and pit mixes (30-70% of euthanized dogs in most shelters), poor “marketing” by shelters, poor “customer service” by shelters, feral cats and not enough TNR, and a host of other things.

Ever heard of Nathan Winograd? His approach actually works to fix these problems - by fixing the actual problems. He’s put a series of communities at 90% and better live adoption rates.

Mr. Winograd is doing a series of free seminars nationally. Check out http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org - you might learn something. His approach works. It works fast, it doesn’t require divisive laws, and it saves animal’s lives. The Charlottesville Virginia shelter went to 92% live exit in ONE YEAR.

No, things won’t be the same if AB1634 passes. It will be a MANDATE that I will need to spay my four year old bitch. I am not a breeder. I have never been a breeder. I can’t even keep a houseplant alive. Yet, some state law will MANDATE that I will now have to have my bitch spayed. It doesn’t make any difference that my dogs have “never” produced anything that has gone into the shelter system.

I am not … I will not … spay my dog because Lloyd Levine and Judie Mancuso can’t get it through their thick skulls that AB1634 does “not” look at the big picture. When they can tell me they have gotten all of the dogs smuggled into California from Mexico sent back from whence they came, when they can tell me that there will be low cost spay/neuter programs available in “every” county, when they can tell me that they will establish TNR programs for feral cats, and the products of large-scale puppy mills will no longer be entering the shelters, then I will invite them to lunch!

The HSUS loves to tell you about their 10 million members and the fact that they can say 1 in 30 people belong to, donate to, or once walked past someone wearing a HSUS t-shirt so that will “qualify” them to say you a member.

ONE in THIRTY??? Give me a break. The other TWENTY NINE people should not have to do what Wayne Pacelle (self-proclaimed animal “welfare” deity) espouses.

PETA’s claim to fame? Oh, I remember. They slipped some money to Coronado so he would not mention PETA’s name. Do some homework, Alice!! Get in bed with PETA and you might get the “big hypodermic needle in the sky.” People have “thought” they were relinquishing their dogs to a shelter with the pretext that their animals would be found a permanent home. Instead, those dogs were DEAD ON ARRIVAL!! Put to death in PETA’s van as they pulled away from the curb!!

I am tired of the ALFs, ELFs, PETA, and HSUS traumatizing, firebombing, spreading deceipt and (mis)information to JQP. Pacelle speaks from his pulpit and for some reason people think he is an expert. They also think John ‘JP’ Goodwin is an expert at dog-fighting, too. But, I suppose they were running out of titles after his previous claim to fame … FIREBOMBING ARSONIST! The FBI has Goodwin higher up the food chain that Al Qaeda on the “domestic terrorist” list!! What does that say about animal rights agenda!!!

By the way, Alice? I do volunteer in a shelter. I am also active in mobile adoptions twice per month. I volunteer three days per week in canine-assisted therapy to hospitals and to hospice. And I have been there when animals are euthanized. Get off your “high horse.”

Take the suggestion and spend a few days READING!! Come back here with your questions and concerns and a “less” holier-than-thou attitude and I am sure people will engage you in further “virtual” conversation again.

Sponsors have being tossing around not only claims about 50-60% reductions in shelter impound rates in Santa Cruz County that simply aren’t true (the truth is much more modest than that), but they even went so far as to publish graphs of imaginary Santa Cruz County shelter data.
http://democrats.assembly.ca.g.....zStats.pdf

This graph doesn’t remotely resemble the shelter data that Santa Cruz County submitted to the California Department of Health Services (CDHS), as required under state law. There is no subset of the actual data that could be used to derive it either… the attempted Watsonville Spin notwithstanding.

The CDHS reports containing the data that Santa Cruz County reported to the state can be found here, numbered by year.
http://www.theanimalcouncil.com/Reference.html
By all means, look up the Santa Cruz data yourself, compare it to the graph above, and see for yourself.

Comparing the actual Santa Cruz shelter data to the imaginary Santa Cruz data claimed by sponsors shows the extent to which the data were fudged to create a misleading impression
http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs.....20dogs.pdf

Truth is, Santa Cruz County has higher per capita shelter impound rates than neighboring counties who don’t have MSN, even though MSN is supposed to reduce impound rates. Santa Cruz County’s per capita euthanasia rates are no better than neighboring counties.
http://www.naiaonline.org/issu.....graphs.htm

I don’t doubt that shelter workers at Santa Cruz County report that they are killing fewer animals now then 1995, when the ordinance passed. Sure they are, and the data they reported to the state shows that. I don’t need to call them to learn that, I can see it in the reports they’ve filed with the state. But then, similar improvements — oftentimes vastly superior improvements — have occurred throughout California.
http://saveourdogs.net/documen.....0chart.pdf
These statewide improvements have happened without mandatory s/n laws.

