pet connection

It’s looking likely that the California State Assembly will vote today on SB 250, a re-worked version of last year’s failed AB 1634, mandatory spay/neuter. This bill is bad for poor people, bad for their pets, and so loaded with punitive and downright regressive provisions that it’s hard to believe Democrats are falling in line to support it.

Why they do is no doubt because it sounds like it should make sense, and even address the reasons why straight-up mandatory spay/neuter went down in flames in 2008 — it looks, on the surface, as though it provides plenty of exemptions, and that almost anyone can get an unaltered pet license and keep it, as long as they don’t abuse or neglect their pets, or let them run loose all the time.

But in reality, SB 250 is mandatory spay/neuter with lipstick on. Its punitive provisions kick in on the basis of such  minor infractions that it’s likely there are only a handful of pet owners in the entire state who haven’t violated one of them from time to time — leash laws, scooper laws, and so on. And if you do violate these laws, not only will you have to sterilize a specific animal, but you can lose your right to have an unaltered pet license for any animal, ever. Permanently.

Making this burden even worse for the poor, and presumably in response to outcry over just how much this was going to cost the state to implement, there’s brand new language designed to pass on the expenses of enforcing it to the pet owners themselves — who will have to pay a hefty load of fines and fees to get their pet out of the clutches of the state at all, plus, of course, pay for the sterilization surgery.

Which might make sense if not having your pet altered were a phenomenon of the pets of the rich who just couldn’t be bothered, but it’s not. The pets of people who make moderate to high incomes are already sterilized at near-universal rates, while only a little more than half the pets of the poor are sterilized. Of the unaltered pets, around half their owners say they want to sterilize their animals but can’t afford it and/or access it.

And while there are spay/neuter assistance programs in many urban areas, in the poorest parts of the state, and those hit hardest by the economic crisis, that’s not at all the case. (Central Valley, anyone?)

If you’re a California resident, please call your assemblyman now, and explain politely what’s wrong with this bill and ask for a NO vote on SB 250.

Why?

Approaches based on forced spay-neuter, whether as a blanket requirement or this bizarre “surgery as punishment” model,  don’t work. Never have, anywhere. Not even in Santa Cruz.  Everywhere it has been tried it has led to more dead pets and more tax-payer money spent. And yet, the misinformation continues, supported by  well-meaning people who thinking mandating spay-neuter seems like it would work, and yes, a few die-hard haters who refuse to acknowledge that there is a gulf three oceans wide between what reputable, ethical breeders do and what puppy-milling scum do.

The people pushing mandatory spay-neuter also refuse to acknowledge what I have come to understand, as a person who has bred one litter and rescued, fostered, rehabbed and rehomed dozens and dozens of animals in my life: That we are all trying to do what’s best for the animals we love.  Reputable breeders and rescuers alike (and mind you, they are often one in the same). That said, there are plenty of spittle-spewing haters on the extremes of both sides, people who seem to care more about winning than helping.

I have had my fill of them, both the “breeder is a breeder” hater and the black helicopter folks, too.   Frankly, you should all be locked in a room together and someone should lose the key.

While some are busy pushing hate on the other side, others are  trying to reduce killing for overpopulation by building on proven cooperative community-wide no-kill models. And we’re trying to get there by building on common ground. This is what works, not forcing the poor to give up their pets so animal control can kill more of them.

The idea of no-kill communities is catching on.  In just the last few months, these changes from people who know about what works and what doesn’t:

• The ASPCA does NOT support mandatory spay-neuter.
• The HSUS has NOT come out in support of the latest version of mandatory spay-neuter in California. (I don’t CARE what you’ve read elsewhere: The HSUS is NOT IN SUPPORT of SB 250.)
• The AVMA does NOT support mandatory spay-neuter.
• Advocates for feral cats and no-kill solutions do NOT support mandatory spay-neuter.

Most of these organizations supported mandatory spay-neuter wholeheartedly not long ago. What changed? They saw that it doesn’t work.

The California Department of Finance does NOT support SB 250, either. They’re arguing just on the case of expense, which the state cannot afford.

