# Frustrated



## mjbgsd (Jun 29, 2004)

I'm so angry about all the bills that are trying to be passed about our animals. I fear that one day there will be no domesticated animals because of these stupid laws being made. One that has me so angry is the SB 250 in CA that looks like it's going to pass. It's a mandatory spay/neuter with no dog being safe from it even if you're a breeding or show dogs. Also if your charged with a intact dog you aren't allowd to own ANY animal ever again!! I thought the breed bans were bad but THIS is just plain rediculous!!















I'm scared to think that one day my wonderful dogs, cats wont be there to comfort me.








I try to send as many emails to oppose these outrageous bills but it feels like we're on the losing team. 
I just feel like crying...


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote: It's a mandatory spay/neuter with no dog being safe from it even if you're a breeding or show dogs. Also if your charged with a intact dog you aren't allowd to own ANY animal ever again!!


Have you actually read this legislation? I just skimmed it and didn't see what you're claiming anywhere. People who don't want to alter their dogs are required to get an unaltered animal permit. If you're caught with an unaltered animal and no permit then there are provisions about getting the pet altered. Nothing about a lifetime pet ban because you have an unaltered pet.







I'm sure there are reasons to both like and dislike this legislation but it's important to base those arguments on what the legislation actually says.


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## mjbgsd (Jun 29, 2004)

> Quote:3) Once a license has been denied or revoked, an owner MAY NEVER own another intact animal FOREVER and all intact pets owned or cared for by this owner will be required to be sterilized.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

You stated:


> Quote:Also if your charged with a intact dog you aren't allowd to own *ANY animal* ever again!!


What the law actually says is that if you've previously had an unaltered dog license revoked because you violated a law pertaining to the care and control of animals that _may_ be grounds for future unaltered animal permits to be turned down.

There is _nothing_ in there about a lifetime ban from owning any animals ever which is what your first post says. You can get altered pets until the cows come home and there's an appeals process if you want to disagree with their denial of your permit to have unaltered pets. 

You also said:


> Quote:It's a mandatory spay/neuter with no dog being safe from it even if you're a breeding or show dogs.


When in point of fact there's clearly a process for obtaining a permit to have an unaltered pet as well as exceptions made for animals who are too old or infirm to be altered. There are also exceptions to the no intact animals roaming at large stipulations for hunting dogs. The legislation is available online for anyone who wants to read it.

Again, I'm not saying whether I think this is a great piece of legislation or not, but your first post simply isn't true.







people should base their support or arguments against this legislation based on the facts and not hysteria.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

When we start giving up our freedom, when we ask the government to intervene in how people manage their animals, they do not always put forth the legislation we want. 

People want laws to force people to not chain dogs. They want laws to stop BYBs and puppy mills. They want laws to improve conditions that dogs are kept in. 

The problem is that the people making these laws are not dog-experts, they are politicians. They are being led and fed by special interetst groups like HSUS and PETA. 

E-mails are supposedly not as effective as a letter through snail mail or directly contacting the politicians. 

Good luck. Ohio's laws are looking scarey too. My kennels have chain link not covered by plastic or rubber, they do not comply. They are way wider but not as long as what they want 4 x 16, mine are 10 x 15, and 12.5 x 14 -- they do not comply. I will NEVER let my dogs run together for a number of hours each day, and the indoor exercise area for inclament weather is larger than my house. Right now, I do not produce enough litters or puppies per year to be affected, but they can reduce that number when they feel like it. 

I can see people euthanizing puppies to stay under forty.


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## Grims (Jul 3, 2008)

The country has enough laws, now we just need to enforce the existing ones instead of making new ones.


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## Syaoransbear (Sep 25, 2008)

> Originally Posted By: mjbgsd
> 
> 
> > Quote:3) Once a license has been denied or revoked, an owner MAY NEVER own another intact animal FOREVER and all intact pets owned or cared for by this owner will be required to be sterilized.


Just wondering, what about small animals, birds or livestock? Or is this just a dog and cat thing.


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## mjbgsd (Jun 29, 2004)

Oops, I didn't mean any animal... I was so angry last night. 
What I read was that show dogs weren't safe either since you could be denied the permit for no reason. Then what are we to do?


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote: Oops, I didn't mean any animal... I was so angry last night.


Understandable. It's just that there's a big difference in "no animal ever again," and "may be turned down for future unaltered animal permits (which only pertain to dogs and cats) if you've previously been convicted of a violation of animal care and control laws." 

And while it's not entirely clear what the criteria are for obtaining an unaltered dog/cat permit, there's clearly some mechanism for doing so. As far as I can tell, it mainly involves paying an extra fee and not letting your intact animal roam at large. In which case show animals could certainly get them. 

When people read posts on this forum or anywhere, they need to make sure they understand the realities of whatever they're arguing for or against. The Internet is great for sharing information but unfortunately it's even better at spreading misinformation, so it pays to be a careful consumer.


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## Smithie86 (Jan 9, 2001)

Pup,

Having grown up and lived in CA with dogs 10 years ago, I would be worried.

I did not have a house in a homeowners area, yet had AC after me due to neightbors complaining about my dogs (that were 30 miles away boarding with Randy....) I had to deal with AC threatening to take my dogs when there was NO proof my dogs were home (I was in Europe working, they were at boarding) when the complaints were made. It took me 2.5 months to get it resolved, complaining directly to the chief of police and the K9 unit. I finally had to file the complaint against the neighbor (who had their dogs going crazy all the time) by calling AC, holding the phone up and stating come on over!


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

I'm not weighing in on the legislation one way or another - just trying to correct the misinformation in the original post because the statements about the legislation weren't correct. Someone opposing it either because it allows no exceptions for unaltered pets (it does) or because you can get a lifetime pet ban (you can't) would not have the correct facts. 

I think any argument should be won or lost on the actual merits of the case.


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## Keisha (Aug 1, 2008)

This kind of legislation is scary however, because it is not written by people who are educated about dogs at all. As someone else said, they are politicians who have PETA and HSUS in their ear. I don't like the government making medical decisions for me about my dog. 
For instance, I'm not a breeder, don't compete, don't show. But what if I'm responsible and believe (maybe rightfully so) that getting my dog neutered is not the best choice for my dog. Or what if I want to wait until he/she is two years old to do it? Is there an age that they say it HAS to be done by? What if I'm planning on doing it, but because of research by some scientists that say waiting is better, I don't want to do it yet? Should I have my dog taken from me or be FORCED to get him/her neutered? I personally do not think so. Very strongly in fact. Organizations like PETA and HSUS have agendas, and they are not good ones for dog and cat lovers.
If there is anything that is uncorrect (factually) about my statements above please correct me, because goodness knows I'd love to feel better about this.
I know how mjbgsd feels, because it worries me too. I take comfort in the fact that if it becomes so extreme that the mainstream public starts to understand that the future of their dogs and cats are being threatened because of these laws, that there would be an outcry of anger about it. As it is right now, unless you breed/compete/show or are otherwise heavily involved in the dog community, most people do not know or understand the full extent of what's being passed. At least, I hope there would be an outcry over it. I will move to a different country if they eradicate all dogs and cats. Seriously, who wants to live in a country that does that? 

Here's to hoping that they stop pushing a bill for every little thing that has to do with our animals.


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## girlll_face (Jun 9, 2009)

I may get chewed out because of this, but I don't care. I think this bill is a great idea and I hope it passes. I hope this bill spreads across the country as a matter of fact. People should have to show they are knowledgable and responsible breeders who are improving the breed, if they are going to have unaltered animals. A permit is extra work, but it's so worth it to have this bill. I'm so sick of reading about the several millions of 'unwanted' (I want them all) animals being murdered by our shelters every year, because people are cheap and trashy and just let their animals have litter after litter, and then just drop them all in the kill shelters. If the babies aren't killed, the other animals, especially the adults don't get adopted and end up being euthanized. It makes me sick...I cry about it all the time, and feel so helpless and just...desperate for something to change. It NEEDS to change. Thinking about how lonely those animals are, sitting in a cage, so trusting...helpless, just getting killed because of irresponsible humans. Yeah, euthanasia is a 'quick fix' to overpopulation, but how fair is that for the animals who's lives are in our hands??? I don't think there's any reason to leave a companion pet unaltered, when altering greatly reduces the chances of many diseases/infections. Unless it is hazardous to the animals health, or you are showing, breeding, or working/titling, why not fix these animals to save the others? I've had several people already offer me a lot of money for one of Bella's puppies when she gets older...I told them straight up, no animal of mine will ever have a single kitten or puppy, no matter what. There aren't enough homes for the animals who are already here, and lives should never, ever be disposable. I think there should be consequences for people who just contribute over and over to the # of homeless and abandoned pets. If this passes, most likely the # of our beloved friends who are killed every year will be DRASTICALLY reduced.









I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but my heart can't take the way this country treats it's animals anymore.


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## girlll_face (Jun 9, 2009)

I'm really sorry. I know I'm cynical, but I had a 5 month old kitten who was euthanized because of a lot of weird situations and circumstances, and because I got there just a little too late...and she was just gone, before she even had a chance. My heart has been broken ever since, I still think about her all the time. It hurts so bad, to this day. I just remember how she'd take her tiny black nose, and gently nuzzle every inch of my face. I'm crying right now just typing about it. And that's just an almost invisible fraction of euthanasia in shelters as a whole...


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:what if I'm responsible and believe (maybe rightfully so) that getting my dog neutered is not the best choice for my dog. Or what if I want to wait until he/she is two years old to do it? Is there an age that they say it HAS to be done by? What if I'm planning on doing it, but because of research by some scientists that say waiting is better, I don't want to do it yet? Should I have my dog taken from me or be FORCED to get him/her neutered? I personally do not think so.


