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.

I am leaving for the Louisville shows where the warnings are out about PETA disrupting the dog shows. When I come back I would like to address what is going on with the anti breeding activists threatening the show and hobby breeders’ right to breed dogs and the right to dog ownership. There are many city, county and state ordinances being passed. But for now and in advance:

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Hello from bitterly cold Ohio with more snow expected tomorrow. At least we are not in Michigan where my friend Roxy Hayes lives with feet of snow still on the ground with more falling often. Beside the cold weather we are doing well. Al and I celebrated our 24th anniversary last Saturday—so romantic! I was on puppy watch with visitors all day and Al was hiding out in his office trying to reconstruct all our financial data which was lost when his computer finally gave up the ghost (with Windows 98 yet!). He now has a new computer with Vista yet! I only hope Vista does not prove difficult for me as I now have to teach Al who does not take any instruction from me with a good attitude. We still have not celebrated our anniversary. Below is a picture of one of Clooney’s first sons, Rattlebridge Truth and Dare, who is co owned by our good friend Lu Ann Rogers who is going to show him should he turn out as nice as we think he is. Beside the picture of Tru is a picture of Clooney taken at eighteen months.

My trip to judge the Cook Inlet Kennel Club in Palmer, Alaska, was absolutely marvelous. Tbe show was very enjoyable; the venue was lovely with mountains towering over the show grounds. The club members saw to every need of the judging panel. Members fished and judges ate halibut and salmon for every lunch. Delicious! I enjoyed meeting the Cavalier exhibitors and renewing my acqaintance of Janet Klinger of Maryne Cavaliers. Most of the other exhibitors are new to Cavaliers but so eager to learn about the breed. After the shows, I took the Gold Star train from Wasilla to Denali Park. The scenery was magnificent along the train. What beautiful country! I stayed in Denali for two days, took my first CALM rafting trip down the river. Next day, Jim and Ann Sims took the following photos while we were on our bus tour into the heart of Denali Park while on our backcountry tour. We left from our hotel at 6:00 am and returned after 7:00 pm. I still have not developed the film for the pictures I took and have yet to figure out how to download the digital photos from the other camera that I borrowed. Thank you Jim and Ann for sharing. The bears pictured below came straight down the road toward our bus. Denali Park is so beautiful. I so enjoyed meeting some of the workers who come from all over the world to work at Denali during the summers. Denali closes during the winters when sunlight is limited to only a few hours and the park rangers get around by snowshoe and dog sleds.

From Denali Park, I took the train once again to Fairbanks–another lovely scenic train ride. While in Fairbanks, I took the paddle wheeler up the river. We visited the dog kennels of the Iditarod winning Susan Butcher who recently died. Her dogs were still at her place where her husband and daughter still live. To learn more about Susan Butcher: http://Iditarod.com One of the interesting facts about Alaskan sled dogs is that they are not pure bred Alaskan Malamute or Siberian Huskies which would be expected. Sled dogs are called Alaskan Huskies and are a mixture of breeds; they are not registered just chosen for their speed, stamina, and willingness to work as a team.

Our riverboat stopped at a replica of an Alaskan Native Village where we saw the early way of life reenacted. To be in Alaska in the early days of the Gold Rush would have been very hard living as hard living as the days of the building of the Alaskan oil pipe line.

In two days, I am off to Houston to visit my good friend Hazel Arnold of Red Oak Cavaliers. Hazel is suffering from ovarian cancer and is having a really tough time. I am going to attend the first specialty put on by the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club of Houston. I come home on the August 29th and will stay home until I judge in California the end of the month with also a short visit to my friends Tami and Jeff Byroads in San Diego.

When I get back, I will be whelping a litter of wholecolors and talking to those interested in Rattlebridge puppies. Right now, we have a darling four month old black and tan boy and a lovely eight month old blenheim boy available.

Many thanks to my friend and webmaster, Roxy Hayes, for making my news page into a blog that even I can manage.