And yet, because it “seems like a good idea,” last year’s AB 1634 has been recast as this year’s SB 250, and made even worse, since now spaying and neutering is a punishment for all pets, at the whim of animal control officers.

Who will be punished most? The people who are struggling the hardest to keep their pets. Studies show that more than 90 percent of people who can afford it already spay-neuter, and that more than half of people who cannot afford or get to spay-neuter services would have this done if they could.

Instead, mandatory spay-neuter pushes them to give up their pets, to increase the shelter killing. Since people love animals, they’ll pick up another pet, wash, rinse, repeat.

Read Christie’s earlier post on why no Democrat should be voting for this punishment for the poor. And yet, most are. The GOP has given this a party-line thumbs down, mostly because of the cost to tax-payers, I’d guess.

Call now.

I know there are a lot of you here who don’t trust HSUS. That’s fine; I am not writing this to change your mind on that. I have my issues with them myself, and have never been shy about saying so. But I’m asking you to consider something as you read the statement they just issued about the fate of the hundreds of dogs seized in the recent dog fighting bust.

Just a couple of months ago, HSUS was advocating the killing of more than 150 pit bulls taken from an accused dog fighter, even the puppies born after the bust took place. And those dogs were indeed killed. After that, a number of groups pretty much set the Internet on fire, among them Bad Rap and Best Friends Animal Society, who know a thing or two about evaluating and rehabbing fighting dogs.

Within a single day, Best Friends announced that HSUS would join them and a number of other animal advocates for a meeting about the fate of dogs seized in future fight busts, a meeting that was held last April and out of which came a statement that HSUS was going to reconsider its approach to these dogs and, at least in the interim, have a policy that all such dogs needed to be individually evaluated.

When last week’s bust happened, the considerable mistrust many people feel towards HSUS around this and other issues exploded again. Gina made a particularly powerful post demanding that dogs seized in these cases stop being an afterthought. Things got very heated in the comments section of that post, when Sarah from the HSUS Emerging Media department came by to defend her organization’s position on the dogs.

So far, pretty much business as usual. But today, HSUS issued a statement that is different from anything I’ve ever seen from them on this subject before. It’s short, and I’m going to reproduce almost the entire thing here:

The Humane Society of the United States is assisting with the daily care of the 407 dogs being held at an emergency shelter in Missouri. These dogs are being held as the primary evidence in the largest one-day series of federal dogfighting raids in U.S. history.

As federal law enforcement authorities are able to release the dogs, the Humane Society of Missouri as well as other key animal welfare organizations will provide expert evaluation of each dog to determine whether the dogs are suitable candidates for placement with rescue groups or permanent adoption.

The HSUS, BAD RAP, Best Friends Animal Society, Animal Farm Foundation and other animal protection organizations recently formed a working group to address the disposition of dogs seized from dogfighting operations.

The HSUS has a policy of recommending that all dogs seized from such operations be professionally evaluated to determine whether they are suitable candidates for adoption.

They also included one of the most powerful slideshows I’ve ever seen, a few images from which I’ve included here — each one masterfully calculated to say in a way words never could that these dogs are not the enemy, are not weapons, are not dangerous, are not evil, and should not be condemned.

Don’t get me wrong; I stand entirely with Gina that the day when any  group — HSUS, ASPCA, local animal control or law enforcement, anyone at all — can do a bust without a funded, humane plan for individual assessment of and care for the canine victims of dog fighting are over. HSUS is a wealthy organization and I think they’d better be ready to put their money where their words and photos are.

But from the days, the very recent days, when their official statements were that all fight bust dogs were so damaged they had to be killed, and of patting themselves on the back for breaking up a dog fighting operation even though the dogs themselves were now dead? This is change.

I mean, I don’t think everything is fine and HSUS is run by fairies with rainbow wings and they’re going to buy us all a nice pony now. I’m not stupid, and I’m not young and naive, either. I’ve seen organizations change and I know it’s ugly and slow and painful and non-linear, and I also know they usually change for the worse rather than the better.