Well, then you'll be happy to know that under the proposed bill all you'd have to do is buy an unaltered dog permit.







Contrary to the OP, it's NOT a mandatory S/N law. 



> Quote: As it is right now, unless you breed/compete/show or are otherwise heavily involved in the dog community, most people do not know or understand the full extent of what's being passed.


And apparently unless you volunteer in the rescue community, most people do not know or understand the full extent of the pet overpopulation problem in this country and the number of healthy young animals dying every day or the amount that it costs the taxpayers to dispose of them. Perhaps there should be more of an outcry about that? 

No part of this bill suggests, hints at, or even remotely discusses eradicating dogs and cats. This is more of the hype and hysteria. If someone is opposed to any kind of S/N restrictions, so be it, but they should argue their opposition to the bill based on what the bill actually says.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Pet overpopulation has NOTHING to do with animals being unalterred. And it WILL NOT STOP with this law. 

Dogs are in shelters because people are irresponsible with their pets. 

Dogs are in shelters because people are irresponsible with their pets. 

Spaying and neutering has nothing to do with responsible dog ownership, it is a decision you make in order to avoid certain health concerns and open yourself to others, while preventing the chance that the animal will be used for breeding. 

Not spaying and neutering a pet does not make someone irresponsible. Anyone who owns a pet should be able to keep a pet intact and not bred, unless they WANT the breeding to take place, or unless they DO NOT CARE if the breeding takes place, which is in fact that they WANT the dog to be bred. 

The only dogs this law will affect are those from responsible people. 

Responsible people do not drop dogs in shelters and do not have unwanted litters of puppies. 

So the law will change nothing, except the fraction of dogs that are picked up and reunited with their irresponsible owners. Those few individuals will receive a warning or a fine for owning and intact dog, they may have to show proof that they got it fixed. 

There will STILL not be any more enforcement on the community as a whole. People will still give away free mutt puppies, the free mutt puppies will STILL make up 75% of the shelter populations. 

The law does not run around checking if people's dog have testicals. You will not have to present your speuter form when you get your license. And the same people that are producing mutt puppies today will be producing mutt puppies after your wonderful law is passed. 

Responsible people feel that they must follow the law. They will pay extra money to get a permit that solves absolutely nothing. Responsible people do not allow their dogs or puppies to land in shelters. They are not the problem. 

The law solves nothing.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quoteet overpopulation has NOTHING to do with animals being unalterred.


Um... yeah, it does! That doesn't mean that everyone who has an unaltered pet is irresponsible or that there isn't and shouldn't be a place for responsible breeding, but pet overpopulation is a DIRECT result of people with unaltered pets who let them breed wily nily. That's where all the dogs and cats come from! They're not being dropped off by storks. At the shelters I work with S/N in the area is almost non-existant and we have rampant pet overpopulation with hundreds of dogs and cats coming in (and dying) each month. In areas where S/N is common and accessible, shelters don't have anything like the intake they do around here. Puppies in the shelter are actually rare. Oh wouldn't that be lovely!

Now, does that mean that legislation is the best way to get people to S/N their pets? I don't know. That's a different debate.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote: The law does not run around checking if people's dog have testicals.


Well, actually one of the things this law would do is make it so that if unaltered unpermited pets roaming at large are picked up by animal control they could be altered before being released back into the population. So, that would actually be one way to access the non-law abiding population and reduce the number of their pets being allowed to reproduce indiscriminately.


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## Keisha (Aug 1, 2008)

Pupresq I understand what you're saying. I volunteer at my local animal shelter, and with a local Animal Welfare organization. I absolutely understand the heart break of it. 

I guess I get fearful that it will go to the other extreme. Breed banning has not helped me feel better about politicians making these decisions. Please don't think I'm opposed to stopping bybs and puppy mills. Nor do I want ignorant people owning unaltered animals. I just don't want it to affect the responsible breeders and owners on the flip side, because of ignorant politicians. 

I devote a large part of my time to helping dogs and cats get adopted, and I agree that there needs to be an outcry about it. Know that anything I say about these kinds of legislation comes from my desire to see both sides of the situation, and my love for animals. I'm always cynical about how these bills will be enforced, and what they could lead to in the future. 
I think that what will happen is that people who are irresponsible with their dogs in the first place will continue to be so, and will not get the permits, but that the responsible people and breeders will. Hence, it will effect only those that are not causing problems. 

I sincerely hope I'm wrong and that it does cut down on the shelter population, bybs and puppy mills and other people who should probably not own animals in the first place.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

It has to do with irresponsible people owning pets. 

The law will not stop this. 

The law will do nothing but cause grief for responsible people. 

Responsible people are not the problem. 

Make a law that all puppies must be chipped, and that all owners of dogs must be responsible for the dog until a change of ownership is notarized and filed. That means that the care a dog recieves in a shelter is charged to the owner and follows him like herpes. When someone adopts his pup or when it is euthanized, then the tally stops. 

If an owner has a pet euthanized in a shelter due to it being too injured, sick, neglected, aggressive, they are no longer eligible to own pets, maybe for a number of years, maybe forever.

People with an outstanding pet bill owing are not eligible for a license. 

Dogs without licenses are siezed, owners are fined. First offense $100, second offense $1000. 

Dogs running loose are fined. First offense $100, second offense $1000. 

Law should be easy and affect everyone the same, and should cost the people who cause the problem. Breeders are not the problem. 

Irresponsible people are the problem. The attitude that dogs are disposable is the problem. 

If you want to stop people from being irresponsible about their dogs, punish the dead beat dads. 

If you abandon a dog of any age, it should be a felony, and hold a stiff fine and a loss of any future licenses. Taking a dog to a shelter is not abandoning a dog, because the person will be responsible for the cost of the dog in the shelter until it is rehomed. Dropping dogs off would be a felony, make it a $1000 fine. 

Keeping an unlicensed animal, $100 for the first offense, $1000 for the second and subsequent offenses.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Quote:The law does not run around checking if people's dog have testicals. 
"Well, actually one of the things this law would do is make it so that if unaltered unpermited pets roaming at large are picked up by animal control they could be altered before being released back into the population. So, that would actually be one way to access the non-law abiding population and reduce the number of their pets being allowed to reproduce indiscriminately. "

***********************************************

So long as all the people who actually do have their permits can sue the pants off the shelters if they neuter/spay dogs by accident. 

I have heard horror stories of PETA people opening cages at dog shows and releasing people's dogs. 

I heard one incident where the guy's car was carjacked and the dog was in the crate. The suspect ditched the car. The cops had AC take the dog. Even thought the dog was chipped and had a license, the "accidently" had the dog alterred before calling the owner." That would be one major lawsuit.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

The problem with not being opposed to stopping puppy mills and BYBs, is that no one can actually DEFINE what a BYB is and what a puppy mill is. 

Better to enforce legislation that already exists about animal cruelty. EVERY crappy puppy mill picture that makes you cry happened because the government agents FINALLY enforced a law that already existed. EVERY ONE of those pictures simply show that the government is not doing their job. So, what do we do? We make more laws for the government not to enforce. 

Who exactly do you want to determine who is a BYB and who is a puppy mill and who is a reputable breeder??? PETA, HSUS, or the officials they are lobbying???


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## girlll_face (Jun 9, 2009)

That's the thing, if irresponsible people actually have consequences for letting their animals reproduce 'accidentally' over and over, maybe things will change. Or...when people take their litter after litter to the shelter, then the authorities should be contacted so they would know the people have unaltered pets without a permit who allow breeding over and over. Like I said before, I know there are good pet owners, like most of the people on this wonderful site, who may want to leave their pets intact, who's pets will never have an 'accidental litter'. People like the people here...are rare. I hate to say it, but I used to live in a trailer park, and there were new mutt puppies, and new kittens every week suffering outside, eventually taking the road to the kill shelters, because of cheap people just not caring about the animals. The puppy mills, they couldn't get permits...bybs couldn't...if they really check the people out. If people care enough to go get a permit to leave their companion pet unaltered, they probably care enough to not allow their pets to have an unplanned breeding. People who don't care, won't want to go through the trouble of obtaining a permit, that's for sure. And with all the wonderful low cost spay/neuter programs, maybe more of the 'irresponsible' people will get it done. If the law can't fix this, what can? I've been trying to educate people on the importance of spay/neuter, and recommending the special programs for low income people for years...along with a lot of other people doing it as well...and it has helped, but not nearly enough. Though I feel that every animal saved is a success, and every newly educated person who alters their pets is a success, but the bitter truth, some people need 'consequences' to 'care' about altering their pets.
I also think that shelters should alter pets before being adopted out, because people who don't know about the programs, they leave a $50 spay/neuter deposit, and sometimes think, oh well I could spend hundreds getting my pet altered, and get $50 back, or just forfeit the 50. 
Something has to change, these animals are DYING every second, of every minute, of every day. It's almost like genocide...the very few that escape to a good home, don't even know how lucky they are, or how rare.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

When people drop a litter off at a shelter, they should be nabbed with the fact that they are responsible for the cost of vet care, food, and boarding until each pup has been placed. At that point the person is informed that they no longer are eligible to own an intact animal. 

Then you are punishing the irresponsible owner, and not ONLY responsible people. 

Here is the cold hard facts about pet owners. ONLY the responsible owners KNOW that there ANY laws that have to follow with pet ownership. Most people probably know you are supposed to license your dog, many choose not to. 

The yayhoo next door that had three litters in eighteen months, each having at least three fathers, bitch just tied out on a line, pups died in road in front of her trailer. Yep, saved one of them, but it is the way it is. 

This law, given she was IN CA, would not have affected this woman one bit. She did not have her dogs licensed. She did not drop the pups at a shelter. She did not bother. Another law to not follow would not have bothered her a bit. It doesn't apply to her. 