We love to breed and show dogs, but are just as proud of our dogs that are great family members, obedience or performance dogs, or therapy dogs. The following is a note I received from Jackie Kurlich who has two of our dogs. I am so proud of what Jackie and Candle are dong to cheer up hospital patients!!! From Jackie Kurlich: “I wanted to share a story about one of your girls. Just to refresh your memory, Candle came from Lucy and Freddie and is turning 2 this March. I know a lot of emphasis is put on the show dogs but I think the true hero’s are the working dogs like Candle that are touching lives. She visits our local hospital each Thursday and we will soon be going into the school system and alternative schools to help at-risk kids. She wins “Best of Breed” in my eyes! I have to tell you about our Therapy Dog visit to the hospital today. Let me start by saying that lately I have been wondering about the “quality”, I guess you could say, of our visits lately. It just seemed like there wasn’t any substance to them. Yeah, everyone was thrilled to see and pet Candle. The nurses adored her. Everyone wanted to take her home with them and she gave all the patients a change from their boring hospital stay. I can’t say that there was anyone that didn’t want to see her, but I just kept thinking there must be more to this therapy dog stuff. It just didn’t seem like we were helping anyone Then I visited the 4th floor of the hospital today where patients were recovering from major surgery. As we entered the floor we got the usual reception from the nurses on the floor wanting to pet her. Then a lady came up and asked if we could visit her dad. I followed her to room 409 and there was this very ill, very weak man in the bed turned on his side with his eyes closed. She told her dad that he had a visitor and I picked Candle up and put her beside him on the bed and he got this complete look of joy in his eyes, wrapped his arms around her and kept saying “She’s such a baby”, “She’s such a baby” over and over. Whenever I put Candle on a hospital bed she just seems to know to be calm. With this gentleman she put her head on his chest and lay down and the only thing you could hear was him whispering to her and her tail thumping away on the bedJ. Normally we only stay in each room a couple of minutes. We stayed with this gentleman for about a half hour. As we were leaving the room his daughter told me that this was the first time in a long time she had seen her dad smile and that she had had a dream about a Therapy Dog coming to visit the night before. I’ll never think of our visits in the same way again. There’s always that one person we are meant to visit. If anyone is thinking about going into a Therapy Dog program, I strongly encourage it. Your cavalier could make a big difference in someone’s day…quite possibly at the end of their life…..” Thank you, Jackie and Candle. I will try harder to get to the local nursing homes for visits with our dogs. It is one of the things I keep putting off. We used to do it before life got so busy and I began to deal with my aging orthopedics!!! On another note, I am very involved in the local Humane Society as the vice president and public relations director. We live in a very poor county with lots of animal neglect and/or abuse. The Humane Society does our best to help save animals. Last week we were told that someone had moved out of their house leaving behind dogs, chickens, and of all things–emus. Yes, emus! The birds and dogs were starving; some of the chickens were frozen to the ground. We rescued all we could. Rattlebridge Farm is now the home to a flock of chickens and two rather tall big birds who do not share one brain cell between them. My husband has named the emus Imogene and Emil. I do so hope that naming does not mean that they will be staying!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I cannot believe that it has been almost two months since I have posted any news. Thank you to all who have sent Christmas greetings and pictures of our Cavaliers. We will soon update our family gallery section. OHIO STATE RECEIVES SYRINGOMYELIA GRANT! The Ohio State Universtiy Veterinary College has received a grant of over $50,000 for a study of Syringomyelia centering around our extended family of dogs. SM is a problem in our breed and is very widespread genetically. We are very grateful to the American Kennel Club Health Foundation and the American Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club Charitable Trust for giving matching funds for this grant. Dr. Carley Abramson and Dr. Phil March, neurologists at Ohio State, Clare Rusbridge in England, and I will be working to find ways to eradicate or stop progression of this disease. Thank you to my friends who gave so generously (over $20,000) to begin the study before we received the grant: Mr. Gilbert Kahn, Mr. and Mrs. Bob Tschetter, Mrs Tami Byroads, Mrs. Betsy Skae, and Mrs. Jeanie Geiger We have had a good Christmas. My husband is recovering from surgery on both of his knees, but we are grateful he did not need total knee replacement at this point. Because of my own back problems, I have taken time off from traveling and judging to seek treatment for my back, but will begin judging again in April and look forward to judging the American Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club National in May. I have been very involved with the local Humane Society which with a skeletal crew trys to meet the needs of the animals of our county. If you can do anything to support your local humane society, please do. The need is great. We have not shown much these past few months. Our little girl, Rattlebridge Hit the Spot “Pepsi” has done very well for herself in the puppy classes and is just a couple of points away from finishing her championship. Her picture will soon be featured on our website. Rattlebridge Rock ‘n’ Roll and Rattlebridge Saranade are just a few points from finishing their championship. We wil soon be introducing our new show puppies: Rattlebridge Sienna Shimmer, a lovely ruby girl; Rattlebridge Nite ‘n’ Gale, a black and tan called Florence, and our older girl, Rattlebridge Jeannette. We will also be introducing our wonderful imports from the famous Harana kennel in England: Harana Spencer Tracy, black and tan, and Harana Star Appeal, a lovely ruby girl. Despite the fact that it looks like we are becoming a wholecolor kennel, we do have blenheim and tricolor breedings planned!!!!!! Once agin–Happy New Year!!!!