Can someone please explain why this issue is being described as a crisis that requires a new, punitive state law when the number of dogs euthanized in California’s shelters decreased by 43% in just the last 5 years alone?

How about, instead of spending “education” funds to make people feel bad after the fact, we spend them to provide education and training to people adopting animals from the shelter, and offer low-cost obedience and behavior classes to pet owners wherever they acquired their pets, and educate people about the benefits of spay/neuter for their pets, and subsidized spay/neuter clinics?

Or is that not sufficiently punitive for you?

The whole thrust of the bill, as I read it, is to get family animals fixed while leaving breeders and profit animals out of it.

The way it’s written, it exempts large-scale, for-profit puppy millers, and imposes large new costs on responsible breeders—who are already lucky to break even. Meanwhile, it also provides an exemption for “just one litter” from the family pet on her first heat. (That’s like an eleven-year-old human having a baby, by the way, in terms of physical and emotional development. Does that sound like a good idea to you?)

Sorry if it’s not perfect, but it will absolutely lead to less animals killed, even based on the voluntary compliance aspect alone.

Well, no, it won’t, because it exempts all the people (puppy millers, pet stores, people who want “just one litter” from Fluffy) who are contributing to the shelter overpopulation, while effectively shutting down the responsible breeders, who take serious care that their puppies or kittens don’t become shelter statistics. This bill would make things worse, not better.

And animal control has no time at all to do anything but their current tasks, no one is going to be bothering breeders

So, you’d force responsible breeders to become scofflaws in order to continue breeding responsibly, and you call that leaving them alone? These are, excuse the expression, responsible people, who aren’t going to feel that it’s okay as long as Animal Control ignores them.

And aside from their own dislike of breaking the law, when enforcement resources are inadequate to the task, it’s very often not the worst offenders that are targeted, but the easiest targets, so that the enforcement agency can at least show some signs of trying to do their job. That means the responsible folks will be more likely to be hassled that the genuine BYBs, or the guys breeding pit bulls for dogfighting, not less.

(even underground, tax evading breeders),

Still clinging to this fantasy of the responsible breeders committing tax evasion by not reporting their puppy sales income?

this is mainly a concept of universal S/N that needs to get out into the public consciousness for voluntary compliance.

I have a wild and crazy idea. Let’s actually spend some money on educating the public on the benefits of spaying and neutering their pets. I mean, directly on that, not coming up with crazy round-about schemes that actually encourage people to make Fluffy have “just one litter” before they spay her.

I bring Alice back into the discussion because I am just realizing how great the differences of opinion related to “pet subjects” have become, and it saddens and worries me that people who love animals seem to be dividing into opposing camps instead of working together. I’ve been on the internet for many years, but have been blithely unaware of the juxtaposition of “animal welfare groups” and “animal rights groups”. Before I came here, I thought PETA was a group that loved animals but went too far sometimes in their activism, and that HSUS had something to do with my local Humane Society, but now that I’m looking into the different groups websites — it almost seems like there is a war going on. The language used on some websites I’ve been visiting cautions people not believe what “the others” say, and it makes it more difficult (for me, at least) to figure out what strategies offer the best solutions.

This website is different, and I thank Gina, Christine and other bloggers here for maintaining an atmosphere that allows for discussion of subjects rather than presenting a “diatribe for our side” attitude.

I’m not a member of any group, and till very recently didn’t know there was a difference between “animal rights” and “animal welfare” groups. I grew up just knowing that animals have rights and that I cared about their welfare. There has to be room in the middle for folks who just want to solve problems that animals are having, and that people are having with their animals. This blog appears to one of those places that has room for such discussions.

Other Pat, your comments about educating the public are well taken, I have thought for a long time that people dropping animals at shelters should be required to take away materials telling them what is really going to happen to their animal (the best would be to make them take a 10 minute course first, but there is no possible chance in the current over-burdoned shelter environment). Then, I believe that a phone call should be made a week later to the dropee, letting them know exactly what happened to their animals, whether it was adopted back out or euthanized… to help eliminate the fantasy that so many people have about what really happens in the shelters.