When the authorities take your animals because they are neglected or abused, THAT individual should be given fines he cannot weasle out of, and have his ownership privelege revoked. 

Money DOES talk with these people, if they can't just go bankrupt of refuse to pay. It should go onto their taxes and follow them. A $100 fine is a stiff lesson that will show you that the law says you need to license your dog, and if you do not, the next fine is $1000. 

Owning a dog when you are not eligible to own a dog because of neglect or abuse, would be a 1000 fine for a first offence and the next offence higher. 

Dropping a dog at a shelter would cost you for their board. Killing or abandoning a do will get you and animal cruelty conviction and make you ineligible to own an animal, as well as a stiff fine. 

EVERYONE, not just breeders would have a background check for animal cruelty convictions before being issued licenses. (Ohio's law is singling breeders out for this.)

Punish cruel and irresponsible actions, don't just make more laws that the worst offenders of all this will not even bother about.


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## ncgsdmom (Jun 24, 2008)

A large part of the problem with the spay/neuter situation is the cost variable. There are hundreds of rural shelters in the south...and the counties do not have the tax base to offer low cost spay/neuter. The average income for many individuals in these regions is much lower than average. Why would they spend 200-400 dollars to have their animal neutered when it is not required? In some of these rural areas, many of the ignorant owners never even take their animals in for minimal vetting. Thus, there is rampant breeding, whether intentional or unintentional. There are usually only a handful of individuals running these shelters, so enforcing any sort of spay/neuter is next to impossible.


I pulled a lab mix from Columbus County NC AC about 2 years ago. This shelter does a mass group gassing every Friday morning. I had managed to contact the volunteer the night before, and she was able to arrange to have the dog spared. I got there at 1pm, when the shelter reopened. Bailey was the only dog there. In the 15 minutes it took to see the dog, fill out the paperwork, and get the dog to my car, 5 more dogs were turned in. I was absolutely astounded. 

Columbus County Stats
Median *HOUSEHOLD* income (2007):$32,728
Population (2008 est): 54,212
Land Area (sq. miles): 936.80
<span style="color: #006600">http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/37047.html </span>


I really think that many people cannot even comprehend the magnitude of the pet overpopulation in many areas, especially in the South. It baffles me that the various state/local govt agencies don't realize that it would cost them less in the long run if they would set up low cost/no cost spay/neuter clinics. Fix the animals now instead of having to continually euthanize the litter after litter of innocent puppies.

I am all in favor of having a substantial difference in county fees/registrations for neutered vs un-neutered animals. If it was $10/yr for a neuter animal, and $250/yr for un-neutered, I bet there would be a lot more neutering going on.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Selzer - while I agree with the sentiment behind penalizing the people dropping off their animals/litters at the shelter, creating penalties at that stage of the process only hurts the animals as these people simply abandon the animals all over the place instead of taking them to the shelter. Counties have tried it and that's what happens. 

As far as I can tell, SB 250 is essentially like an extreme form of differential licensing. People who want unaltered pets can still have them but it will cost more money. By requiring the unaltered pets permit, suddenly ACOs have an objective way to remove unaltered unpermitted pets from the breeding population. If they pick up stray dogs or receive a complaint about a property with suspected dog fighting etc. it gives them the right to insist the animals be altered. That's a tool that could really help IF it's used appropriately. Will it be? I don't know. 

Yes, clearly shelters should not be allowed to alter dogs if they have an unaltered pet permit. Fair is fair. 

What PETA does at dog shows has nothing to do with anything. I can't stand PETA. Few rescue people want anything to do with PETA, who has more than once been caught "rescuing" dogs and cats only to euthanize them to "save" them from human "slavery." That's not what rescue is about. Similarly more and more rescue people are disenchanted with HSUS. The fact that rescuers and extremist groups like those overlap on the occasional issue is no more an indictment of the issue overall than the fact that responsible breeders and puppy mills often are on the same side of these arguments means that you want to lock step with mills on every policy. It's a more complicated world than that. Rest assured that the first second S/N laws turn into "banning dog" laws, the people on the rescue side of things will be there beside you fighting the good fight. And we don't like BSL either. 

But something needs to be done about the problems of pet overpopulation if we care about the numbers of dogs and cats currently dying in our nation's shelters. I have posted on threads like these in the past asking for suggestions as alternatives to these kinds of S/N laws and have gotten little constructive response. (Other than things like fining people who drop off animals, which, as I say really really really does not work.) 

I'm a pretty open minded person but I'm not content to throw up my hands and accept these euthanasia statistics as the cost of dong business. If putting some teeth into licensing requirements might actually work, it seems worth a shot. If it won't - what are some ideas of things that will? 

Keisha - I think you and I probably agree a lot more than we disagree on this stuff.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Vsnap - I COMPLETELY agree with you that affordable accessible S/N is a huge part of the solution. It would be awesome of differential licensing fees could be put directly towards funding that!


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## girlll_face (Jun 9, 2009)

> Originally Posted By: selzerWhen people drop a litter off at a shelter, they should be nabbed with the fact that they are responsible for the cost of vet care, food, and boarding until each pup has been placed. At that point the person is informed that they no longer are eligible to own an intact animal.
> 
> Then you are punishing the irresponsible owner, and not ONLY responsible people.
> 
> ...


I do agree with all you are saying, but a small part of it I don't. If people are going to get charged all that money for taking their litters to shelters, I'm just worried about the fact that what's to stop them from just dropping them off outside somewhere, throwing them out the car window on the highway, even killing them in the backyard or something like that? They should have their rights to own an unaltered animal revoked, though, that I agree with 100%. They should have to get their pets altered immediately, as well, or surrender them. Also, some people try to 'save' an abandoned/feral litter of puppies or kittens, and ideally they would find a no-kill shelter or rescue to take them to, but many good intentioned uneducated people just take them to the closest shelter. I wouldn't want them to be punished, but definitely instructed to find a rescue...it could be hard to tell who's who...
As for the rest I agree with 100%. Such as neglecting/abusing/killing/abandoning a pet being a felony and losing ownership priveledges...AMEN. SERIOUSLY. They won't take it so lightly then. As for right now, sometimes it just being a misdemeanor...that's like a traffic ticket. NOT ENOUGH! We need stricter punishments for the scum of all animal owners. People also need to be punished for taking their 'old news' animals to the pound because they just don't want them anymore, or whatever lame reason they give. Animals should definitely be microchipped before leaving the shelters, so they can always be traced to the person responsible. My aunt goes through new dogs every month, and I would LOVE for her to be slapped with a huge fine, or at least lose her owning animals priveledges...she's mentally ill, but still, the dogs are the ones that suffer, and probably most of them get put to sleep when she's 'done' with them.
If the law was passed, then perhaps good people like you could call and file a complaint on your neighbor...you probably could anyways seeing as how she neglects the pups and they end up dead. Next time, get some pictures. Is her dog even licensed? Oh, that makes me so mad. If that bill passes, good people could report others who let their animals be open game tied up in their yard, unaltered. 
I don't want good owners to be punished...that's the last thing I would want. I want them to be rewarded, and praised, and looked up to by people, like I do. 
As for law enforcement not following through with the enforcement, that's a whole other part of this. If that's the case, all of us animal lovers need to bring these things up. Letters, letters, and more letters, articles, pictures of puppies and kittens with captions of euthanasia in their future, pictures of broken down dogs who have had litter after litter, in bad condition...just how the puppy mills came to light, we need to make irresponsible pet owners step onto the front page. 
Even if the bill isn't passed, something needs to be done. It would even save the state money in the long run, if they gave out more free or low cost spay/neuter vouchers to the public. What costs more in the long run? Even one breeding animals babies being in shelters year after year, that tax money it takes to care for them, even euthanize them really adds up to much more than them being spayed/neutered with tax $ in the first place.


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## girlll_face (Jun 9, 2009)

> Originally Posted By: pupresqVsnap - I COMPLETELY agree with you that affordable accessible S/N is a huge part of the solution. It would be awesome of differential licensing fees could be put directly towards funding that!


Same here, I totally agree with that. Like I said above, in the long run, funding spay/neuters would be much less expensive in the long run, as opposed to all the tax dollars it takes to care for all these 'unwanted' litters, even the money to euthanize them after they already used money to care for them in the first place...the vouchers and low cost programs are amazing, but there really aren't enough of them around yet. They need to be even more accessible.


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## girlll_face (Jun 9, 2009)

Pupresq and Vsnap-

We're completely on the same page on this issue. What can we do that has not already been tried? I will NEVER throw my hands up and submit to defeat on this issue. It's too important, why don't most of the public realize what is actually going on???

We need to bring up the # of euthanized animals the same way everyone did for the puppy mills. People need to see it as just a big of an issue as that is.


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## mjbgsd (Jun 29, 2004)

Okay, I never wanted people to start fighting...
I just get frustrated about the many bills that try to pass. I just gave the 250 one as an example. My focus wasn't just on that one.


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## Keisha (Aug 1, 2008)

Ah, nobody's fighting







More just discussing an issue we all care a lot about, but have slightly varying opinions on how to fix. You want to see fighting check out my house during presidential election debates. Or worse, during the Carolina vs. Duke basketball games.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

True nobody's fighting. 

The premise is that if people are charged to drop a dog off or drop a litter off to AC, then they will simply abandon it. Great. This should be completely investigated, and the individual charged with Animal Cruelty, have a felony record, and be ineligible to legally own a dog again.

The premise is that if people are forced to pay $250 to keep a breeding animal, the coffers will fill from responsible people who do not want to spay neuter and the people want to pay only $12 will get their animal speutered. This suggests that these individuals will even bother to buy the $12 license. 

My thought is that if people thought they needed to pay extra for a permit to keep an animal intact, or provide a spay/neuter certificate for their animal to by a license, they may just choose not to register the dog at all. 

