I’ll be liveblogging the town hall meeting, so just a couple of reminders: This is live, so there will be typos. Only things in quotations marks are direct quotes; everything else is a paraphrase. I’ll update now and then, so if you come across this post while the event is still in progress, just hit “refresh” to see new material.

Here we go. :)

This town hall is part of a series of events across the nation. Jennifer Fearing is head of HSUS here in California, and she is speaking first.

This is Wayne’s first California town hall, in “America’s most humane city,” San Francisco. This is Wayne’s fifth year as CEO of HSUS. So much has changed so rapidly in those years.

Wayne takes the podium.

Thanks audience for coming, thanks Jennifer. “We’re very blessed to have so many people devoted to changing the world.”

Thank you all for supporting the organization. For 10 years before becoming CEO, was in charge of communications and before that, head of Fund For Animals. Has spent his whole life focused on animals.

As a little kid, he knew animals were different — in good ways. Beautiful, thick fur, ran fast… I thought, this is magic. These animals are incredible. I didn’t need a degree in animal science or philosophy to know I needed to be decent to animals. I think kids naturally understand this. It’s about reclaiming that instinctive reaction to animals.

We don’t really argue that humans and non-humans are equals. Frankly, we are not all equal in terms of our abilities as humans. We have diversity within our own communities. We don’t give more attention or respect to the people who do something better. We realize everyone matters. A civil society works when we all work together.

We aren’t just concerned with our own ends. We interact with each other, with other nations. We have to be good to each other. That is what makes society work. And we want to extend that to animals, too.

That doesn’t require equality, but there are ways in which animals are our equals. They want to live, care about family members. They don’t have to be just like us, though, for us to care about them.

When it comes to animals, we (humans) hold all the cards. Look at how we dealt with the buffalo, for example — attitude of dominance. In just a few decades we eradicated 40-60 million bison. Now have only 5000 animals surviving in Yellowstone Park.

The passenger pigeon used to fly in flocks so large they would “blot out the sun.” The last one died in the 40s.

We have incredible destructive power if we don’t impose some limits. We want to balance the interests in society, and prove we can have a good, decent life without hurting animals.

Says bless everyone who cares about rabbits, pit bulls, feral cats, wolves… we have incredible pluralism when it comes to animals. It adds up to a powerful movement.

HSUS has a particular role in this movement. We want to care for animals on the ground. We want hands on care. We want to combat animal cruelty on any level. But we also want to take a big picture approach.

Wayne brings up Center for Consumer Freedom, says it’s a badge of honor that they attack HSUS. He says they say HSUS does not run all the animal shelters in this country…. Wayne says nowhere on their website do they say they do, but they do help shelters who do this vital work.

Eight million dogs and cats enter shelters every year. 3 million of them are euthanized even though they are healthy and treatable. We have nearly tripled the number of animals in people’s homes, and the number euthanized has gone down dramatically.

We’re very excited about the project we’ve launched with Maddie’s Fund, the Shelter Pet Project. It is pointing out that just because an animal is in a shelter doesn’t mean the animal has a defect. Maybe there was a divorce or illness.

Shelter animals are fabulous. They’re vaccinated, sterilized, wonderful. We need to address the needs of those 3 million healthy treatable animals.

But what about the hundreds of millions of animals killed for fur, used in medical testing, harmed in inhumane agriculture. HSUS will never restrict itself to just those dogs and cats.

The fate of animals raised for food must be the focus of anyone concerned about animal welfare. Agriculture doesn’t just operate at high volume, but so many in agribusiness view them as meat, milk and egg producing machines. Connection between farmer and animal has been severed. How do you have a connection with animals when there are 150K laying hens or 17K pigs in confinement. Very little labor input, great mechanization. How do you have that connection?

We feel a duty to address animal issues related to ag. The genetics of how we have transformed these animals to turn them into meat, milk and egg producing machines.

So many of you who worked on Prop 2 here in California, and our friend, Senator Dean Florez who is here tonight — we addressed this issue through the initiative process, and we faced  a wide range of opponents. Egg, pork, veal industry. We were saying animals that are built to move should b3e allowed to move. It’s not about eating animals or not eating animals, but IF animals are going to be raised for food, they should not be treatedin this inhumane way.

A lot of us who care about this issue get overwhelmed with the idea that there is so much abuse, but this was an example of how the majority of people decided we should be better to animals. And despite the claims of opponents that food prices would soar, people still thought we should be decent to animals.

It’s had a long tail already. Maine and Michigan have adopted measures to protect farm animals, too. Michigan is seventh state in last 3 years to restrict these inhumane egg producing practices.

We need to think about our food  choices. We need to care about how these billions of animals are treated. And it’s not sustainable — water, soil, environmental issues.

I want to address the subject of Michael Vick. Some of you have written to me about this. I have listened to all the voices. This is a very personal one for me. I talked to a friend of mine who is a court certified expert on dog fighting in Sacramento (Eric?). He told Wayne there are 5 states where cock fighting is legal, mostly a misdemeanor.

Dog fighting, including street fighting, is on the rise. Young kids, mostly African American and Latino, are fighting their dogs in alleys and streets.

Wayne said they had to do something. At that point we said we’re going to ratchet up our dog fighting and cock fighting campaign. Cock fighting is now illegal in all states, and dog fighting is a felony in all 50 states. Also banned interstate travel of fighting animals, which is one of the things Vick was charged with.

Vick should not have gotten off. We pursued that case with vigor. We provided a key confidential informant, campaigned to get the NFL, Nike, the Falcons to drop him. We took that anger and immediately began to channel it into action.