This last weekend, I had one of the worst experiences of my life. A group of us, including representatives from Lucky Star Rescue, attended a dog auction at the Amish Fleamarket in Millersburg, Ohio. Amid all the booths for furniture, crafts, toys, baked goods, and so forth, was the dog auction hall. Thank God I had not eaten breakfast as I surely would have lost it. My friends Steve and Margaret and I had prepared ourselves and promised each other that we would not break down at seeing the Cavaliers–we would go to the car if we could not take it. There were many breeds represented, fifteen of them Cavaliers, some AKC registered, some with other registries, and some just “Grade” like in horses. Older stud dogs, puppies, and a pregant bitch that Lucky Star could not get out as she sold for $4900.00. I checked the AKC numbers in the catalog when I got home; all of them were bogus. I know that buying dogs from auctions, pet stores, or puppymills just keep financing such horrors. However, it is really difficult to stick to one’s guns with faced with dear little Cavaliers who will spend the majority of their lives in wire crates being bred. Please be careful when purchasing your Cavalier; there are so many brokers, dealers, puppymillers, and huge commercial breeders out there. The AKC website features a new classified advertisement section for litters of puppies. Please be careful as not all the breeders listed may be reputable; to my knowledge AKC is accepting all ads without knowing who is reputable and who is not. Best to check with our parent club site first for breeder listings. Please pray for the mother of my dear friend and fellow Cavalier breeder, Roxy Hayes of Roxians and CavaliersOnLine. She is very, very ill and not expected to live.

I would like to annouce that our Roses are Red who is doing so well in Europe just won the the bitch CC at the German Bundesseiger show, which is Germany’s biggest show. She is now Internationaler Champion FCI (BID ERF) Rattlebridge Roses Are Red with the following titles: Luxenburgischer Junior Ch. Europa Junior Winner German Champion ( VK) German Champion VDH Bundessieger Austria 2004 German Bundessieger 2004 We are proud!!! Congratulations to her owners Klaus and Markus from Bonitos Campaneros of Germany.

September 29, 2004 For those of you who have visited us and met Maxine Price, our kennel manager, I have very sad news. Maxine’s husband Don passed away very unexpectedly this past Monday morning of a massive heart attack leaving Maxine and two teenaged daughters, Sarah and Stacy. It is a very sad situation as Don had no insurance leaving Maxine in some financial difficulty and very unsure of future plans. Don’s labrador, Dreamer, will not leave the side of his truck, just waiting for Don to get out of it. So sad. Al and I are helping as much as possible. The kennel work, of course, falls totally on me. I would like to sell a few puppies that I was running on to see if they would be show dogs. I have decided to let them go as pets as I must cut down right now. Let me know if you are interested. Life can change in the blink of an eye!! Take care of yourselves and your precious Cavaliers!! Meredith

September 25, 2004 Thank you to all who sent get well cards and messages after my recent knee surgery. Am on the mend. The new health section on our website is complete and up. We have addressed health concerns in the Cavalier in more depth than previously. Please tell us what you think of the new section. There are a few new websites addressing Cavalier health and not all of them are helpful. Do not believe everything you read. A good site for correct information (besides ours of course!) is: www.aboutcavalierhealth.com Remember to stay in touch and keep us posted on your Rattlebridge Cavalier! Meredith