In Ohio, the dog warden CANNOT come out and verify that you have the same number of dogs as licenses. IF they respond to a complaint, they can ask if the dog is licensed. 

I currently own eight intact animals so my annual license fee would go from $54 to $2012. When you take out the cost of owning my dogs, I do not come anywhere near breaking even on them, but if I had such a charge for keeping unaltered animals, maybe I would feel I HAD to breed some of the animals I currently choose NOT to breed just to cover the expense. 

I do not decide whether an animal is breedworthy until they have their ofa certifications at two, have a title, and pass other tests, and perhaps I will give them another year to grow up before pulling the plug on the thought of them being used for breeding. I see no reason to spay them. At three years old when I finally give a yay/nay, it really does no good in preventing mammary tumors. If they get pyrometra, then they will need an emergency spay, but unless there is a reason, I do not intend to put them under the anesthetic and through the surgery. Intact bitch does not equal breeding animal for me. But I understand that it IS a potential breeding animal. 

I would not take advantage of a low cost spay neuter, even if I chose to spay/neuter a dog. I am very skeptical about the cleanliness and expertise of such operations. I would be afraid of my dog becoming infected or ill from the other animals. I would be afraid of a quick shoddy job. I would be afraid of no after surgery care and possible mistakes in the anesthesia. 

No doubt some of you will have worked for such operations and feel very confident about them, but there is no guarantee that your clean and expert mobile clinic will be the same that shows up in poor and rural Ashtabula County. 

So every year I would face the question of whether to pay the $250 intact animal charge, or pay $200 to $400 to spay my animal.

But in Ohio anyway, the legislation proposed says you must register the litter with the newly formed Kennel commision. These people issue you the permits/licenses. These people may DECIDE in their wisdom that you produced two litters last year so they are not going to ISSUE you a license this time. The two AR people on the board along with the Dog Warden COULD just push that through. They will probably be a majority. I do not see much help from the DVM who because of the monetary incentive to veterinarians everywhere want everything in four legs speutered. 

If you raise these taxes and crimp down on these things, the big places will move to the state next door and ship their puppies to buyers everywhere. It is only the small responsible breeders that will be hurt. BYBs, and people who allow their mutts to run around throwing a litter of mutt puppies every six months will continue to flood the shelters with their produce. They will remain ignorant and non-compliant with the law. If they get caught, oh well, they will get Lulu spayed and one little drop goes into the bucket. But what is the cost? The cost for you CA buyers is that you will no longer be able to drive to a local breeder, check out the conditions, look at the titles, and health certificates, meet the sire and dam, etc. Your local responsible breeder will be driven out of business. 

And the breed will be left to BYBs and Puppy Mills. 

If the local puppy mill simply shuts down, than someone else in another state will grow up to fill the demand. 

There is a demand for puppies in pet stores, and puppies sold over the internet. As buying puppies from a local breeder becomes more difficult and more expensive people will turn to the internet, and to pet stores for their next puppy purchase. This will increase demand, especially if the number of puppies in shelterd decreases. Puppy mills will either move out of state or will grow up in another state because the way the run a puppy buisness, puppies ARE lucrative.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote: Great. This should be completely investigated, and the individual charged with Animal Cruelty, have a felony record, and be ineligible to legally own a dog again.


And who is going to be investigating this? CSI? There's no way to catch people randomly dumping their dogs and cats all over the place. 

I think some money would come in from the higher licensing fees, but my greater point is that requiring them and enforcing them would give animal control an objective mechanism for removing and altering unpermitted animals when they're called to dog fighting, hoarding, or byb situations. Yes, many of those owners probably wouldn't pay the fees to get their animals altered and released and yes, many of those animals might end up PTS. As sad as that would be, it would in time reduce the number of animals being born into those situations and reduce the number of animals being pts overall. 

As far as low cost S/N programs, they're not my first choice for my personal pets either. Not because I have found them to be dirty or unprofessional (quite the contrary) and in fact most of the vets who work them are able to do the surgeries quickly and with a minimum of trauma. My gripe with them is that they rarely can afford to use gas anesthesia, which is clearly safer for one's pet. However, a lot of people very much want to have their pet altered and simply cannot afford a standard clinic's fees. Low cost s/n offers them an alternative which they are glad to have. And, in spite of my own qualms, the complication rate is actually extremely low. And I'm talking about the operation that is serving the county I do most of my rescue work in, which is one of the poorest counties in the country. 

As far as who gets punished, I'm open minded about some other ways to address this issue that might crack down harder on BYBs and mills and not as hard on reputable hobby breeders but it seems like so often in these discussions the only two options on the table are legislation or no legislation. Doing nothing is not working so I do think _something_ further needs to be tried. I was trying to think of this in terms of BSL, which I adamently oppose - so, like, would I support BSL if it allowed me to buy a special permit? I might. I wouldn't want to and would feel like it was "unfair" but I do see the need for more tools to crack down on dog fighters and their ilk. What I would much prefer is an exception permit that was based on something like a CGC certificate or something. I wish insurance companies would adopt a similar policy. Would there be any way to incorporate exemptions for people keeping intact dogs that obtained some kind of breed-worthiness certification? I realize figuring out what that would be across breeds would be a nightmare but even if it were something completely minimal, it seems like few mills could possibly meet that standard and most bybs wouldn't bother.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

What people making legislation will do is to put into effect that which will bring in more money with the least amount of effort or enforcement. 

Only responsible individuals will be effected. 

Responsible individuals are not contributing to pet overpopulation, dog fighting, animal cruelty, and they are not usually the ones looking for a way to do a cheap surgery on their companion animal. 

So the responsible people should be taxed more to own intact animals and fund speuter programs that they will not use anyway. This sounds EXACTLY the way things work when you involve the government. 

I vote for the government to stay out of pet owner's decisions. 

And where will the AR and PETA people stop once they get these bad bills passed? 

Mandatory speuter
Breed Specific Legislation
No Chaining laws
Pet limits
No prong collars, e-collars, head collars
Obese dogs = cruelty
mandatory vaccinations
mandatory heartgard
mandatory flea prevention
mandatory veterinary annual check ups
No docking
No cropping
No cosmetic surgery
No hunting with dogs
No dock diving
No racing with dogs
No weight pulling with dogs
No carting with dogs
No sledding with dogs
No schutzhund -- hitting the dog with that stick stuff.

There are people lobbying the government and at the bottom of the legislation that is being voted on now that would love to see an end to all of these things. 

The dog community should give their legislators a resounding "NO!" when it comes to legislation like this. Complacency will mean that they may not come for your dogs today, because today your dogs are legal, but tomorrow, your dogs may not be legal for whatever reason.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

If you think this stuff cannot happen, 

They are stopping dog racing in Massachusets by 2010 (I think it is Mass)

Docking and cropping have been illegal in England for years, and bills have been introduced in PA.

E-collars are not allowed in Germany. 

Pitts and Rottys and Dobermans are banned in many places. 

Bills are being introduced to require breeding dogs to have heartworm and flea preventatives -- Ohio


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Which is exactly WHY dog lovers should be offering alternatives that will achieve the legitimate part of the goals. And there ARE legitimate goals - to reduce pet overpopulation, to stop dog fighting etc. Now, often the legislation that's proposed isn't a good way to do that (as is typically the case with BSL) but people who don't like it do better to propose viable alternatives than to refuse to engage in the conversation. 



> Quote:Only responsible individuals will be effected.


There is absolutely no way you can know that. If you've ever worked in animal control you know that a LOT of dogs are picked up and most of them don't come from responsible owners. Some of those dogs end up put down but a lot of them head back into the breeding population. With this kind of legislation they wouldn't. That's a legitimate and positive way it could have an impact on the desired population. Now, if you've got a better way that is even more viable, that's great! But my suspicion is that in these communities with euthanasia through the roof, they're going to want to try _something_. The only question is what they try and how much we like or dislike it. 



> Quote:So the responsible people should be taxed more to own intact animals and fund speuter programs that they will not use anyway.


We all pay taxes every day to things that don't benefit us personally. That's part of living in a society. They're paying for the right to put more dogs into the population, dogs that society may end up dealing with. And before everyone starts talking again about how responsible breeders take their dogs back so they don't contribute to pet overpopulation, there is risk any time you send intact dogs into the world with owners who may or may not be as careful as we'd wish. We see it every week on this board. How many people come on here with oops litters? With plans to breed dogs who clearly shouldn't be bred? It happens all the time and far more than that in the general population. While responsible breeders do indeed take back the dogs that they themselves bred, they do not take back the offspring of those dogs. So, there is a risk with every dog that goes out of more unwanted dogs in the population that shelters and communities will ultimately have to contend with. Now, I'll fully agree that the negative impact of truly responsible breeders is FAR less than bybs, mills, etc. So what about the idea of trying to regulate permits in some way other than monetarily?


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:I vote for the government to stay out of pet owner's decisions.


And see, I just can't get behind that myself. Animals have no way to advocate for themselves. Puppy mills, dog fighting, neglect, abuse - these are all things that should be regulated and not left to the discretion of these unfortunate animals' owners. I look at anti-chaining, basic shelter/housing requirements, etc. as an extension of those needed animal welfare laws. 

That doesn't mean I'm a radical animal rights nut or that I support PETA because I don't. Only that there's a place for govt. intervention in some aspects of pet ownership. When it crosses the line into AR territory, then I argue against it just as strongly but I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater and leave every animal care decision up to the owners. I've seen too many horrific situations to support that.







And among those horrific situations, the widespread massacre of millions of healthy dogs and cats, puppies and kittens, because of pet overpopulation. It is truly mind boggling. So I'm open to at least learning more about any proposed solutions that will address that problem.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I think we have enough laws. We have cruelty laws that are not enforced until the situation is completely gross, with dead and dying dogs everywhere. We have leash laws that are not enforced until someone gets bitten -- then maybe the dog warden will come out and stomp around and maybe someone will be issued a citation. 