We upgraded the federal law, and now 27 states have upgraded their laws, including California. We have a tip line and a rewards program. Vick was convicted, of course — federal prosecutors took it seriously. He pled guilty. He got a strict sentence and served two years in prison. (Note from Christie: but not for anything he did to the dogs. For racketeering.)

Vick came to HSUS, the organization that helped send him to prison. They talked for a long time. “I said Michael, you want to be involved in anti dog fighting work, and that’s great. We’re always looking for recruits. But I don’t want you to do a PSA. I want you to talk to the kids we’re not having much of a discourse with.”

Vick started fighting dogs when he was 8 years old. Those kids never hear from someone like me, and they never hear from an athlete telling them these things are wrong.

Are we about endlessly flogging an individual, or are we ab out societal change. It’s very easy to get a Jennifer Fearing involved. But can we take people who take terrible things and make them a contributing member of society, to reach audiences we have never reached?

If he doesn’t fulfill his obligations, if he doesn’t live up to this, we’ll be the first to criticize him. But I’ve seen Michael Vick telling people who never listen to me, don’t do what I did. Be good to animals.

“The proof is in the pudding. N9othing good comes from just isolating him.” I want him to contribute with his labor to combat the ongoing scourge of street fighting….”

Our movement is too fractured. We’re not having the impact we could have. On my second day as CEO, I told Mike Markarian, we can be stronger if we unite. Merged with Fund For Animals. Pour savings into new programs and activities.

Made same pitch to Doris Day. Said it would be her legacy. Want an organization as powerful on our issues as NRA is on theirs.

We’ve merged with several organizations not becuase we’re on ap ower kick, but because the animals need a powerful group. Need best lobbyists, communications specialists, veterinarians.

I’m heartened by the change. I see more cruelty and suffering than most of youcould contemplate. I see it on the ground, I see the footage from all sorts of terrible operations. I see the worst sides of humanity. But I also see the best. I see people like you, who take money from your pocket and time from your schedule, who expose yourself to the emotional pain and resolve to take action to make this world a better place.

This year we broke the record for new animal protection laws… 117. In four years we’ve nearly doubled the output. We have more traction with congress. 47 lawyers working in our litigation department.

Burgeoning awareness, surge of lawmaking — things are changing. With animals is not all or nothing.

Animal abuse, and poverty, and violations of human rights will always be with us. But it doesn’t mean you give up. All these things we do change the lives of individual animals, and every life saved is a 100 percent victory for that animal.

If you ever feel overwhelmed, think about that one animal.

Each of us has the power to change the life of one animal. And together as a group as large as HSUS, we have the power to change billions.

Introduced Sen. Dean Florez, Humane Legislator of the Year. Audience gave standing ovation.

Florez: Very proud to receive award. My county is the biggest factory farming area in the state.  Barack Obama lost overwhelmingly there. Prop 8 passed humongously. But Prop 2 passed big time. If you’ve got Kern County, you’ve won.

Said I’m Latino, and I want to talk about Michael Vick. That’s a message we just don’t hear anywhere. Our kids are learning what Michael Vick learned at a very young age. It makes a difference when a Michael Vick, where you never see people of color address this issue — if Wayne can get Michael Vick to go into these areas, we will change California in a very big way.

Applause.

(They showed a video I’ll have more to say about later. Taking opportunity to fix some typos.)

Open to questions from audience, mixed with questions submitted in advance through website.

Q: What are we going to do about “crush” videos.

A: Bob Stevens is a publisher and videographer of dog fighting video. We got a law passed making it illegal to sell images of animal cruelty. We used them against “crush” videos, and “crush”industry went away under threat of federal felony. Bob Stevens was convicted and appealed. Court overturned statute and said it was overbroad and vague and interfered with free speech.

Bush’s lawyers appealed up to Supreme Court, and then Obama’s solicitor general stayed with the case. 36 state attorneys general sided with us; none against us. Media organizations took position it was against free speech.

Did not go well and he expects they’ll affirm overturning, but will give guidelines on how this can be accomplished if it goes back to Congress.

Q: Database of animal abusers?

A: Is in progress.

Q: You say you’re a threat to agribusiness, but what about animal research? Interest and energy has waned. What is HSUS doing to end animal research?

A: Animal research is the toughest issue. We are focusing on animal TESTING. We’re working with P&G, DuPont, many other orgs. We see by perhaps 2020 a worldwide end to animal testing. In Europe, 4.5 million animals will be saved from chemical testing.

I don’t quite see the political pathway to ending animal research. We are seeing alternatives being effective. Our approach is refining techniques to elminate pain and distress; reduce numbers; replace with non-animal approaches. Many instituations are embracing this “3 R” approach.

Q: Can anti-trust laws be used against agribusiness?

A: You see fewer producers, more animals. I do think there are issues here, and opportunities. We want to work with companies to change their practices, but we’ll look at all legal options — anti-trust, environmental, anti-cruelty.

It is folks in rural communities who suffer the most from factory farming. Groundwater polluted. Can’t walk out of their homes. We want to make alliance with farm workers and residents of rural areas.

Recc’d Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “Fast Food Nation.”

Q: National law about transporing horses for slaughter for human consumption.

A: Horses are going to Mexico, Canada. We definitely have notes in the US House to pass this, and we’re encouraging Nancy Pelosi. Very confident we’ll psas in House, but we may need 60 votes because there may be a filibuster. Ask your lawmakers to get behind this legislation and fight for it. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Q: Wild horses are being harassed. HSUS is supporting a law that will basically eradicate those horses. Land set aside to protect these horses has been whittled away. Rome Act passed House in July, stuck in Senate. Please re-think supporting this horrible, horrible proposition.

A: According to BLM there are 35K wild horses and burros in US. In 1971 Congress passed law to protect them as living symbols of our heritage. We suppor that but are disappointed in its implementation.

