postheadericon April 28, 2007

I have promised to write about the forces working against the show breeders and small reputable breeders in this country in the name of animal welfare; if the anti breeding and anti dog activists have their way, dog ownership and dog breeding will become a thing of the past. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the American Humane Society (ASA), and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are all zealousy campaigning for anti breeding legislation in many of our communities, cities, and states. Do your own research into manifestos of these groups and see how very dangerous they really are to our American way of life.

I am currently serving on the board of the local Humane Society and have worked hard to help all the dogs in our county. Most of us show breeders care about all dogs.Those who have visited us will have met our Snoop who is a much beloved rescue dog of mixed heritage. Ther purpose of some of the proposed or active legislation is to cut down on shelter dogs which will not happen as most of the shelter dogs do not come from reputable breeders and this legislation will hit us the hardest. For your information, I will address some of the legislation being proposed throughout the country in future “Latest News.”

For now, below are some of the trends across the country as compiled by Walt Hutchens, Whippet breeder:

From left to right across the country we have:

In New Mexico they’re facing the ‘Pet Owner Responsibility Act,’

mandatory spay/neuter for the state; there’s talk that a brain-dead

negotiation by the Sangre de Cristo Kennel Club (Santa Fe) got partial

exemptions for fanciers inserted making this one harder to beat. This

one is expected to be introduced not later than Feb. 15th.

The District of Columbia has the just introduced ‘Animal Protection

Amendment Act of 2007.’ Said to be mandatory spay/neuter and more,

this was introduced on February 6th. I posted the bill to the pet-law

files section (DC_B_89.txt) last night but haven’t had time to read it

yet.

In Pennsylvania they have an administrative rulemaking process that

would extend the no-home-breeding standards of the federal AWA to many

if not most show dog breeders. I believe the extended comment period

closes March 15th.

In Virginia we’ve just beaten the fourth annual breeder licensing

bill. However we lost (our state federation of dog clubs withdrew) our own

bill to remove hobby breeders from the definition of pet ‘dealer’ in

our state law — a major vulnerability.

I wouldn’t want to swear that there isn’t another state or two with a

major threat to hobby breeding that I’ve missed. And of course we are

promised a replay this year of PAWS with support from the

fresh-cookies-fresh-cookfresh-cookies-and-spray-starch Stepford

Various measures that would lead to mandatory national microchipping

are tuning up, offstage.

Albuquerque and Louisville are already lost. Maybe they’ll win their

court fights and get back part or all … and maybe not.

The most deadly piece of legtislation is California AB 1634 which has just gotten out of committee and is now going to appropriations before it goes to the full Assembly. This bill calls for a mandatory spay and neuter throughout the state. The commercial breeders will not be stopped and the unsavory internet breeders will just go underground meeting buyers in rest stops or across state lines or just shipping poor very young puppies across the country not even know to whom they are really going. We breeders who do the testing, socialize our puppies, and breed to the breed standard will be stopped.

Please, please go to the website for the California Federation of Dog Clubs and read about dog genocide and how you can help. cfodconline.org Please join. cfodconline.org

ALSO the AKC has put together some sample letters to be used to write legislators in California to fight AB 1634. There are letters for California residents, letters for non-residents that may show there, one for local breed clubs, and one for breed parent clubs. Of course you may use your own words, too.

Please follow the link and send letters to the CA Assembly Members to
help fight this terrible bill.

http://www.akc.org:80/canine_legislation/CA_action_center.cfm

As my friend Peggy has been warning:

CA AB 1634 has passed out of committee. It will now go on to the appropriations committee. If it passes there, the next stop is the full assembly for a vote into law. If it becomes law, there will effectively be no more breeding in California. The people who believe we should “work with” the fanatics who want these bills passed should read The Future of Dogs at http://www.pet-law.com/future/forward.html It can also be ordered as a booklet from that site. These laws are not intended to lower euthanasia rate — the DOG euthanasia rate has been dropping steadily for 30 years. They are intended to STOP BREEDING ALTOGETHER.Unless you understand the animal rights agenda, you will never be able to protect your rights. When California develops a dog deficit, which is already happening in many parts of the state, when people cannot buy a quality purebred, guess where the puppies will come from? Over the border, as many are now. They are raised in uninspected, often filthy places that make the breeders we call “puppy mills” look like doggie heaven. Do you think the people who are already supplying puppies illegally (“Meet me in the Walmart parking lot at midnight. Bring cash.”) are going to stop doing it when their market doubles and triples? Since many of those pups will end up in shelters due to health or temperament problems, the ARS will be back in three or four years saying “The law isn’t tough enough.” And those Responsible Breeders who decided that since the laws would only apply to those Irresponsible Breeders, we should work on a compromise will find themselves caught in the web next. And guess who will NOT be there to help us? Remember those commercial breeders we threw to the lions?? The statistics cited as “horrific euthanasia rates” include: 1) Cats — there is still a cat overpopulation problem, largely due to feral & “barn cats.” Forcing purebred cat breeders to spay and neuter will not touch this problem. How many “excess euthanasias” do you think there are of, say, Abyssinians or even Persians? How many people with purebred cats allow them to roam and breed freely? Purebred cats account for one percent of the overall cat population. 2) Dogs brought to shelters FOR euthanasia. Many people cannot afford to have a vet euthanize an old, even very much loved, pet. Their only choice may be shelter euthanasia, where the perhaps 16-year-old chihuhahua is counted as “ANOTHER UNWANTED PET!!!!” 3) Dogs with no chance of being safe, happy or healthy pets. It’s not true that there are no bad dogs, just bad owners. Just like some people, some dogs are just plain wired wrong. Yes, unfortunately they may bounce through a few homes before arriving at the shelter, but they too — even though no one could call them pets — are counted in the “SKYROCKETING EUTHANASIA NUMBERS.”If California goes mandatory spay/neuter, we will lose possibly ten percent of the gene pool of many of our breeds. What will that do for purebred dogs? Folks, this is war. We are county by county and now state by state losing our right to not only breed, but to even OWN more than two or three dogs. Compromising is not the answer. Education is. I am amazed at the number of inquiries I get from people who already KNOW not to buy from pet shops, know what questions to ask, are prepared to pay a fair price for a good puppy. It will not help us to win the education war if we have meanwhile been legislated out of existence. There will always be shelter euthanasia and it ill always include some dogs that could have been good pets. There will also always be child abuse, homelessness, and cancer. It happens. Life is not perfect. Passing laws to wipe out breeding as an approach to shelter euthanasia is like limiting couples to two children to prevent child abuse. The issues are not even related except that they both involve children. We do not have a pet overpopulation problem. We have a pet retention problem, and the answer to that is education. Help people KEEP their pets by offering support and being open to questions. Many people who turn their dogs in to shelters do so because they don’t understand the basics of housetraining or dog behavior. And yes, they may turn in their next dog too unless there is intervention. When your neighbor gripes about her Labradoodle peeing in the house, don’t roll your eyes and preach about the folly of “designer dogs.” Give her a copy of the housetraining paper you send home with puppies. Talk to her about what exactly is going on. Is he marking? Is he confined for too long and just can’t hold it? Has he just never been housetrained? As breeders, we have a responsibility to address the owner turn-in part of euthanasia, but it is not fulfilled by cutting back on breeding or supporting laws against “those other guys.” It is hands-on, one-on-one education provided in a friendly — not condescending and bossy, which we all excel in! — manner. We need to be making friends in the community and doing something to fight the “snobby dog breeder” image we’ve built over the years.

Okay. Enough. Next time you see something about AB1634 or another bill in someone else’s community, find out what you can do to help. Today it’s California. Tomorrow it will be your state. You may not think you have time to help. You’d better make time or no one will be left to help you when it’s your turn.

again from Peggy:

If you don’t do anything else today, go to the following URL and read the interview SATYA conducted with Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States … read every word of it, and then print it out and share it with everyone you know … this is clearly a social/political/spiritual manifesto and it is being implemented under the guise of “animal welfare.” In this interview, Pacelle offers up his personal philosophical position and his belief that it is “OK” to use money and power to manipulate the legal and legislative system in order to change the face of American Culture and rewrite the social value system. This is truly a method for pushing and conditioning people to believe and behave in certain ways using covert mind control and thought manipulation. The law is the tool they are attempting to use to fabricate a false ideology and morality on all of us … Read this little manifesto, understand that this man believes he is qualified, competent and justified in using any means at his disposal to change who we are … this is operant and behavioral conditioning at a level that is right up there with everything I’ve read in “Brave New World” and other science fiction fantasies about the future. The question is this – What are Wayne Pacelle’s political ambitions, and why does he think he is qualified to manipulate the “way we ought to live,” and by what authority does he justify his attempts to restructure the fabric and texture of American culture and society? He has raised the practice of deception and thought manipulation to a new level … never mind that most of us were raised to believe that we live in a free country which offers us the opportunity to research the facts and truth about issues and make our own deformed decisions about the way we “should be living.” Folks, we need to get serious about telling people who this man is and what he is *really* about and what his political ambitions are.

http://www.satyamag.com/jun05/pacelle.html

More next time. Kiss your Cavalier and your other pets.