The whole thrust of the bill, as I read it, is to get family animals fixed while leaving breeders and profit animals out of it. Sorry if it’s not perfect, but it will absolutely lead to less animals killed, even based on the voluntary compliance aspect alone. And animal control has no time at all to do anything but their current tasks, no one is going to be bothering breeders (even underground, tax evading breeders), this is mainly a concept of universal S/N that needs to get out into the public consciousness for voluntary compliance.

I have to admit that a lot of the ‘AR Agenda’ posted above makes good sense to me, some is totally utopian and some is dopey. The hunting piece would never fly, but my opinion is no one needs to be out killing wildlife unless they are living off the land, it’s certainly not a sport. The animal agriculture thing is a pipe dream, but meat and dairy animals really have a lousy life; in 150 years we might be there anyway after people start growing artificial meat of any quality. The pet breeding thing is totally wrong, I wish every household that could care for pets had them, they make life much better and pet owners are much happier people.

Lis your belief that “AB 1634 is a bad bill, and is the brainchild of people who do not love pets” is so far wrong that it is incensing me. No one, and I have talked with probably 25 of them including up in Sacramento, who is working on this bill is an AR nutjob or feels even remotely that people should not have pets. I have spoken with the actual people who came up with the bill and they all have pets and love them. And the AR tie-in, please, it is SO wrong it’s not even funny. Matter of fact, when I went to see the Republican Ed Bokes (sp? LA animal services) speak on the bill that he helped start, a bunch of AR nutjobs busted in with a megaphone and started calling him a “F**ker” because they think he hates animals. Some AR kooks even think the bill is actually a “breeder bill” designed to get breeders a bigger market, since less mutts will be born.

Great bill, awesome people working on it, pet lovers all. I support it and will continue to work for it as much as I can.

“even people who dump their animals will fool themselves into thinking their abandoned dog will find a good home.”

You’ve touched on an important aspect of this problem, which is the breaking of the human/animal bond. And there’s been some very good work done in this area, with more ongoing. You can read about it at:

http://www.petpopulation.org/

Probably one of the most significant findings of the early studies was that the vast majority of dogs being euthanized were NOT puppies and kittens, but rather young dogs - just entering their rowdy adolescent phase - and presenting too much of a challenge for their harried owners who relinquished them to the shelter thinking that the shelter could find them a good home (who could handle them). So it’s not a problem of not enough homes, but rather, a problem of a broken commitment. Fix THAT, and a whole lot fewer dogs will die (and this is being borne out in practice).

Responsible breeders already know that you don’t just send a dog home with anyone who comes along without first spending some time educating that person on exactly what is involved in caring for a dog for the long haul. Progressive shelters are starting to do this now, too - with educational programs for new and prospective dog owners, training and behavior classes to help the new owners get off on the right foot, and hotlines to keep overwhelmed owners from panicking and making bad or irreversible decisions. (I had a “hotline” with my breeder-purchased puppy, too - the fact that I could call her at any time if I had a problem).

In general, shelters are starting to learn and enact what Responsible Breeders have known for a long time. That if you educate before letting someone take one of your animals, employ selective criteria on who will be permitted to do so, and continue to be available for followup support, you will not only just FIND good homes for your critters - you’ll help CREATE them, as well.

“I have never talked to one person who said anything in the direction of wanting to eliminate pets. The tatooed nutjobs who protest with bullhorns make me crazy and I have not met anyone like that working for this bill, thank God.”

Well, if your focus has been entirely around the AB1634 fight, then perhaps you’ve just never become aware of the overall AR agenda of wwhich AB1634 is just a part. Laura posted some quotes earlier in this thread. Here are a few more. And pay attention - the first three on the list are from representatives of three of the organizations backing AB1634:

“We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. … One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding.”
— Wayne Pacelle, Senior Vice-President oF HSUS, May, 1993

“It is time we demand an end to the misguided and abusive concept of animal ownership. The first step on this long, but just, road would be ending the concept of pet ownership.”
— Elliot Katz, President, In Defense of Animals, “In Defense of Animals,” Spring 1997

“Breeders must be eliminated! As long as there is a surplus of companion animals in the concentration camps referred to as ‘shelters’, and they are killing them because they are homeless, one should not be allowed to produce more for their own amusement and profit. If you know of a breeder in the Los Angeles area, whether commercial or private, legal or illegal, let us know and we will post their name, location, phone number so people can write them letters telling them ‘Don’t Breed or Buy, While Others DIE.’” “Breeders! Let’s get rid of them too!” Campaign on Animal Defense League’s website, September 2, 2003