BLM manages the land, and the cattle industry and other resource users in the west don’t like the fact that wild horses and burros eat grass and forage on our public lands. They want to graze cattle there. Big push to round up the horses, by helicopter or other means. Remove them from the range, then adopt them out.

The problem is, they have removed more horses than they can adopt, and now have 32K wild horses and burros in short term holding facilities. Using money to care for captive horses that was supposed to go to care for them on public lands.

We supported the Rome Act. But we see the fact that it’s going to be very difficult in Congress to reclaim those lands. Political power in Senate will fight that. Unless we change the dynamic, I fear we’ll be on the treadmill with it.

HSUS spent millions of dollars to develop a contraceptive vaccine to delay or stall reproduction in horses. We’re been using it in the East on island to slow growth of population. More human population control

So what we embraced from Salazar was his pledge that they were going to re-orient this program and focus on contraception rather than round up and eradication. We are going to work in the House to get the right provisions.

They want to move the captive populations to Eastern and Midwestern states. The lands in the East have more grass and forage. We want fewer round ups and fewer removals, and more contraception. Details will be sorted out in Congress, and I assure you we’ll be advocates for the wild horses and burros.

Q: Status on mandatory spay/neuter bill, SB 250. Meant to have fines on backyard breeders and ban puppy mills.

A: That’s Dean’s bill. It’s not mandatory spay/neuter. It’s differential licensing, and you’d pay a higher fee if you had an intact animal. (From Christie: ummm, no.) Presumption in bill is to encourage s/n but not mandatory s/n. It didn’t have anything to do with puppy mills. There are no fines for backyard breeding.

Person in audience: I got my information from the head of the Santa Cruz SPCA. I guess I got bad information.

Q: Fighting aerial hunting of wolves.

A: Doing this in wilderness areas where there aren’t even any human-wolf conflicts. I’m very disappointed in Obama administration on the wolf issues. De-listed wolves in Northern Rockies and tried to de-list Great Lakes wolves. De-listed in Montana and Idaho, and some of the Yellowstone wolves who strayed out of the park were killed by a hunter. Obama admin has done some good things for animals but has some problems as well.

Q: Im against breeding animals, as most are in this room. I started doing volunteer work for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and I encourage people to do up there and have a tour. They do breed the dogs there for a specific purpose. I’m proud of how the animals are treated there. What is position of HSUS on that?

A: There are around 165 million dogs and cats in people’s homes. 3 million healthy and treatable euthanized. Around 20 percent of dogs and cats come from shelters, 80 percent from other sources. THere are not enough dogs and cats in shelters to satisfy the demand. Breeding is necessary at some level. It needs to be done in a responsible sort of way.

We have been targeting the puppy mills, breeding activities that cause genetic problems in purebreds, that lead to chronic phytsical problems. They need to engage in proper breeding so these animals don’t suffer as they get older.

As regards service animals, our policy is on our website. We like to have shelter animals used ,  but we are not opposed to it either way.

Q: How do we help animals without resorting to ballot initiatives and infighting?

A: We don’t want to do ballot initiatives, but agribusiness has too much power to fight any other way. Tail docking of cows, veal confinement, no standards of human slaughter for poultry — we are very eager to talk to the ag community. I’ll talk to anyone about these problems. I want to talk to hunters about ending canned hunts, to animal researchers — a lot of good people are involved on the other side, and we want to move them in our direction. I want to nurture the best instincts in everyone we deal with.

Audience comment: “If it’s a woman in a fur coat speaking out against veal, I’ll take it.”

Question: Do yuou have a timeline on when shelter deaths will go down to zero?

A: I’m hoping by 2015. I’m hoping the Shelter Pet Project will be part of that. The research done  for that campaign showed there are 41 million Americans planning on getting an animal who haven’t decided where they’ll get that  animal yet. 17 million will get one in the next year. We only need to turn 3 million of f hem.

This is research driven. It’s statistic driven. We spend a lot of money on rescue, but look at Pfizer or whoever, now we all know what erectile dysfunction is, why don’t we have advertising for animals to drive the message? (Applause)

You now, we are all coming at this from different positions. You know, hunters love their dogs. For someone, they might change overnight when they visit a slaughterhouse. For others, it will be a gradual thing.

Q: Those three million dogs and cats being killed in shelters. I see cooperation wtih you and Maddie’s Fund here and with the ASPCA  in the Helmsley lawsuit, but I don’t see it on the community level. There is so much infighting. Can you devote your influence to healing the gap between people in the community (re: no-kill)?

A: The no-kill movement has caused us to question the use of euthanasia as a tool to manage excess population. We (HSUS) have embraced no-kill as a goal. Killing animals is a bad thing.

I have seen many traditional shelters who have embraced this 2020 viasion to eliminate euthanasia in this country. I don’t see this divide between traditional and no-kill shelters anymore.  Maddie’s Fund has been a leader in that area. But there are difficult personalities who cloak their antagonism in an ideological difference.

Audience: It might help if you could reach out and heal that divide, too. (Applause, laughter.)

(I missed a question re: declawing — sorry.)

Q: Greyhound racing. 10K dogs being killed each year, not humanely. And greyhound racing often comes under state gaming, so with muscle of HSUS, what can you do? (She is from Greyhound Friends for Life.)

HSUS: We support the end of greyhound racing, And greyhound racing is dying. It’s being overtaken by other kinds of gambling. Tracks not pleasant, people wagering less. We see key as Florida. We are working to de-couple gambling and racing, as a first step.

Wayne: Invited everyone to read his blog. Applause, thanks, end.

Those are questions I had to consider when my mother passed away last month, and I had to choose an animal charity to receive donations in her memory.

