The “anti-pet ownership by anyone who is not like me” pet welfare movement is full of these white middle-aged white nanny-state-minded Tammy Grimes types. Being a middle aged white woman myself, it pains me to say that.

But of course, my employers does have lots and lots of other incentive programs that handle the issues you describe, including R&D programs that dramatically reduces the energy use of lights and freezers in grocery stores.

I really like my part-time “day job,” and not just for the steady pay and bennies … the little utility that could understands incentives and helping people in a way that Lloyd Levine and his nanny-state ilk never will. It’s truly what being progressive is all about.

Now … if we can just move that over to the pet arena …

And if a few million extra pets die to keep them out of the hands of “these people,” well, that’s the way it goes, isn’t it? Better dead than not cared for in the way a white suburbanite would, eh? I mean, really, if all you’re going to feed is Ol’ Roy and you can’t afford to rush to the vet every time your cat sneezes, you don’t deserve a pet!

About fifteen years ago, when I first moved to this state, I was serving as the editor of the PA Sierra Club’s chapter newsletter.

Got a call out of the blue one day from a woman who thought an editorial I’d written on something or other was just wonderful. I can’t remember the purpose of her call — I think she wanted me to speak at some function or something.

Chatting, she tells me that she lives in Pittsburgh, but also owns a farm in Butler county where she spends the weekends. She is “letting it grow up for the animals” and the first thing she did was post it all around so those awful hunters couldn’t come onto it and hurt “her” deer. This thread of of the conversation then moved into her complaints about how unneighborly the rednecks around her “farm” are. (And I listened thinking “Did she read last month’s editorial on environmentalists building bridges to the hook & bullet crowd in order to protect habitat and our common interests?” But I did not say anything about it to her, just let her keep going.)

On to her next topic, which is that she was a member of the mayor of Pittsburgh’s animal welfare committee. And her mission on that committee was to see to it that Pittsburgh passed a pitbull ban.

Oh? Do tell?

Well, they are vicious you see, and a danger to “nice” pets and “nice” people. Breeders made them that way, “those people” want vicious dogs.

So I challenged her to lay forth her experience with pitbulls — how many had she personally met and handled. Oh, none. Those sorts of people didn’t live in her neighborhood.

So how do you know pitbulls are vicious?

Retreat, regroup, second salvo: The pitbulls are victims. All of them are abused because they are owned by those people. What people are those ma’am? She wouldn’t say — the kind who always abuse their dogs, and the only kind who own pitbulls.

If we banned them in the city, they couldn’t be “abused” any longer. Can’t abuse a dead dog.

There are ten thousand rational arguments to lay out against this lunacy, but they are only worthwhile if the lunatic has an audience of the ignorant — there’s no reasoning with the lunatic herself.

So I said “You are just another one of those dog-killers. I have nothing to say to you.” And hung up.

Coda: This woman immediately called our state headquarters in Harrisburg in an attempt to get me “fired.” She spoke to the chapter’s one and only full-time employee, our lobbyist, Jeff. Jeff pointed out that I was a volunteer, in a job that was extremely difficult to fill, and was technically, as a member of the BoD, his boss. So the woman called other board members to rant. In some of these conversations, the topic of “those people” did come up.

Anyway, up until that point, I had thought Vicki Hearne was a bit out on a limb on the racial and class impetus behind pit-bull hysteria. Not any longer.

Pit-bull hysteria has just been repackaged for mandatory sterilization. We can’t stop “those people” from making babies or being out on the public streets where us white ladies get nervous. They just won’t stay properly contained in their respective ghettos, barrios, and trailer parks. The gated development and the posted signs are imperfectly secure.

But just maybe, we can get the law on ‘em for having a dog with balls. And deny such “abusers” the ability to have pets at all.

Just like the “Puppy Protection Act” of many years ago. I mean, who would go on record as being AGAINST protecting *puppies*, right?

When will cheap ploys fobbed onto a gullible public be made illegal?