But because I’m not stupid or naive, and because I’ve seen this before, I know what organizational change looks like when it happens, and it’s happening right now. I don’t know or care if it’s happening because the bean counters in the maw of the HSUS fundraising machine have simply realized that they can’t keep donations flowing in unless they change their tune, or because individuals within the organization genuinely care about animals and have applied pressure accordingly, or if the outrage of other animal organizations that HSUS wants to maintain good relationships with has penetrated the corporate wall — or a combination of all three.

All I care about is that the message has changed. Because when a huge, powerful institution’s messaging changes, so does the paradigm. It makes absolutely no difference which of those factors is responsible, or whether the change is genuine or not. The sea change will happen anyway.

And it’s happening because you made it happen. You made it happen by caring about the dogs. By raising a stink about the dogs. By posting photos of the dogs. By telling the world about the dogs — the ones who died in Wilkes County, and the ones who escaped electrocution and drowning in Virginia and went on to become family pets and therapy dogs.

I know many of you will simply refuse to consider that there’s any truth to what I’m saying. Your hatred and mistrust of HSUS is too deep. I don’t necessarily blame you; the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the HSUS of the LGBT movement, and just last month I refused to donate to them for the same reasons you don’t believe anything HSUS says. HSUS would have to do a lot more than this to gain or re-gain your trust.

But don’t let that blind you to the power of this type of message, even if it’s not genuine, even if you don’t believe it, even if they don’t actually cough up the bucks to go along with the heart-tugging photos.

This message, these photos, this statement, matter. Those things are going to help these dogs.

They already have.

I know you’re tired of hearing about SB 250, the slightly revised version of last year’s mandatory spay/neuter law, AB 1634. So am I. So here’s a solution for the problem: Let’s kill this thing now.

Tomorrow, the Assembly Appropriations Committee will hold its hearing on this bill, which basically sets up an expensive and cumbersome system whereby citizens will have to get a permit to own an animal who hasn’t had spay or neuter surgery — a discretionary, revokable permit that can be lost if that pet owner violates even the most minor of animal laws, like having a dog off leash in the parking lot of the dog park. Seriously.

Worst of all, under SB 250, intact animals whose owners lose their permits can be seized and altered without their owners’ consent — a truly frightening “surgery as punishment” concept that takes what should be a private decision between a dog or cat owner and the pet’s veterinarian and puts it in the hands of the government and local animal control.

They want to do this to reach a goal everyone who loves animals shares: to save the lives of shelter animals in the state of California. The problem, of course, is that this legislation won’t do that; mandatory spay/neuter has never reduced shelter intake or shelter deaths anywhere it’s been tried.

What does work are the programs Los Angeles is now scrambling to implement a year after their mandatory spay/neuter law went into effect and accomplished absolutely none of its goals. The law won’t work without the programs, but the programs do work without the law… so hey, California, how about this idea: When we get our budget mess sorted out and have a few dollars to spend in the short term to massively reduce animal control spending in the long term, let’s implement those programs across the state. They work. Mandatory spay/neuter laws don’t.

In the meantime, are you out of your minds enough to consider for one minute passing a law that has sent Los Angeles’ costs skyrocketing and will, according to the state’s own analysis, be extremely expensive to implement?

That’s the question facing the Appropriations Committee tomorrow, July 15. And they need to hear from everyone just what a bad and expensive idea this is — because that’s what they’re all about, how much things cost.

Save Our Dogs has done an amazing job setting up a clearing house of information about the bill, a letter writing template, a list of legislators’ phone numbers, and even a form you can fill out so Save Our Dogs can send the letter for you. It takes only a few minutes, and everything you need to get the job done is right here.

Please, go on over and tell California SB 250 is bad for animals and bad for the state. (It’s also bad for poor people, which you’d think might move some of the Democratic lawmakers who keep voting for this damn thing.) When the budget mess is sorted out, yes, there is a way to save lives and money — but mandatory spay/neuter isn’t it, and “surgery as punishment” sure as hell isn’t it.

The bill now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, according to Save Our Dogs. The State Department of Finance opposes the measure because it would increase costs–an insane move when the state faces a projected $21.3 billion (yes, billion!) budget shortfall–so it’s hoped that the bill will die there, but that’s not something opponents can count on.