I picked a small, local group with which I was familiar, but out of the process I got the idea for my column this week on SFGate.com:

Should you always direct your donations to small and local groups? Large national organizations tend to have high administrative costs and usually don’t do real hands-on animal care. However, they also have a lot more influence and power, and their infrastructure, while costly, can amplify the power of your donation, even if it’s a small one.

Smaller groups tend to get their hands dirty when it comes to saving animals from bad situations, and to really effect change that can be seen and measured on a local level. But those groups can have their own problems, such as a lack of effective outreach and management, or a failure to maximize their resources.

Large or small, local or national, the key is to dig into what groups are actually doing, and make sure you want to give them money. A couple of hours on Google can be very enlightening if you want to get an idea of what a charity really does with its revenues.

[....]

No matter the size or mission of the charity you’re evaluating, when you’re digging, dig deep. That’s because some animal lovers might be surprised to learn that a group that runs a campaign they want to support — ending inhumane agricultural practices or protecting wildlife, for instance — also funds others they oppose.

Fortunately, it’s often possible to support the part of a group’s work in which you do believe rather than those in which you don’t. Just be sure to earmark those donations for the program you want to see benefited, and not to the group’s general fund.

In fact, such targeted giving is often the most effective in making a difference in the lives of animals.

For example, both shelters and large national groups sometimes do special fundraisers for specific programs, like providing medical care to homeless pets or for one particular pet in need. It might not change the world or even the life of another pet in a similar situation, but it can save that one animal, and that can be one of the most rewarding kinds of donations to make.

Read the whole thing here, and enjoy the knots I tie myself into trying not to name any of the organizations in question — per SFGate.com’s writer’s guidelines.

Kitteh is Panda, owned and photographed by Bonnie Keller.

The third annual Darcy FUNDay took place on Saturday, September 26, which happens to be my husband’s birthday and is close to the actual founding date of the Darcy Fund three years ago. For the past five years I’ve had a pretty good run of scheduling special events for Jerry’s birthday–think full moon hanging over Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, for instance–so I’m going to have to go all out next year to top making him work like a, well, dog moving tables and hauling boxes and taking pictures in the hot sun and just generally being my errand boy. He did get presented with a painting of Darcy by artist Betty Turner, though, so I guess it was a fair exchange.

The Gang of Four–Tamela Klisura, Rima Gerendas, Petra Tiber and I–have been planning this event for six or eight weeks. Tamela, aka the blonde tornado, is the general, assigning tasks and following up to make sure everything is on track. She’s not afraid to crack the whip if she thinks we’re slacking off. I think she was Eisenhower in a previous life. Rima and Petra are her incredibly able colonels, hustling up amazing gift baskets from Three Dog Bakery, White Lotus Day Spa, Dawgy Style, California Fine Wine Tasting, Pet Junction, Crown Valley Animal Care Center, Romantic Style, Wild’s Animal Supplies and more. They planned the color scheme, shopped for all the decorations, organized the sign-in and silent auction sheets, and wrapped all the donated items. Pam and Mike Becker and Suzie Cordes couldn’t come because of previous commitments, but they showed up early to help set up. Now those are real friends! Our husbands are the muscle and transportation. We couldn’t do without them.

Me? I write the songs, I mean the checks, kept track of the registrations, rounded up speakers, and did my share of acquiring prizes. They included  books and magazines from publishers TFH and Bowtie; decorative Cavalier items from our good friend and breeder of Bella and Harper Joanne Nash; signed copies from D. Caroline Coile, Ph.D, of her book Cavaliers: A Complete Pet Owner’s Manual (if I couldn’t write this book, I’m glad Caroline did); the gorgeous Cavaliers in Fact and Fancy by Barbara Garnett-Wilson, generously donated every year by Barbara and her husband Roy; a fancy Private Quarters dog bed, donated by Oklahoma dog lover Ann Campbell (yes, I hit up my relatives, too); and a really large and excellent donation of food and treat gift baskets as well as samples for everyone from The Honest Kitchen. Besides being dehydrated and thus the perfect travel food for our many road trips, HK is cool because the company is switching over its chicken-based foods to use only sustainably farmed, free-range chicken from Petaluma Poultry. When it comes to pet foods that are natural and environmentally responsible, they do their best to walk the walk.

Approximately 60 people gathered for our games, speakers and potluck picnic. We’re not a typical breed club. We call ourselves the South Orange County Cavalier Companions, and we’re pet owners who started meeting informally at a Mission Viejo park about 10 years ago. Through word of mouth, we’ve grown to approximately 250, although not everyone comes to every meeting.People have moved or live an hour or more away, but usually you can find 20 or 30 of us at one of the regular meetings and 40 or more at a Darcy FUNDay. There are always a few who have been there since the beginning and knew the Darcinator in person, but everyone seems enthusiastic about the cause, or at least the good time that we have.

We don’t discriminate. Along with all the Cavaliers were a Boston Terrier, a Tibetan Spaniel, a Cocker Spaniel and a pretty little mix who might have been a Lhasapoo or a Cavachon. Someone with a Bernese Mountain Dog walked by our site. Tamela’s husband, Mike, laughed. “Look, a giant tricolor.” The more typically sized tricolor to the right is clearly in, uh, hunting mode. Also seen were a ladybug, a cheerleader and a firefighter.

Pet edu-tainer and my cocktail buddy Arden Moore made her second appearance at the event, sharing tips on petiquette in public. If Tamela was a general in a previous life, I think Arden was a bouncer in a biker bar. How else could she give such great advice on breaking up fights in dog parks and, even better, preventing them in the first place? “If you see dogs starting to look tense, use a happy voice to distract and divert them,” she says. “Change the mood by making yourself the object of attention or getting them to chase a ball.” Arden travels with her dogs even more than I do, so she also had good tips on hotel stays, dining at cafes (hint: don’t let your dog sit in a chair or lick your plate) and air travel.