In Ohio, the dog warden cannot come to your house and ask to see your dog's license. They do not enforce the license law UNLESS your dog is picked up as a stray. When you go to claim your dog, THEN they charge you a double fee. BIG DEAL! I would be way ahead if I never bothered to register my dogs with the county. 

Personally, I think if your dog is picked up by AC, then you are irresponsibile and the dog should be speutered before it is released. But there is always those nutcases freeing dogs at dog shows, and the occasional car accident where the dog is free through no fault of the owner and gets picked up. So go with repeat offenders. The first time your intact dog gets picked up running loose, $50 fine. The second time your intact dog gets picked up running loose, $1000 fine and you get a speutered dog back. The only problem with this, is if they a, kill your dog in the operation, or b, make a mistake and speuter your dog the first time it runs free. 

I personally do not like animal control to have that much power.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

I will fully agree with you that the cruelty laws on the books should be better enforced. I don't agree about the enough cruelty laws - that varies by area. Some may have enough, here in KY we don't. A part of the problem with even the minimal laws that do exist is the subjective nature of the assessment - defining cruelty, defining neglect, it can be difficult. 



> Quote: I would be way ahead if I never bothered to register my dogs with the county.


Right, but as a responsible pet owner, I'm guessing your pets don't get picked up very often. A lot of irresponsible owners have dogs who are frequent flyers at animal control. SB 250 would give the county a way to require they be altered. But I would back legislation that penalized repeat offenders rather than everyone, as you suggest. Especially if there were some way to target not only the dogs running loose but those where AC gets called out because of fighting or neglect. Perhaps a similar repeat offender rule?

As far as animal control having power, any time your dog gets picked up it runs the risk of being killed by mistake. All things considered, the risk of it being altered is relatively minor - it's going to cost money to the county if they do it in error, so my guess is that it wouldn't happen too often.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Here's the thing, 

Let's say a AR person works at the shelter. They pick up your conformation bitch. The dog has a license on it and a microchip and they get your name. One shelter worker has heard of you and know that you are a breeder and mentions this to the other worker who is an AR person. That person thinks that the worst thing in the world is for you to get your bitch back intact, and she fails to call you that day and puts her on the list for a speuter. 

Later that afternoon when they are open for business, you come up looking for your dog and they say she is recovering nicely. 

When you hit the roof about them spaying your dog, they say, oh your dog was added to that pile by accident, so sorry. While it was unfortunate that the meter reader left your gate open, and AC picked up your bitch, and then they accidently spayed it, you should just be happy she did not get squashed by a car.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I understand that the rescue people are passionate about the over-population problem, and spay/neuter. 

Some of them are a little overboard. I had one lambasting me and accusing me of wanting my dog to get cancer because he was not neutered and was 12 months old. 

And the vast majority have nothing to do with PETA or Animal Rights, but are more along the lines of Animal Welfare. 

AR and PETA people have proved time and again that they are willing to break the law for the greater good. If your Animal Control department harbors one such person, with the new laws on the books, they have a lot more power. These people are then in a position to actually relieve you of your pets. 

In Ohio, the bill being introduced will create a Kennel Commission Board who will approve people for kennel licenses, etc. This board is made up of TWO Animal Rights people, A vet, the Dog Warden, One member of a breed parent club in good standing (it doesn't say anything about the AR people being in good standing) and one person who represents pet stores. This is the group that will decide whether I should be able to have a kennel license or own breeding animals. 

Yes, this scares the daylights out of me. My dogs are kept clean, groomed, vetted, trained, exersized, fed premium food and raw chicken, and loved very much. In twelve years of owning GSDs with the purpose of breeding, I have had four litters, one of which had only one puppy that did not make it -- I am not pumping them out left and right. If someone came and siezed just one of my dogs, I would literally go off the deep end, and might even commit a crime to keep possession of her or to get her back. I have registered my dogs so that they cannot be siezed by the dog warden. I have built my fortress so they are kept safely and I do not need to worry about losing them. 

This board will not look at all of that, they will simply try to find a reason I should NOT be breeding dogs. 

While the legislation they are trying to pass in Ohio gives the dog warden and anyone he chooses to ask to help him much more power with respect to my dogs, none of it says that these people need any type of training to do this job.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Yesterday, I tethered Arwen to one of the kennels to groom her. When I was done, I left her tethered there while I hosed out her kennel. I could have let her run around, but she seemed perfeclty happy waiting for me to be ready for her. 

If an AR person showed up just at that point, they might think that I was keeping dogs tethered. Snap, snap goes the camera and voila, they feel they just have to take this dog away from me. 

At that point Susie loses her mind, grabs her shot gun and tells them that they will be taking away a load of buckshot before they take one of my dogs. All of this of course is on tape and I look like the lowest form of white trash. The sherriff's department comes out and relieves me of my shot gun and takes me away and AC comes out and gets my dogs, and the world ends. 

It is scarey to give these people more power. They do not need any training, and it is subjective whether they feel the dog is being neglected or abused. Half of them would look at Tori and Whitney and believe I was not feeding them enough. The rest of my dogs, who are at their ideal weights, they would call thin, or skinny. At least the judge is an elected position and he will be up for election again. If the judge looks at all the evidence and I can present my dogs' vet records and present witnesses to my training and grooming, and what have you, he will then have to make a decision based on the facts. There is some level of accountability. 

And lastly, you do not need to have dogs up to their hocks in fecies to have someone call AC on you. A friend of mine refused to lower the price on one of his puppies for her. She called the Dog Warden on him. They came out at inspected his kennels and gave him a clean bill of health. They told him this same woman has done this to several other people, but they had to come and have a look.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Which is it though? It just seems like arguing two extremes - on the one hand you're saying the ACOs don't do much and don't enforce the laws that exist now but on the other hand the fear that they'll suddenly become overzealous and go way beyond any laws that are even being proposed. I mean - they can't really do both. I'd expect ACOs to be about as zealous as they are currently (not very) but to have another tool at their disposal to deal with the very real problem of roaming unaltered pets. 

And trust me - I worry about kennel licensing issues too. They effect rescuers just as much as breeders. There are few regulations where I live currently but I've had the sheriff at my house to ask why there are so many dogs being reported. Pretty much every foster person I know, including me, has had people complain about barking. I also have the problem of people blaming me every time there's a loose dog spotted in spite of the fact that not one of my dogs has ever roamed unattended ever, not for one second. People know I have a lot of dogs so they assume. But like your friend when the sheriff or ACO has come out, they've been able to look around, see that things are on the up and up, and there have been no further problems. So for both your friend and for me, the system has vindicated us and we have not been wrongly accused of doing something wrong when we weren't. That's the system working the way it's supposed to.

Of course for many of my fellow rescuers the problems go beyond complaint issues - where there are dog limit laws they too have to apply for kennel licenses if they want to be able to foster above and beyond that number. Whether they're approved directly affects the number of lives they can save, so they're pretty passionate about it too. They jump through a lot of hoops to justify why they should be granted the permit for the extra dogs. 

When we get a new animal in, that animal may look absolutley God-awful and were AC to see it, we'd have to convince them that we weren't the people who let the animal get that way. We're not just advocating regulation for someone off in the distance, nothing to do with us. These laws would apply directly to us as well.

But even as we share your worries about over what increased regulation might do, we see all the situations of hoarding, neglect, mills, bybs, abuse etc. that are falling through the cracks with the status quo and we think that there is clearly more that could and should be done. Even if it makes our lives more difficult and complicated. Again, I'm not for any regulation no matter what all the time. I think it needs to be reasoned and I think it needs to be viable, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any or that we can let fear of what _might_ happen stop laws that stand a good chance of protecting more animals from the cruel fate that currently awaits. The challenge is crafting laws that really are viable.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:Let's say a AR person works at the shelter.


If it allays your fears at all, in 20 some years of working in and with shelters, I have yet to meet an AR person employed at one. They hate shelters as much as they hate breeders. I've been attacked on I don't know how many different occasions by AR people for being a "puppy killer" and the first one of those came when I was a teenaged shelter volunteer. AR people simply can't cope with the realities of shelters. They don't understand them, how they work, why they're necessary. Most wouldn't last a day.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

If the new legislation goes through, at least in Ohio, there will be more money generated for more people employed by the industry. For one thing, every complaint will have to be investigated with an inspection. That will overwhelm our dog warden who is the only paid animal related employee in the county. 

I am really not worried so much for myself as I currently do not have the necessary number of dogs, nor do I produce the number of puppies, though I realize that that can change on either end. Other than paying a whole lot extra for a kennel license and licensing my animals individually (which I do anyway, but I pay for the kennel license and get five tags and above that number, I pay an extra dollar for each dog/tag. So if the license fee goes up, and I have to pay for each dog, and pay separately and more for a kennel license. $150 instead of $50 that I currently pay. I would not be considered a commercial kennel, meaning I would not be regulated by the same rules. All of this can change though. 

They have a minimum kennel size of 4' x 16' listed. My kennels are 10 x 15, 11.5 x 14, and 12.5 x 14. I have only one at 10 x 20. My kennels are structures that would require a lot a complete rebuild to add a foot to keep me compliant. I could not possibly foot the bill to change them at this point. Nor do I have anywhere to put the dogs while more concrete is poured and cured and the fencing is added. But I could house more than twice the number of dogs in the area I currently have for it. 

And the indoor exercise area for inclement weather requires more square footage than my house. 

Breeders are not the only yayhoos out there neglecting and abusing dogs. Animal rescuers get overwhelmed too, so yes, animal rescues will be hit hard by this legislation too. The difference between a rescue and a breeder is that there is NO ONE out there willing to donate money to a breeder. Animal rescues also have the capability of more animals changing hands, and adoption fees can cover the costs to changes, a little easier than for breeders who have one to two litters of puppies per year. The alternative for breeders is to breed more litters and raise prices to cover the costs. 