His stats are available online, since he has nothing to hide, here’s a link to a post I put up which links to the Calgary data:

http://caveat.blogware.com/blo.....85431.html

Interesting factoid: The Ontario Fiberals refused to let Bill speak at the hearings into the dog ownership ban. Go figure.

Just as it suits the extinction crowd to shut down the ethical breeders so that only the profiteers are left, it also suits them to keep the Voice of Reason out of the debate.

Bill heard us talk about what’s been going on in California with AB 1634 and local MSN ordinances. He said the people in Calgary would never tolerate these kinds of draconian laws.

The citizens of Calgary view their AC as one that provides useful services. FYI, Calgary is a rapidly growing city of over 1 million people.

Through a comprehensive education campaign that includes programs in schools and the news media, Calgary’s pet owners understand that “your pet’s license is his ticket home”. Owner compliance with Calgary’s dog licensing is 90%, versus 20% which is typical and 40% which is considered high in the US. This came about mostly through education and good services, with enforcement being the backup.

When a dog is picked up as a stray in Calgary, the ACO looks up the dogs license using the networked computer in the ACO’s truck, and phones the owner right away. Much of the time the dog is driven straight home, never seeing the animal shelter. Dogs that cannot be taken straight home have their photo and info posted on Calgary AC’s public website before the dog even makes it to the shelter. IIRC, Calgary has a 90%+ rate of returning stray dogs to their owners.

Calgary started licensing cats 1 1/2 years ago. This is unusual in the US, and controversial. Compliance for cat licensing is so far at 45% in Calgary, and climbing. They haven’t even advertised the program yet. So many cat owners want that “ticket home” license for their cat that Calgary AC has had their hands full so far just processing applications from owners who have voluntarily licensed their cats.

Calgary has no pet limit laws. As Bill Bruce says when asked, why should he limit the number of pets a person can own when most of the problem owners are one pet homes? No limit on the number of pets one can own is part of achieving high licensing compliance.

Calgary has no BSL. Bill Bruce answers those who want to ban pit bulls this way. Pit bulls are #5 on the bite list. Before we ban them, perhaps we should ban the top 4 biting breeds… which includes Labrador Retrievers. That shuts down those conversations right away.

Calgary has an 8% kill rate for dogs, with no dogs being killed for population control. That’s among the best in North America.

Dog bites have decreased significantly in Calgary over a span of time that Calgary’s population has doubled.

Calgary AC partners closely with the Calgary Humane Society. AC takes in the strays while the Humane Society takes the owner turn ins.

Calgary AC works to keep pets with their owners. Bill described an example of a dog that was left out on a balcony when the temperature was 30 degrees below zero. AC rescued the dog, and the news media picked up the story. Turns out the dog has separation anxiety, and tended to damage the apartment when the owner was away. The owner, not knowing what else to do, left the dog out on the balcony in the extreme cold. I think many ACs would have charged the owner with cruelty and then either euthanized or adopted out the dog (since the dog was a pittie, probably the former). Calgary AC arranged for the owner to receive responsible pet owner training, and he got his dog back.

Calgary AC gets nothing, not one dime, in taxpayer funding. They don’t need it, since they bring in so much money in licensing income. None of the pet licensing income goes into Calgary’s general fund. Calgary AC can afford to buy the best equipment, and pay staff enough to keep turnover low. Calgary AC also gives the Calgary Humane Society $250K a year to help cover their expenses.

There was more good news from Calgary, that’s what I can remember off the top of my head.

The description of the revised law does one thing - it highlights the true motives here - to punish dog owners deemed inferior - not because of the way they treat their pets but because who they are perceived to be. Nicely pointed by Gina above.

I used to think neutering was the way to go, a few years ago. That was before I got clued in to the implications and read a lot of research papers which put the lie to many myths around neutering.

There is no need for any further legislation around pet ownership. Period. Pet owners are already way overregulated and it’s time to stop it. Pets just aren’t that much of a problem. It’s a media-generated issue and I’m sick of it. They should tackle some actual problems for a change.