On a more serious note, veterinary cardiologist Sarah Jane Miller addressed the basics of mitral valve disease, including signs and treatment, and new medications such as pimobendan (Vetmedin) and took questions from the audience about diet, exercise and lifespan. I can’t say enough good things about veterinarians like Dr. Miller who are willing to give up their Saturday morning to help educate pet owners or participate in health clinics so that people who might not otherwise have a chance to take their dogs to a specialist can have the opportunity to learn more or to get a baseline report on their dog’s condition. We hope she’ll come back sometime. I spent a lot of time worrying about Bella, concerned that she would be stressed by all the people, dogs and activity, not to mention the heat, even though the pen was in a shaded, breezy area, but she was a trooper and did just fine. I was still glad a cardiologist was there, though.

I always feel bad for my dogs during this event. I don’t think they’ve ever gotten to participate in any of the games or contests. No “fastest biscuit eater” or “race to owner” or “longest ears” or “oldest dog” or “cutest costume” for them. They’re stuck in the Cavalier corral, begging for attention from strangers while I make the rounds to ensure that all is going well or make announcements or answer questions. (I think they’re grateful that they’re not in the costume contest, though.)  Tamela’s dogs didn’t get to come, either. The English Toys stayed home, and Farley, a handsome ruby boy, was in the hospital with pneumonia, fighting for his life. Tamela had planned to bring him home yesterday afternoon, but when she got to the hospital he had taken a turn for the worse. We’re all pulling for him. He’s a sweet dog and a poster boy for Cavaliers: 9 years old and murmur-free. I just got the good news that Tamela is picking him up from the veterinary hospital. That makes me happy. He and Darcy were special friends, as seen in the photo above, and I’d hate to see anything happen to him.

Arden did a brief video of the event, so if these photos leave you wanting more, here is where to see it. We haven’t totaled the amount brought in yet, but it’s well over $1,600 so far.

When I started the Darcy Fund three years ago, I wasn’t really sure how exactly we would raise funds for it, but Tamela gave me the first FUNDay as a birthday present, and we’ve continued them ever since. I can’t thank her enough for coming up with the idea. These events have been more fun than I ever imagined, and I have been surrounded by wonderful people  who are really the ones who make it happen every year. My goal now is to see Darcy FUNDays spread to other Cavalier groups around the country or to inspire people in other breeds to start their own fund. Together we can make a difference in all our dogs’ lives.

Five of us met Monday night to decide on games, speakers, prizes and refreshments and get our act together on insurance coverage and park reservations. I have a great team of go-getters from our Cavalier park group who are helping to set this year’s event in motion. Petra and Rima met last week and came up with an amazing list of ideas for themes and games; Tamela is our communications person; I’m working on pet-related prize donations and speaker arrangements; Petra is doing the park reservation; she and Rima are organizing the food and decorations; and Wendy and Suzie will help make phone calls to expand our prize offerings beyond the pet world. Jerry and the other husbands are the muscle and go-fers.

In my book, a successful meeting is always followed by margaritas, so we went across the street to dinner, accompanied by Petra’s ruby Cavalier, Henry. We all first met Henry a little more than a year ago when as a puppy he was left on the doorstep–not kidding!–at our veterinarian’s office. Tamela stepped up to foster him, but she needed a place to leave him for the day, so he came to our house. Harper wasn’t much older than he was–maybe 8 months to his 4 months–and she was thrilled to have a playmate so close to her own age. They spent the day tearing around the house like little maniacs. He soon went to live with Petra, and it’s fun to see him now as a lanky adolescent.

It was clearly the dog dining hour at El Ranchito. Every time we turned around, someone with a dog was walking in or out of the patio area. I do love living in a dog-friendly area. At a recent stop for a late-night dessert in Laguna Beach, the hostess quickly waved us onto the patio with Harper instead of making us tie her up just outside it, which is the usual policy at this place. Harper justified her kindness by curling up on the wall out of sight and going to sleep. She may yet be calming down enough in public to earn therapy dog certification. One can hope.

The first wrong was the piece itself, which was pulled down after the HSUS cried foul over the contents. This triggered an Internet game of whack-a-mole, as the piece popped up seemingly everywhere, and when that seemed to abate, the transcript was floated around instead.

Mainly, the piece claimed the HSUS raised money under false pretenses, giving the impression that the advocacy group claims direct responsibility for shelter operations, which it does not and does not claim to. But that wasn’t good enough for the TV station, which reported:

Critics tell Channel 2 Action News reporter Amanda Rosseter that this isn’t just consumers misunderstanding who they are giving in to – but an organization actively misleading donors to get money.

“They do their marketing very well, that’s for sure,” said Trey Burley of PAWS Atlanta.

Critics say the national organization takes advantage of people who think they are giving to local shelters. DeKalb’s “PAWS” shelter says there is no regular funding help from the $100 million HSUS budget.

“I think that some of the folks who donate to the national organization may be under the false pretense that that money is going to a local cause,” said Burley.

This isn’t news. In fact, there’s a section in my book “Dogs For Dummies” (1994) that discusses the importance of direct donations to local shelters and rescue groups. When you give to the HSUS, you’re providing mostly for animal advocacy, lobbying for animal laws and investigations. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that.

Without even creasing my brow I can think of a dozen non-animal-related organizations that do the same. Lobbying, after all, is a stand-alone business, and I doubt many of the professional lobbyists in Washington or Sacramento spend much of their time involved with the management of the industry groups  or social interests they represent. (Pulitzer prize-winning reporter John Woestendiek of the OhMiDog blog takes apart the TV piece, here.)