I am complaining about the law in Ohio, and this started as a rant about the law in California, and laws in general. 

I think that the law in Ohio, which is what I am most familiar with, is driven by AR, HSUS, and PETA and designed to put us out of business. When the legislature goes to make laws, they need to get expert witnesses and determine what is sufficient for dogs to be comfortable, not simply go with what people emotions are dictating.


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## Debbieg (Jun 7, 2009)

After a trip to the shelter on Thursday looking for our missing cat which thankfully returned home, I completely agree with My Baby Bella's post. There were so many beautiful kittens, an 8 week old border collie mix pup, a senior GSD. These animals deserve so much better.



> Originally Posted By: My Baby BellaI may get chewed out because of this, but I don't care. I think this bill is a great idea and I hope it passes. I hope this bill spreads across the country as a matter of fact. People should have to show they are knowledgable and responsible breeders who are improving the breed, if they are going to have unaltered animals. A permit is extra work, but it's so worth it to have this bill. I'm so sick of reading about the several millions of 'unwanted' (I want them all) animals being murdered by our shelters every year, because people are cheap and trashy and just let their animals have litter after litter, and then just drop them all in the kill shelters. If the babies aren't killed, the other animals, especially the adults don't get adopted and end up being euthanized. It makes me sick...I cry about it all the time, and feel so helpless and just...desperate for something to change. It NEEDS to change. Thinking about how lonely those animals are, sitting in a cage, so trusting...helpless, just getting killed because of irresponsible humans. Yeah, euthanasia is a 'quick fix' to overpopulation, but how fair is that for the animals who's lives are in our hands??? I don't think there's any reason to leave a companion pet unaltered, when altering greatly reduces the chances of many diseases/infections. Unless it is hazardous to the animals health, or you are showing, breeding, or working/titling, why not fix these animals to save the others? I've had several people already offer me a lot of money for one of Bella's puppies when she gets older...I told them straight up, no animal of mine will ever have a single kitten or puppy, no matter what. There aren't enough homes for the animals who are already here, and lives should never, ever be disposable. I think there should be consequences for people who just contribute over and over to the # of homeless and abandoned pets. If this passes, most likely the # of our beloved friends who are killed every year will be DRASTICALLY reduced.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I do not know how you can blame a Senior GSD on no mandatory speuter. 

People will still get tired of their dogs, or not be able to keep up with rising vet bills on elderly dogs and drop them. Old uncle Al will die and nobody will have room for his faithful companion. 

Also no one will bother to call the original breeder and ask them to take the dog.


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## girlll_face (Jun 9, 2009)

You think taxes being used for low cost s/n clinics isn't a good idea or fair, because you never use them? I don't understand that. I donate regularly to the programs so someone else, who's only option is to take their animal there, can get their pet altered, then that's several more litters that won't be born just to suffer or die. I don't personally benefit from it in any way...but uh, that's not why I do it. There are more important things out there than trying to keep our lives easy and simple. It's not so much more expensive that it will break us, or anything. I think we should stop looking at how it will affect US, and make OUR lives a little more difficult, and start looking at just how much it could potentially help the animals we supposably love, who unfortunately didn't get a good or a responsible owner. I just don't get how people could look at laws meant to help reduce overpopulation, and just think about themselves instead? 
Well, everyone's different. I guess not everyone cares about all the poor souls who are getting euthanized every day, or they just try to ignore the fact. These animals are DYING, through absolutely no fault of their own. Now that is what's really UNFAIR, if anything. If more people cared about this, us involved in rescue wouldn't have to be pulling our hair out all the time trying to figure out what to do to about overpopulation. If there's even a chance this bill could reduce unwanted litters by 10%...that's a yearly difference of almost ONE MILLION unwanted animals not being born just to get euthanized...To save that many lives, it would be worth it. If it takes a little more money and work on my part, I'll happily do it with a big smile on my face.
Actually, a while back when I wrote to the Gov. about them wanting to reduce shelter animals time to only 3 days, I told them passing a bill to require most animals be altered would save them a lot more money in the long run...because after 3 days the animals would be euth'd, then new animals would fill their place, require the money for care, and in 3 days it'll just start all over again. Like the worst broken record I've ever heard. That won't save them money. Spaying and neutering animals so there aren't an abundance of animals pouring in all the time, that would be so much more effective. I actually got a positive response back, so who knows?


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

We will never agree on this.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:Animal rescues also have the capability of more animals changing hands, and adoption fees can cover the costs to changes, a little easier than for breeders who have one to two litters of puppies per year. The alternative for breeders is to breed more litters and raise prices to cover the costs.


????????

Um, I'm not begrudging breeders the right to charge what they want to but your math here really does not add up. All having more animals pass through is is an opportunity to LOSE more money. We're adopting out animals who have had (at a minimum): Spay or neuter, DHLP-PV (x3 if a puppy/kitten), rabies vaccine, KC vaccine, deworming (x3 if a puppy/kitten), microchipping, microchip registration, HW test (if adult), HW prevention and flea/tick prevention while in our care. Neary 100% of the cats/kittens we place have been treated for URIs, we also routinely treat parvo, heartworms, do amputations, injured eye removals etc. For this we charge between $100 and $300 an animal. And WE are in a better position to make up the cost????????????? Seriously?









Yes, we can fundraise because what we're doing is charity but every rescuer I know spends hundreds of her/his own money ever month to do what they do, thousands each year. And for almsot all of us, stuff like building kennels, home improvement to accomodate more foster animals etc. comes completely out of pocket.



> Quote:Breeders are not the only yayhoos out there neglecting and abusing dogs. Animal rescuers get overwhelmed too,


I completely agree with this!!!







And this is one of the reasons I support increased legislation and oversight. Yes, it may involve more hassles for me and yes it may cost me some money, but if it prevents even a few of the rescue-gone-awry situations we keep seeing that are every bit as bad as the mills and byb busts we see alongside them, then I'm willing to put up with it.


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## scannergirl (Feb 17, 2008)

> Originally Posted By: selzer
> I vote for the government to stay out of pet owner's decisions.


I think that everyone wants the government out of these types of decisions, but yet they expect there to be shelters, Animal Control, etc, which are funded with your tax dollars! So since the government has such a stake already I do not think it is unreasonable for it to propose legislation that is designed to lessen that impact. 
I say this as someone who already pays more to register my bitch because she's unaltered. Not that much more, but more. Because I choose to comply with the law.
If it went up to $250 I'd probably feel compelled to alter her, even though she will not be adding to the pet population in her currrent, unaltered but very well supervised state. I do feel a conflict about that, because as Sue points out a good breeder waits YEARS (and spends a lot of effort and money) before making the decision on whether a dog is breed worthy. That would represent a bigger burden on a reputable breeder and less of one on a BYB, who can crank out more pups, not wait till the pup is grown itself to start breeding it, and dispense with those expensive health screenings to offset the cost. So I see both sides of it.
I think any proposed legislation needs to be looked at very carefully to see if it unintentionally benefits less than reputable breeders.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Yeah, I agree with you. I don't know if you've waded through any of my posts (wouldn't blame you if you haven't







) but there's definitely an issue with making sure that the legislation hits where it's supposed to because often the people designing it aren't really the best folks to understand the issues. So for me it's not legislation or no legislation, because I think something is needed, but what form that takes is another issue.

I would really like some sort of exemption/permitting system that was based on something like a CGC or similar. When I compare the whole thing to BSL, that's what I'd really like to see there too. It seems like it maximally hits the people you want to hit without clobbering the people doing it right.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Here in Ashtabula County we do not have a government run shelter. I do not know who owns it, but it is run by volunteers. And if the dog warden brings in a stray, the county is supposed to pay for the stray to be boarded for a few days. 

If everything was animal cops you would have a complete vet staff and surgery, lots of workers with trucks and places to keep horses and all. 

Not so everywhere. Here we have local vets doing pro-bono speuters, and volunteers, and donations. When they have parvo, they beg the people to give them bleach and stuff to clean with. 

Animal Control consists of one man and one truck. If you are a guy, the man will admonish you for "not taking care of the problem" meaning shooting the viscious stray dog. Sometimes he will return your call. Sometimes he won't. His phone number is NOT LISTED.

Is there some reason why I want to pay MORE??? 

If I believed that Ashtabula County would double the size of their dog holding area (many of our dogs are kept in cheap dog houses in small outside runs); add a surgery; staff it; and have animal control workers who were employed by the government, and were trained; maybe I wouldn't be kicking and screaming so much. 

But it won't happen. All that will happen is that I will be paying more money, and maybe the dog warden will come out and scuff his shoes on my concrete for a few minutes and go away. And if he feels he needs to show something for his day's work, he may cite me for no plastic or rubber on the metal chain link of my fencing. 

Since the government does NOT have a stake at all... 

And what about government run shelters? Shouldn't there be something somewhere in all this legislation that dictates how animals are treated in such places? Shouldn't they disallow gassing, electrocutions, and heart sticks? Maybe the government should clean the moat out of their own eye first.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Nearly all of your post seems like an argument for MORE funding, not less.









Most KY shelters, if the county has them at all, are in similarly poor shape. They simply lack the funds to do any more than they do. Groups like mine bust their butts to raise money and pay out of pocket for things like vaccines for the shelter in an attempt to stem some of the tide of parvo, but it's uphill work. I've never seen a shelter like the ones on animal cops. I guess the relevant question then is how much those shelters have in funding versus the ones you and I deal with and where it comes from. In my experience with some basic funding from the state and a good tax base, a lot of these "great" shelters are able to pick up the ball and run with it themselves because once they get their basic subsistance needs taken care of they can start devoting time to their own fund raising efforts. In contrast, most of the shelters I deal with don't have computers and routinely have to euthanize even if they've got space becase they've run out of food.