It’s not too late to call and write, according to Susan Hamil, a longtime Bloodhound breeder and dog judge who is involved with CHIC and AKC’s Canine Health Foundation and is outspoken and passionate when it comes to this type of legislation. (Full disclosure: Susan is my vet’s wife and we’ve been friends for years.) We spoke earlier today about the bill’s progress–it was being debated in committee while we talked.

Kim Thornton: So have you been in Sacramento lobbying against this bill? I know John is there, or was yesterday.

Susan Hamil: John is there. He’s coming back this afternoon. Lots of organizations that I know wrote in opposing 250 are not listed as being opposed to it. It’s just criminal. The state of California is about to go bankrupt and [Democratic State Senate Majority Leader Dean] Florez is pulling out all the stops to get this passed. And I’m appalled at the money HSUS has that they’re putting into this legislation.

Kim Thornton: I thought HSUS wasn’t supporting this.

Susan Hamil: They are! Are they ever! It’s ASPCA that doesn’t support this.

Kim Thornton: It’s my understanding that HSUS has not come out in favor of it. [Note: HSUS makes no mention  of SB250 on the legislation page of its website.]

Susan Hamil: John was telling me last night that when he went into Florez’s office, there was HSUS stuff all over the office. There were all kinds of brochures and signs. Don’t tell me they’re not behind this.

Kim Thornton: Do you think Arnold will veto it if it passes?

Susan Hamil: I have no idea. I think if they don’t pass a budget, he’s going to veto everything.

Kim Thornton: So what’s going to happen if 250 passes?

Susan Hamil: On the surface, it sounds like something everybody could support, but when you really read the bill, you realize that if, in a city like Laguna Beach, where leaf blowers are illegal, my neighbor could have some guy using an illegal leaf blower, cause my dog to bark, I could be cited, my intact dog could be taken away from me and spayed or neutered, and the only hearing process would be through animal control. It’s worded in a way that animal control can be very arbitrary in how they approach this.

Kim Thornton: What would be a better piece of legislation, if any?

Susan Hamil: I think we should quit all this stupid 250 and 241 and have everybody get together and lobby to keep the Hayden Bill. The Hayden Bill did two things: It increased the hold time for stray animals and it required that they be spayed or neutered. That was a huge issue because it made sure that animal shelters, which are the largest source of reproductively intact animals, spayed or neutered pets before they went out.

Also, they never separate the cat and dog problems. Those are two completely different problems. 250 would make feral cat feeders criminals. They’d come in and round up all those cats and do what with them? Kill them.

Kim Thornton: Why do you think this type of legislation is so popular even though it doesn’t work?

Susan Hamil: Here’s the thing. If you get involved in the shelter world and rescue, you become so angry at people for not taking care of animals the way you think they should take care of them, that you end up restricting pet ownership and making it so onerous. In your desire for retribution, your frustration and anger and your perception of the way animals are treated, then you’ll do anything to try and punish people rather than help pets. People want to believe the worst of everything and they somehow think that if you never have puppies again…. Everybody’s ‘buy local, buy local’; well, what are we doing? We’re putting everybody who could have a litter of puppies that you could actually go see where they’re born out of business. We’re making it too onerous for them to actually have a litter of puppies. So what do we get? We get the lowest common denominator.

Kim Thornton: We get cheap imports from Eastern Europe.

Susan Hamil: And how are we going to stop that?

They’re getting more and more clever in how they present these bills. They know what the public will accept.

Susan checks the news online as we talk. Well, it looks like 250 is out of committee. The vote was 6 to 3. It’s so anti-dog. If your neutered dog is barking and carrying on, then what do they do? Take it away? We’re passing so many anti-pet laws: anti-barking, limiting numbers of pets.

This is the thing that makes me crazy. If you were in the shelter business and you were complaining because you had to kill dogs or cats, then why would you keep restricting pet ownership?

Me again. After I finished transcribing the interview with Susan, I decided to call and see if John was back from Sacramento. I asked him about the lobbying process and what he thought would happen next. Here’s the Twitterized version of what he said.