What happened next was perhaps politically predictable but still sleazy: An effort to raise money for anti-forced spay-neuter lobbying efforts,  suggesting that the HSUS was not correcting the record but burying the truth by demanding the TV piece be pulled down.

The perpetrator? PetPac, which has been a tireless fighter against forced spay-neuter laws and the drive by spittle-spewing animal-rights haters to push reputable, ethical breeders into extinction through laws not only opposed  by reputable  breeders but also contrary to policy statements of  the ASPCA and the AVMA. The opposition to forced spay-neuter knows that this kind of legislation is racist and classist, kills more pets than it saves and inserts the government into a medical decision that’s not without negative consequences and that should be left to a pet’s owner, with advice from a veterinarian.

PetPac led the fight against the draconian AB 1634 last year in California, and is working against SB 250 this year. The latter was brought forward by the same folks behind the last bill, especially Judie Mancuso, who insists that all breeders are the same, and all are evil “greeders.”

The HSUS hasn’t taken a position on SB 250, please note. But that didn’t stop PetPac from smearing them anyway, to throw red meat to the rabid HSUS-haters among its own supporters.

In a series of e-mails to suporters (which includes me, by the way)  PetPac’s Bill Hemby questions the motives of HSUS in having the TV piece pulled down, suggesting some nefarious plot to bully the station into hiding the “truth.”

Mr. Hemby knows better. He’s decent guy and a reputable, compassionate and ethical breeder — I first talked to him when trying to find the owners of a pair of lost Borzoi who wandered down my street a few years ago.  But he has been around long enough to know that when a media organization has really got a tiger by the tail, they don’t back down, and sabre-rattling by the group that they’ve reported on is a badge of honor.

Pure politics, this spin, playing to the red state/blue state divide of pets, mortars fired across the scarred battlefield between two entrenched positions. Playing to and scaring the choirs, and it’s done all the time, by all kinds of special-interest groups on all sides of every imaginable issue.

But this sort of behavior, from the extremists in camps that often seem to hate each other more than they care about animals, is counter-productive.

I’ve called the HSUS out on many of their positions, especially with regards to forced spay-neuter (which they have in the past at least tacitly supported) and with what should be done with fight-bust dogs. I ripped them for raising money on the backs of the Vick dogs while their “experts” said the dogs all be destroyed as unredeemable (unredeemable, like Hector here). Not cool, nor is their current deal with Michael Vick himself.

But I believe that for reasons largely driven by changing internal ideology and partly driven by the continued need to tap the zeitgeist so as to keep on tapping wallets for donations, the HSUS is evolving on many of their positions. They’ve embraced trap, neuter and release of managed feral cat colonies, a 180-degree turn from a past position. They have a guide to choosing a reputable breeder that I honestly couldn’t have written much better myself. And they’re spot-on that concentrated animal feeding operations are cruel as well as environmentally unsustainable and a risk to our national health and security. Cheap eggs aren’t worth those kind of risks, folks, cruelty aside.

The agriculture and food industries doesn’t much like that last bit, which is why they have  outfits like the Center For Consumer Freedom out there attacking animal advocacy-groups and scaring the bejeebers out of many good breeders who are now convinced that if they don’t side with puppy-milling scum, they’ll be next to go — a point with some merit, if the Mancusos of the world have their way. (Just to show how complicated this all can get, the CCF has done spectacular work documenting through public records the shameful practices at PETA with regard to their handling of homeless pets in their “shelter.”)

I live on both sides of the great divide, and it’s my job to talk to people on both sides as well.

It’s long past time for the reasonable, animal-loving people of the world to quit allowing the 10 percent of nutjob true believers on the extremes of these issues to dictate the terms of engagement.

For all his good work, Bill Hemby was wrong in calling out the HSUS on this politically motivated crap, just as Judie Mancuso is wrong in lumping the work of compassionate, ethical and responsible breeders in with the careless, clueless breeders or with puppy-milling scum. I hasten to say, though, that it was Hemby’s first mistep, while Mancusco is the ATM of extremism, spitting out hate along with long-discredited ”facts”  whenever anyone punches her buttons.

I will be on the side of PetPac when SB 250, the new Pet Extinction Act, comes to a floor vote in the California State Senate. And I am on the side of HSUS when it comes to investigations and legislation against puppy-milling scum. I am not one of those breeders who defends puppy-millers because of the slippery-slope argument: I believe we need to separate from these dirtbags because we care about what happens to animals in their “care.” I’m a reputable, ethical and compassionate breeder as well as a person who has run a breed rescue and is looking to raise foster litters in the future for shelters and rescue groups, just because I’ve discovered I’m damn good at it.

I will fight forced spay-neuter because it doesn’t work. I will fight for compassionate, reputable and ethical breeders. And I will fight to shut down puppy mills and their Internet and retail outlets.

If any of that bothers you, I bloody well don’t care. Because it’s not about politics and “winning” for me:

It’s about the animals.

On their killing: Ingrid Newkirk on “why we euthanize.”  Spin without what we need to see to believe what’s being written: Proof that these animals were not truly adoptable (or could not be made adoptable on PETA’s multimillion-dollar budget). In other words: PETA shows us a few truly stomach-turning pictures of sick, injured and neglected animals.  Are they candidates for a humane death? Probably …  but we have all seen abuse/neglect cases as bad as these recover and go on to good homes forever.

Instead of the shocking pictures, show us the veterinary  and behavioral evaluations of the 2,000-plus pets (animals taken in for the “purpose of adoption,” according to the Commonwealth of Virginia report all shelters must file) who left the premises in body bags last year.  Until PETA ponies up the paperwork, it’s hard not to remember those animals said to be adoptable in sworn court testimony, given the needle in a van and dumped by PETA workers in grocery store garbage bins. Newkirk writes:

I always wonder how anyone cannot recognize that there is a world of difference between painlessly euthanizing animals out of compassion—aged, injured, sick, and dying animals whose guardians can’t afford euthanasia, for instance—as PETA does, and causing them to suffer terror, pain, and a prolonged death while struggling to survive on the streets, at the hands of untrained and uncaring “technicians,” or animal abusers.