Again, all this is an argument for more funding, not less.









ETA: I totally agree with you about the need to improve shelter standards and conditions - the problem is that a lot of the changes that need to take place cost $. If the county can't fund them, they can't make those changes.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

If they need more money then they need to go after the people who don't bother to register their dogs. But that would take even more money. 

It is frustrating. 

If the state pushes through this bill, and I am charged more and more money, the money will go to the state to be redistributed by population, not by need. And we will still have nothing. Cleveland and Cincinatti, and Columbus will get what there is. 

They need to go after people who abandon and abuse animals and charge them for costs and more. 

They need to go after repeat offenders of the animal at large and charge them a heavy penalty. 

They need to charge the people that are causing the problem, the yayhoos that drop their dog off because it no longer matches their new decor. 

And just maybe instead of a voucher toward speuter, maybe they should offer a voucher for training. Way too many dogs land in shelters and return to shelters because of a lack of training. Make attending a training class a requirement for adoption.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Is there any capacity to legislate/allocate on a county level where it might benefit animals more in your immediate area?


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Right now it is, some of it. But the new legislation sounds like the bulk of the money will go to the state level. I could be wrong about that.


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## khawk (Dec 26, 2008)

I live in northern Calif in a county with a largely southern population base (a lot of people from Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Missouri). Money is tight and dog fighting goes on all along the I-5 corridor, meaning that we have a very active dog fighting community. We have one of the highest pit bull populations per capita in the country. We do have an active park and rec department. Currently I am fighting to get a dog park (we already have 3 acres set aside) set up which will include a training center for the education of dog owners, and also to keep a fledgling spay/neuter program up and running. I have hope that with education, along with accessible low-cost spay/neuter programs we can make a long term dent in the shelter population and an equivalent dent in the euthanasia rate. 

San Francisco county and Los Angeles county have both passed mandatory spay/neuter laws and the result has been disastrous. Both counties' shelters have been flooded with dogs and cats and their euthanasia and selter costs have skyrocketed to the tune of several million dollars. Santa Barbara has recently tried the same route and though the results have not yet come in, they look to be traveling the same road. Many reputable breeders in other states are now refusing to send their puppies or kittens to Calif due to the legislation which PETA and AR have tried to force on Calif pet owners, and which in the case of BSL they succeeded in doing. (Hasn't done a thing, so far, to stop the dog fighting. That's already illegal, so the people doing it aren't exactly the sort to care about laws. BSL only hurts the reputable dog owners who obey the laws.)

In Ft Worth, Tx, mandatory spay/neuter laws caused dog owners to go underground and resulted in a notable increase in Rabies. I very much fear the same in our county, which always has problems with Rabies, if mandatory spay/neuter passes. As far as animal welfare goes, mandatory spay/neuter, in the places in which it has passed, vets are reporting that people are no longer seeking vet care for their animals in many cases, in order to keep them under the radar, including not getting Rabies vaccinations and Parvo/distemper vacs. 

In New Hampshire, the only state I know of who has done this, (according to ADOA) the state has funded both basic dog owner education classes and low-cost spay/neuter, and has since since a 75% drop in animal shelter costs and most particularly, euthansia costs. Seems to me, that's the way to go, though I admit that our population is very different from that of NH. But hey, if we could get 10% improvement that would be better than the other. Plus the NH program has the added advantage that dogs continue to get quality vet care--in fact, given the education portion of the program, they may actually get improved vet care. 

Pie in the Sky? Maybe. But I'll continue to fight the mandatory spay/neuter, with all of its negative impacts and hope we can do better with the education model. It is slower, but I cannot help but think that in the long run, it will be far better for our animals and for ourselves. Khawk


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:Right now it is, some of it. But the new legislation sounds like the bulk of the money will go to the state level. I could be wrong about that.


I just did a little preliminary research, so it's not complete or exhaustive, but it appeared to me that a lot of the pending legislation or push has to do with agriculture: they're proposing a similar bill to the one that passed in CA that makes it a misdemeanor to house chickens, breeding sows, and veal cattle in a way that prevents them from being able to stand up, turn around, or completely extend their limbs. There are plenty of articles from people pitching a fit about that although to me that sounds like a real minimum of humane treatment. There are a few things to increase penalties for cruelty, **** fighting, and one to remove the breed Pit Bull from vicious dog legislation. 

The main one that I think you're probably referring to deals with pet dog licensing in general and large scale breeding operations specifically. I'm not super wild about some aspects of the licensing stuff but it isn't targeted at either small scale breeders or the owners of intact animals. As far as revenue , it's entirely allocated on a county level.

There are regulations for both rescues and breeding operations but the breeding operation regs only kick in for people producing more than 9 litters and 40 puppies per year. If you produce between 9 and 15 litters per year you have to get a $150 permit, if you produce between 16 and 25, the permit is $250, and so on up to a $750 permit for breeders producing 46 or more litters per year. Of those fees, some goes to the state and some to the county for enforcement.

There are some shelter/kenneling requirements, but again - they only apply to these larger scale breeding operations. For a dog over 55lbs, they must have an indoor space measuring 4 x 8 feet and either access to an outdoor enclosure measuring 4 x 16 feet OR at least 2 hours per day of access to an outdoor exercise enclosure of 40 x 40 feet. If I'm reading it correctly, the dog can share these spaces with up to 2 other dogs. 

Enclosures can be stacked on on top of another but there should be some barrier between them that prevents waste from falling through. You can't keep a female and her litter in a crate or cage with another adult dog. You can't keep a dog in a cage or crate in more than 24 hours worth of feces and urine. Dogs have to have access to water at least once every 8 hours. 

Anyway, there are other requirements, all of which seem easily achievable by a reputable breeding operation. But again, none of this even applies to breeding operations that breed fewer than 9 litters a year.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:have both passed mandatory spay/neuter laws and the result has been disastrous.


If those numbers are accurate then that's a good argument against mandatory S/N. Can you post links to the sources as well as the legislation? It would be interesting to compare SB 250 from the original post to what was tried before. SB 250 isn't exactly mandatory S/N but it doees provide a pretty powerful financial incentive. Not sure if you'd consider that in the same category or not. 

Anyway, seeing what worked and what didn't work in other areas is a good way to figure out how best to address the problem but of course we've got to start with an accurate understanding of exactly what the other laws were and what happened as a result. As we've seen in this thread, often there isn't a clear understanding of the legislation in amongst all the media and op ed. hype.


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## mjbgsd (Jun 29, 2004)

Wait, SB 250 passed??


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

No, it hasn't passed. I was suggesting we compare the efficacy of prior legislation that has passed to the proposed legislation SB 250. 

I did some digging last night on Khawk's information and having done so I would DEFINITELY like to see some citations/references for those claims before anyone accepts them as fact because at least some of it is totally untrue. If we're going to base a strong opinion on something based on evidence, we've got to make sure that evidence is accurate. 

Take the Fort Worth rabies example. Similar statements to Khawk's are easy to find all over the Internet and it's clearly part of the anti-spay/neuter talking points. I traced what I think are the sources back to a couple of places: 

1. A letter supposedly from a retired veterinary medicine professor says:


> Quote: Fort Worth, TX -- ended its mandatory spay/neuter program. Rabies vaccination and licensing compliance declined after passage of the ordinance. This led to an increase in rabies in the city


Source: http://www.naiaonline.org/issues/HJerpe_letter_to_CVMA.htm

2. An article by Margie Milde posted at NICE (National Institute of Canine Experts) from Front and Finish magazine


> Quote: Fort Worth, Texas enacted differential licensing in 2000. Within one year,
> rabies vaccination compliance rates for pets had dropped
> sharply. A rabies epidemic resulted, almost doubling the num-
> ber of animal rabies cases found previously in Fort Worth.
> ...


Source: http://nicenow.org/MSN.aspx

So basically we have similar claims although note that she calls it "differential licensing" not "mandatory spay/neuter". The basic claims are that Fort Worth passed either a mandatory S/N law or differential licensing, as a result people stopped licensing or getting their pets vaccinated for rabies, and a rabies "epidemic" resulted. Everybody with me so far? 

Okay good! Now, here's where it gets interesting... I couldn't find any evidence that Fort Worth has ever HAD mandatory S/N and, as it turns out, the second article is correct - they haven't. So what are the facts? Miss Milde really ought to be ashamed of herself because while she got the legislative part right and she's the only one to give "sources" her source doesn't say anything like what she's saying it does.

Here are the facts:
1. The supposed "Mandatory S/N" that everyone is claiming was in fact a _differential licensing program _implemented in the year 2000. Owners of unaltered dogs were asked to pay $5 more than the owners of altered dogs. The base license was $7. Um - how many places have differential licensing???? How many people pay a lot more than that to license unaltered pets? How many are experience resulting rabies epidemics? Didn't think so. 

2. In the year 2000, approximately 7.8% of people were licensing their pets. There is no record I can find of how much that number went down, if at all, with the new ordinance, but in a single newpaper article the manager of Animal Care and Control says that some people didn't want to pay the extra $5.

3. There is NO evidence that rabies compliance went down, but the same manager postulated that it might.

4. There was NO rabies epidemic and certainly not as a result of the new ordinance. 

Here are the dog rabies stats from the three counties that Fort Worth spans from 1998 to 2008. See if you can spot the epidemic: 

Tarrant County (Fort Worth is the county seat)
1998	0
1999	0
2000	0
2001	1
2002	1
2003	0
2004	0
2005	0
2006	0
2007	0
2008	1

Parker County 
1998	0
1999	0
2000	0
2001	0
2002	1
2003	0
2004	0
2005	0
2006	0
2007	0
2008	0

Denton County
1998	1
1999	0
2000	0
2001	0
2002	0
2003	0
2004	0
2005	0
2006	0
2007	0
2008	1

Clearly no canine rabies epidemic.