John Hamil, DVM: It’s a difficult and highly political process. Decisions are generally made along political lines and votes are almost invariably by party. Our two major points are “costs more, doesn’t solve the problem.” And in many instances, aggravates it. There is no nationally recognized group that ’s listed in support of this bill and many of the groups that supported 1634 are not listed in support of 250. Many of the groups have actually taken the trouble to write positions against it.

I was asked ‘Gee, you’re a veterinarian. It seems counterintuitive that you wouldn’t be in favor of this. Can you explain why the AVMA is against this?’ So I got to say two things: it interferes with the doctor-client-patient relationship on a life-threatening procedure that has many complications, not only of anesthesia, surgery, blood loss and infection, but also as complications of postsurgical effects on increasing certain cancers and causing certain orthopedic problems. But the major thing is that it doesn’t save dogs’ lives and it costs more money.

I specifically pointed out, using their example of Santa Cruz, that Santa Cruz, which is the best model they have, is not as successful as its neighbors who don’t have [mandatory spay/neuter].

It’s frustrating because you don’t find out until you’re standing outside in the hall how they’re going to set it up. They say ‘You’ve got five minutes, two speakers.’ So all the stuff you have prepared that would give you a logical flow of thought, you just don’t have time to do that. You have to pick out ‘Okay, you emphasize these two things; I’ll try to do these two things,’ and you end up not doing as good a job as you’d like to do.

It’s not over. It still has to go to finance. The California department of finance went out on the biggest limb I’ve ever seen. They said this was going to cost millions and millions of dollars to reimburse local governments.

I think ultimately that we’re going to prevail because we do have the economic thing on our side and we have the facts on our side. I don’t think the governor is going to allow very many bills to pass that have any money tied to them.

Mandatory spay-neuter doesn’t work. Never has, anywhere. Everywhere it has been tried it has led to more dead pets and more tax-payer money spent. And yet, the lies continue, pushed by people who believe “a breeder is a breeder is a breeder” and all are bad. (Not even close to true, but this isn’t about the truth for these zealots.)

But some are finally figuring out that mandatory spay-neuter is a bad idea that doesn’t help any pets and is more about control and hate on the part of a few extremists.  In just the last few months, these changes from people who know about what works and what doesn’t:

• The ASPCA does NOT support mandatory spay-neuter.
• The HSUS has NOT come out in support of the latest version of mandatory spay-neuter in California. (I don’t CARE what you’ve read elsewhere: The HSUS is NOT IN SUPPORT of SB 250.)
• The AVMA does NOT support mandatory spay-neuter.
• Advocates for feral cats and no-kill solutions do NOT support mandatory spay-neuter.

The California Department of Finance does NOT support SB 250, either. They’re arguing just on the case of expense, which the state cannot afford.

And yet, because of the support of  animal-rights extremists with big campaign contributions and a spittle-spewing hatred of reputable, ethical compassionate breeders and no-kill advocates,  last year’s AB 1634 has been recast as this year’s SB 250, and made even worse, since now spaying and neutering is a punishment for all pets, at the whim of animal control officers.

This pet-killer bill with a big price tag goes before a California state Assembly committee tomorrow.

I’ll be spending my evening faxing letters to the committee members arguing that we need neither more dead pets nor more tax-payer money spent to pursue the vendettas of extremists who’ve duped a bunch of well-meaning animal-lovers with their lies.

I encourage all of you to do the same, fax your opposition to SB 250 before 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Read Christie’s earlier post, and regular reader JenniferJ’s comment, and get your letters faxed. Tomorrow, call and voice your opposition. The entire state is falling apart, and our Legislators are considering spending money to kill more pets?

Enough.

Visit the excellent SaveOurDogs Web site to see just how dreadful a piece of pet-killing slime this is. And get busy.  Contact information at SaveOurDogs.  Fax. Call.

The time is now. And if not now, maybe never.

I am proud to have bred a litter to help preserve one of our working heritage breeds. And I am proud to have run a pet-rescue organization.  I am proud to stand with those who support feral cat colonies and no-kill communities, and who fight people who secretly want an end to all pets so they cannot be “exploited.” I am done letting extremists and haters set the agenda without a fight. I am done letting them speak for the majority when they do not represent us.

Stand with me and say no to the extremists and the haters:  Call and fax your objections to SB 250 now.