As a pet owner, I’m not particularly interested in providing job security for people who don’t care a fig for animals and prove it every time they open their mouths, but don’t mind riding on the back of dead dogs and cats to further their own interests. Scroom.

An aside on the lightbulb thing - NOT meant to take away from the great program described.

I use two incandescent lightbulbs at night, both 60W. There is no point in my changing to fluos. I hate the colour of the fluo bulb light, maybe because I’m a painter and light is super important to me. The mercury content bothers me - I can’t just toss them into the garbage, they’re hazmat. Light bulbs really aren’t the problem. Computers - well, now, think of all the computers we didn’t have 20 years ago and how people leave them on all the time. That’s your power drain, especially if you don’t turn your monitor off when you walk away. Ditto TVs. Commercial and industrial power use is significantly greater than domestic use, so perhaps targeting all the office towers, grocery stores, and other businesses which use inordinate amounts of light, air conditioning and heat would be a better start than bugging people who read at night with a bedside lamp.

Gina, the city and Con Ed here also have a program that they took to the people for the CFLs. It’s a larger program than just bulb replacement and seems to be well funded. They sent a direct mail piece about it and all you had to do was tear off the coupon and drop it in the mail. You got a free bulb and coupon/discounts iirc. Of course, I had already replaced all mine, so no deals for me aside from the lovely monthly savings :) And of course, our no kill program is working the same way. Take the pets to the people and offer more services and help. Our licensing just went all online. Will be a much quicker turnaround, so it should increase compliance. And I’m sure we’ll have a crackdown soon, but our fees are low enough, it’s not something that would increase surrenders. We also have Rabies clinics that go to the people, so they would be able to afford the vac for licensing. We’re getting there slowly but surely :)

Oh and the big joy of CFLs aside from the savings? I haven’t had to climb up on the ladder in forever to change a bulb!

His law didn’t pass.

But at my employer, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, we put into place two programs:

1) We “bought down” the costs of virtually all the CFLs in all the stores in the county, so they were priced competitively with traditional lightbulbs. Even with the money we invested, we saved money, because when people use CFLs they use far less energy, and that means we don’t have to build another power plant.

2) We went into all the poorer neighborhoods in specially marked vehicles and traded people CFLs for their incandescent lightbulbs. That’s right: We took the service to the people who needed it. And we traded them, giving them CFLs for free that they wouldn’t have to replace for a long, long time. Again, the program saves the utility money, too.

So … which approach do you think worked better? Assemblyman Levine’s “we know what’s best for you and we’ll decide” stick? Or SMUD’s “it’s your choice and we know if we help you’ll make the right one” carrot?

Hmmmmmmmm?

We also need to get off this “show proof of dire poverty” crap if we trying to encourage a change in behavior.

Again with the lightbulbs … I certainly could have afforded a four-pack of full-priced CFLs for $12-15, but I bought relatively few of them, a couple here where it was more difficult to change a lightbulb, since CFLs last longer. But most of the lightbulbs remained the fair cheaper incandescents. Why? I don’t know, just because a deal on a 12-pack of traditional bulbs messes with our heads sometimes.

Now, after two years of CFL buy-down incentives? EVERY BULB IN MY HOUSE IS A CFL with the exception of those dorky little things in the hanging fixture over the dining-room table, a light I almost never turn on anyway because finding replacements for those is a major pain.

Again, yeah, I could afford CFLs. But for whatever reason I rarely bought them. The utility knew they would save money if I could be rewarded and encouraged to buy them. They made it impossible for me to turn them down, effortless and cheap … I didn’t have to qualify based on income, I didn’t have to apply for a coupon or a rebate.

They got public-good behavior the wanted.

Too bad the lightbulb — energy-efficient CFL, of course — doesn’t go off over the heads of the forced spay-neuter forces. Maybe then we’d get somewhere, and truly start addressing this problem by helping people to help their pets.