Here are a couple from other areas of the country:

“Liberating our language by eliminating the word ‘pet’ is the first step … In an ideal society where all exploitation and oppression has been eliminated, it will be NJARA’s policy to oppose the keeping of animals as ‘pets.’”
-New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance, “Should Dogs Be Kept As Pets? NO!” Good Dog! February 1991, p.20

“In a perfect world, we would not keep animals for our benefit, including pets,” Tom Regan, emeritus professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University and author of “Empty Cages” - speaking at University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, March 3, 2004

And finally,in the event that you’re still not understanding that this is a concerted long-term strategy designed to get big results by nibbling away at the problem a little at a time at the local level (pay particular attention to Item #10):

THE ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS AGENDA

The agenda is taken from “The politics of Animal Liberation” written by Kim Barlett, Editor of the Animals’ Agenda, Nov. 1987 but a miminally modified version is part of the Green Party Platform for 2000.

THE AGENDA

1) Abolish by law animal research.
2) Outlaw the use of animals for cosmetic and product testing, classroom demonstrations and weapons development.
3) Vegetarian meals should be made available at all public institutions, including schools.
4) Eliminate all animal agriculture.
5) End herbicides, pesticides, and other Agricultural chemicals. Outlaw predator control.
6) Transfer enforcement of animal welfare legislation away from the dept. of Agriculture
7) Eliminate fur ranching and end the use of furs.
8) Prohibit hunting, trapping and fishing.
9) End the international trade in wildlife goods.
10) Stop any further breeding of companion animals, *including purebred dogs and cats*. Spaying and neutering should be subsidized by State and Municipal governments. Commerce in domestic and exotic animals for the *pet trade* should be abolished.
11) End the use of animals in entertainment

I see you’re still missing part of the point: Size matters. However nice the dog is, however suitable otherwise, if I can’t, in an emergency, pick it up and carry to my car, by myself, to get it to the vet for treatment, it’s not the dog for me. I’ve been through that once; I won’t go through it again.

If the dog is an abolutely sweetie with human beings, including kids, but has a strong prey drive, it’s not the dog for me. I have two cats.

And if it’s an absolutely perfect dog, but needs the kind of activity I used to do with my border collie, sorry, no, it needs to find a different home. I can’t do that anymore.

A good temperament is important. It’s essential. But it’s not enough. All those different breeds of dogs exist because people needed, genuinely needed, different sets of characteristics in their dogs. And we still do. You can’t just put any random “nice dog” together with any random “responsible dog owner” and assume it’s going to work out.

And small, fluffy dogs suitable for a middle-aged woman with a small house, no yard, and no kids are not the dogs that are filling the shelters to overflowing.

Addy, meanwhile, is a dog that, had she not had a responsible breeder, would have wound up in a shelter or rescue. Because she had a responsible breeder to take her back when the original buyer lost interest in her, though, she got rehomed by her breeder, rather than passing through the shelter system.

Now, tell me, is she worthy because she had a bad first-buyer experience and needed to be rehomed, or unworthy, because she came from a responsible breeder who saw to it that she didn’t become a shelter statistic but went directly to a good new home?

Dog lovers (and rightly so) have a real hard time accepting this, even people who dump their animals will fool themselves into thinking their abandoned dog will find a good home. Please, obviously you guys love pets on this site. Wake up to what’s going on in our shelters. These are not AR nuts behind this bill, they are shelter workers.

Comment by Sam D — August 9, 2007 @ 11:25 am

I said before, clearly I need to say it again: you need to read this site a bit more, and see what the various posters here, including our hosts, are actually doing to help shelter, rescue, and puppy mill animals. No one here is indifferent to the plight of shelter animals; we just disagree that AB 1634 is the solution, or even addresses the problem. It doesn’t. It would effectively shut down the kind of breeders who DO take responsibility for their animals and ensure that no puppy they produce winds up in a shelter, shut down the ability to produce needed working dogs, give a free pass to puppy millers, and not even address the reasons why dogs and cats wind up in shelters. Please, read some more. Get to know the issues of why animals are surrendered to shelters, why shelter animals can’t be trained as guide dogs for the blind, why cattle people want stock dogs bred as well as trained for their tasks—and a whole lot more. AB 1634 is a bad bill, and is the brainchild of people who do not love pets. Really it is. It won’t help the problems you’re concerned with; it will make them worse.