Don’t know about you, but I absolutely get that it’s a mercy to euthanize an animal whose suffering cannot be relieved. But I also recognize that in many cases “euthanizing” is just a a nice word for “killing,” which is what happens every day to animals who are adoptable or could be made adoptable — and would be adopted with leadership not being shown by PETA.

When you learn what no-kill is really about, you know what a crock the above statement is. There are more than two choices, kill or let suffer.  High time the high priestess of animal rights looked at the options.  There is not a “crisis” of pet overpopulation (shelter populations and deaths have dropped steadily for decades); there is a crisis of the leadership needed to get programs to target people who want to do right, and to get shelter animals into homes.

On the “no kill” movement: PETA continues to claim that “no kill” is about hoarding and warehousing:

Some people have suggested that the solution to companion animal overpopulation lies with so-called “no-kill,” or “limited-admission,” shelters. Sadly, these facilities often have major problems that affect animals. Animals at “no-kill” shelters who have been deemed unadoptable may be “warehoused” in cages for years. They become withdrawn, severely depressed, or aggressive, which further decreases their chances for adoption. Cageless facilities avoid the cruelty of constant confinement but unintentionally encourage fighting and the spread of disease among animals.

The problem with this is that “no kill” is not about hoarding and warehousing. It’s about shelters providing shelter for pets who need it temporarilly, and working with animal-lovers in the community to develop and fund pro-active programs to bring spay-neuter services to people who want to alter their pets but can’t because of money or transportation issues, programs to elicit volunteers to foster pets and help with adoption outreach. And finally, programs to target special needs populations, such as working to manage feral cat colonies through trap-neuter-release program. (PETA’s answer to feral cats, by the way, is here. Surprise! They carefully parse a policy statement that’s largely against feral cat colony management.)

Why does PETA choose blaming others and spreading hate  over working for change and building bridges?  Why is anyone still listening to PETA?

That means a lot of downed buildings with people trapped under rubble. More than 70 are already reported dead, with countless more trapped and thousands homeless.

This morning, I am thankful for search and rescue dogs and their handlers, who are ready on short notice to head into dangerous conditions to save lives when they can, and bodies when they can help in no other way.

The International Rescue-Dog Organisation reports teams in Italy are already on the site, and other teams are staging throughout Europe and will be on-site within hours.

Pet Connection contributing editor (and star blogger) Christie Keith will be joining Rich Avanzino of Maddie’s Fund for a session called “Wags Work,” aimed at helping shelters develop customer service strategies to boost pet adoptions,

The session takes place from 2:30 to 4 p.m. today. Find out more about the conference and the other speakers and discussions here.

In 2008, HSUS stated that the public does care about companion animals and is not to blame for their killing in shelters, that killing animals in shelters is “needless,” that we can be a No Kill nation today, and that “pet overpopulation” is more myth than fact. [...] This [came] after announcing that staunch and unapologetic pro-No Kill advocates Susanne Kogut and Bonney Brown will be speaking at Expo 2009, HSUS’ animal sheltering conference. ‘

{…]

This language is like nothing that has ever come out of HSUS on the companion animal issue, and it is my most fervent hope that it will signal a permanent shift away from HSUS’ historical role of legitimizing and providing political cover for shelters mired in killing. And while it is still much too early to uncork the champagne [...], there is some reason for hope.

So much for hope. Winograd now joins Best Friends, BADRAP and other groups — and countless pet-lovers — in blistering the HSUS for its role in the killing of 145 dogs seized — or born after — a dog-fighting bust.  (Winograd notes that some puppies were actually taken from their foster homes to be killed.)

Yesterday, Best Friends led the charge, leading a coalition of outrage and issuing a withering statement:

The court-ordered destruction of 145 dogs, including about 75 puppies, who were seized from a fighting-dog breeding operation in December, was based on the faulty assumption that all dogs seized in dog-fighting-related busts should be deemed dangerous – and consequently euthanized.

The decision to kill the dogs was supported by the largest animal-welfare organization in the country, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). According to the Winston-Salem Journal, representatives of HSUS testified in Wilkes County Superior Court that the dogs had to be destroyed because they had been “bred for generations to be aggressive.”

HSUS reasserted its outdated policy, written more than 20 years ago: “Any dog who has been specifically bred or conditioned for fighting, or for which there is evidence that the dog has been used for fighting should not be placed for adoption by an animal shelter but humanely euthanized as soon as legally possible.”

A coalition of animal welfare organizations, led by Best Friends Animal Society, offered resources to the county to evaluate, spay/neuter, and find homes for qualified dogs.

For his part, Winograd writes that the actions of the HSUS shows that group still doesn’t “get it” when it comes to changing the attitudes and practices at the nation’s shelters, both of which the HSUS was in large part responsible for creating over the last half-century:

Before the dogs were killed, rescue groups were offering to help and calling for HSUS and Wilkes County officials to give the dogs clemency unless and until they are individually assessed and a rehabilitation plan, where possible, was devised for each of the dogs. HSUS refused. In reply, HSUS’ John Goodwin wrote:

Wilkes County euthanizes 3,000 healthy, adoptable animals a year simply because there are not enough good homes opening their doors to these needy animals. I find it disturbing that the groups clamoring for media attention over these 127 dogs raise no fuss, and offer no assistance, for the other 3,000 dogs put down in that county each year.

Are Goodwin and his cohorts at HSUS out of their minds? Are we back to blaming pet overpopulation? What happened to HSUS’ claims of just a few short months ago that that the public does care and is not to blame for their killing, that killing animals in shelters is “needless,” that we can be a No Kill nation today, and that “pet overpopulation” is more myth than fact?

[...]

What happened is that when they made those statements, Maddie’s Fund was dangling a check in front of them and the check came with the statement attached for their signature.

Read more here. In the meantime, the HSUS spent the week patting itself on the back for a puppy-mill bust, for fighting factory farms and for its pay cuts. On its home page, press release page and top dog Wayne Pacelle’s blog, nothing at all about the group’s role in the decision to kill the dogs it had patted itself on the back for saving from a dog-fighter.

I’m guessing there are lots of people inside the HSUS who have real problem with killing these dogs without individual evaluations, especially the puppies, especially those puppies born in foster homes. The Vick case proved that being born a fighter didn’t mean you weren’t really a lover — why doesn’t the HSUS officially and institutionally get that and support individual evaluations for fight-bust dogs?

If one of the progressive voices within the organization isn’t put in job of the HSUS’ John Goodwin very soon, then there really will be no reason for any pet-lover to send this organization a check, despite all their notable accomplishments in other areas.

If an organization founded to improve shelters can no longer recognize the way forward or continue forward itself, then it needs to step aside for those who can.  And we as pet-lovers need to support the future, not the past.

(Image: Vick survivor Jonny Justice, image courtesy of BADRAP)

Donald D. Chambers, 40, of Amherst, [Ohio], was sentenced [Jan. 30] to a year in prison, fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $62,124 in restitution to the Best Friends Animal Society in Utah.

Chambers had told the nonprofit group caring for dogs rescued after Hurricane Katrina that he would take some of them and find them homes.

He received 28 dogs from the Best Friends Animal Society and $36,720 to care for them until they were adopted.

Chambers didn’t spend the money on the dogs, and just three of them landed in homes. Most are dead.

Heather tells the backstory:

[Best Friends] cold-call emailed me and offered me a bunch of money to do something I normally do for free.

Seems that their hundreds of paid staff were not able to handle or train the herds of pit bulls they had brought back from Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. They said that they couldn’t house the pit bulls, that these dogs didn’t do well in a “sanctuary” environment. [...]  They wanted to pay professional trainers to take these dogs off their hands, train them, and place them in homes. [...]

M’Kay. And the catch is?

I had to promise to use only “positive” training techniques.

Never mind correctly defining what “positive” means. I knew what they meant. They knew what they meant. And it had nothing to do with the training needs of any real live dog.

They were sending dogs to be out of sight, out of mind. (Katrina dogs were no longer a good direct-mail pitch.) Since this charity spends money like a sailor in port — private plane, anyone? — the money was the easy way to make the pit bulls go away. Part of the pretty story for the donors about Spike going to live on the Farm was that only “positive” dog trainers were going to fix these animals that their expert in-house staff could not handle.

I wrote back, telling them to look me up when they got their heads out of their colons. Or something to that effect. I also told them that they were guaranteeing that they were going to be sending money and dogs to liars. Because anyone can lie and claim to be using nothing but cookies ‘n’ love, while the reality is quite different. Seen it. I told them that they were going to be selecting out all the truthful, ethical trainers — the ones who would refuse to lie about using balanced training methods, or would refuse to promise something that they could not guarantee would be the right thing to do.

They did not respond.

Here’s the rest. And her withering conclusion:

[N]o one could have predicted such an outcome from offering money to people in exchange for them telling you what you want to hear.

Who could have foreseen that the levies could fail?

No one. Of course.

And also: Been meaning to get to this one for a couple days.  Lancaster, Calif., is trying to jump in with a novel approach to “fighting crime”: Let’s kill some pit bulls because they won’t let us kill young dark-skinned guys who like pit bulls, play rap music and scare the white folks. 

Luisa on Lassie Get Help (and hey, Luisa, congrats on finding that rare Shenandoah Mountain Cur in the shelter), offers this:

Ingrid Newkirk of PETA and R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of Lancaster, California, both hope your dogs get bone sarcoma. Bone cancer, for crissakes! It’s the law. Move out of town, minority scum, or we’ll kill your Rottweilers and your pit bulls! Ingrid says: I love this law! Let’s kill all the pit bulls!

This just in: when you slap a mandatory spay/neuter law on a breed like the Rottweiler [and in 2009, what society hacks off body parts as punishment?], you are sentencing dogs to death by cancer. Don’t believe me? Here’s the PubMed abstract.

[...}

Seriously, people — bone cancer. One in four Rotties will suffer from it, if spayed or neutered before a year of age. [Other large breeds are also at risk.] Lancaster wants them all “fixed” before they’re four months old.

It should be glaringly obvious by now that Newkirk, the so-called “animal rights” pooh-bah, doesn’t give a rat’s patoot about dogs. She wants them gone from our lives, one breed at a time or in bunches, by lingering deaths or quick ones, by stealth or by whatever canine version of Jim Crow she can espouse.

And Mayor R. Rex Parris doesn’t give a rat’s patoot about his law-abiding fellow citizens. He’s happy as a clam to impose a death sentence on their dogs and subject families to the anguish of losing a friendly companion to confiscation or cancer. Maybe you shouldn’t have let your tattoo show when you took the dog for a walk, eh? Maybe your son shouldn’t have dressed like a normal middle-school student the last time he was in the front yard playing with your new Rott mix, eh? That’ll teach you. Lancaster doesn’t want your kind.

Gosh, Luisa, don’t be afraid to have a strong opinion, OK?

Sadly, people are still listening to PETA.  But we’re working on it.