So how did this myth get started? Well, the year they implemented this new policy coincided with a natural spike in the number of cases of _skunk_ rabies, when it jumped from 36 to 80 between 2000 and 2001. In 2002 it went back down to 30, but during the year of the spike, animal care and control got worried they'd be blamed if the skunk rabies led to an increase in dog rabies, in spite of the fact such spikes had occured before with no cross over, so they reversed the new law. 

So where does that leave us with this supposed argument against mandatory s/n? 

Let's go back to the original claim:


> Quote: In Ft Worth, Tx, mandatory spay/neuter laws (<span style="color: #000099">there weren't any</span>)caused dog owners to go underground (<span style="color: #000099">no evidence that that happened</span>) and resulted in a notable increase in Rabies (<span style="color: #000099">it didn't</span>).


Now, I'm not trying to pick on Khawk. He or she is simply re posting what he or she has seen on all the anti S/N websites as "evidence". But as you can clearly see at least some of this supposed evidence is total bunk. While not everyone may have had a backache last night, couldn't sleep, and decided to do a little research like me







, but I do think it illustrates the NEED for some due diligence when it comes to forming our opinions based on fact not fiction. And if people can't be bothered to find out the facts, they shouldn't be lobbying either for or against these kinds of measures.

I could post a website that talked about a mythical city who implemented mandatory S/N and all the pet overpopulation problems were solved and all the doggies and kitties lived happily ever after. Doesn't make it true! Anyone who actually cares about this issue needs to seek the truth to get to the bottom of what works and what doesn't so we can push for informed and well-reasoned policies with the best possible chance of success. Simply making stuff up to support our personal viewpoint does no good at all and a considerable amount of harm.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

No, its nine litters OR 40 puppies, 40 puppies could come out of three litters, but more likely four litters.

By saying 4'x16', my 10'x15' kennels do not pass. 

Also, all exposed metal fencing has to be covered by rubber or plastic. 

No way can I afford to change these to comply, nor would I want to. 

My indoor area is not 4x8 foot per dog. That is insane. 

Who cares if it affects me today or not. Once this is passed they will go down. 

Actually, my license will go up to 150$ -- that will be the minimum for a kennel license. From that point it goes up and up. 

At this point I will not have to have a bond, but that is coming too.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Why will you need a kennel license? Is there other legislation that just looks at overall number of dogs versus the bill I was looking at that's applying to breeders? 

And I don't think you can know whether it will start constricting further once this passes. I know you're concerned about a radical AR agenda but honestly, this bill looks much more like an attempt to crack down on puppy mills, which are a huge industry in OH. I think that pressure is coming from a different source than the pressure you're worried about.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I am in business. Anyone in Ohio that keeps dogs for breeding or hunting must have a kennel license.


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## mjbgsd (Jun 29, 2004)




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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

> Quoteeople who want unaltered pets can still have them but it will cost more money.


Why should I, a responsible pet owner, be required to pay more money because some IRRESPONSIBLE pet owner can't keep their intact dogs from getting pregnant?

Let's start charging $100 per bottle of beer. That will keep people from getting drunk and driving, right? It doesn't matter if you want to sip a nice cold beer while sitting on your deck. People drink and drive and kill people so making the alcohol really expensive will fix the problem, right?

Or how about charging $40 for a kids meal at McDonalds? That will keep people from feeding their kids junk and letting them get fat, right? Doesn't matter if you like to reward your child once a month with one.

I'm going to put this in caps and all bold because people just don't seem to get it ...

*YOU CANNOT LEGISLATE RESPONSIBILITY.* And making those of us who ARE responsible pay a penalty because other are not is just plain wrong.

If you support laws like this then you might as well support breed bans because it's the EXACT same thing.


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## Keisha (Aug 1, 2008)

I agree with Lauri, and think those are very good examples. We all want the amount of animals in shelters to go down, but I don't think legislation like this is the way to do it.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Lauri, awesome post, what I couldn't manage in six pages.


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## arycrest (Feb 28, 2006)

> Originally Posted By: Lauri & The Gang
> 
> 
> > Quoteeople who want unaltered pets can still have them but it will cost more money.
> ...


THANK YOU LAURI!!! I've been unable to post to this thread because I was unable to express myself without attacking other people and their ideas. You said exactly what I've been wanting to say but you did it so eloquently.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Personally I put it in the category of any other kind of permitting - of which there are many examples. You have to get a permit to have all sorts of things, given the societal cost of intact pets, why should they be different? Does everyone actually end up contributing to pet overpopulation? No, but enough do. I pay taxes every year to all manner of programs that I don't support and/or don't benefit from. Again, this is part of living in a society.









So I'm assuming you guys are also against any kind of differential licensing? 

As far as "legislating responsibility" are you against other kinds of animal welfare laws? 

ETA: Also, while I don't have any issue with my quote, please be aware of the context - which is that the OP posted blatant misinformation about the bill in question and my point as that the bill doesn't say at all what she said it did.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Every pet owner is liable to contribute to pet over-population whether their dog is speutered or not. I do not have any numbers to back me up, but my guess is that the vast majority of dogs in shelters are people's pets that they are giving up for one reason or another. And puppies that come in litter groups are probably the minority. 

If they are going to charge by who is contributing to the problem, then purebred dog owners should pay only 1/3 what owners of mixes should pay since purebred dogs make up only 25% of shelter animals, and mixed breeds make up 75%.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

IF it would save thousands of lives every year, I would happily fork over a high permit fee for each of my pets. It's worth it to me to have fewer animals dying in our shelters. 

So the only question I have is whether or not the laws work as they're intented to. I haven't had time to research each bullet point but so far the talking points that I HAVE investigated which are offered as "evidence" that these kinds of laws don't work have been total frauds. No one has bothered to address the fact that on nearly every anti s/n law site they mention the supposed rabies epidemic in Fort Worth and yet that entire situation is a fake, a total sham. So if they're inventing evidence to support their position, it certainly makes me skeptical of the rest of it. 

If the laws don't work, then I don't want them. But it may very well be that you CAN legislate responsibility in this case. Now, whether people think that's "just" or "fair" or worth it is another issue.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:I do not have any numbers to back me up, but my guess is that the vast majority of dogs in shelters are people's pets that they are giving up for one reason or another. And puppies that come in litter groups are probably the minority.


But if you're going to argue that then you NEED numbers to back you up. And you're wrong btw - the shelters in the south get TONS of puppies and kittens. They also get a ton of pregnant dogs and cats that give birth in the shelter. Not only that but the puppies and kittens that they don't get but which stay in the community unaltered produce yet more animals and then eventually come in themselves. It's all part of the same pattern. There are some books/articles I can suggest on population dynamics if this is a topic that interests you.

Um... know what you get when your PB dog mates with the neighbor's PB dog? Unless they're the same breed, you get mixes.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

My PB dog does not mate with my neighbor's PB dog. 

The vast majority of dogs in shelters are mixes. There are mixes that are making mix puppies. These puppies go to families. They were freely given and freely dumped at the shelter. People do not bother to license them because they are just a mix. People do not bother to vet or speuter them because they are only a mix. People do not bother to contain them because they are only a mix. 

With all the puppy mills, and BYBs and hobby breeders, and commercial breeders all deliberately producing purebred puppies, the whole lot of them are producing only 25% of the dogs in shelters. And while some of these come in as pregnant bitches or as a litter of pups, the majority come in from pet owners that need to move, or are frustrated with the dog, or are tired of the dog, or get sick and cannot care for the dog, or die. 

Going after breeders isn't the answer. If the cost of dog ownership to the society is x amount, divide x by the number of dogs in the community and adjust a license for all dogs that will cover that amount. Charge all dog owners equally as all dog owners have the potential to abandon their animal. But if the government is going to do that, then the government will have to ante up and provide for the animals, which I doubt will happen. Also, they will need to enforce the license fees so that everyone who owns a dog is paying, not just the idiots that feel compelled to do so because it is the law.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Selzer - you're entirely missing the point which is to give people a financial incentive to alter their pets. 

My point about purebred dogs is that they can still create mixed breed puppies. 

As to who alters, licenses, and contains their pets and what dogs come into shelters and why the come there, I'm extremely interested in your source for this information? Because after 20 years of working closely with this issue, your statements do not tally with my experience. 

One of the most frustrating things about this thread is the way people keep making things up and posting them as "evidence." 

These things are not unknowable, left for us to guess. There are real statistics out there - what dogs come in and the reasons given for their surrender. What laws are proposed and what they entail. Different kinds of pet regulations and the impacts seen at shelters following them. The problem is taking the time to find the facts amid the the wild supposition.


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## arycrest (Feb 28, 2006)

> Originally Posted By: pupresqIF it would save thousands of lives every year, I would happily fork over a high permit fee for each of my pets. It's worth it to me to have fewer animals dying in our shelters.
> ...
> If the laws don't work, then I don't want them. But it may very well be that you CAN legislate responsibility in this case. Now, whether people think that's "just" or "fair" or worth it is another issue.


This may not sit well with folks, but I honestly don't give a rat's behind about saving irresposible pet owner's animals at the expense of my own pet's health and welfare. 

My responsibilty is to ensure that my pets receive the best medical care, food, shelter, etc. I can give them. I don't want you, the county or state I live in, or anyone else dictating to me, forcing me, to have a surgical procdure done on my pet/s or "to pay the piper" if I don't. 

If you want to do it, fine, do it - you have my blessing!!! But please stop attempting to force me, and others like me, to have medical procedures performed on our pets. Medical procedures should be decisions made between pet owners and their vets, not by bleeding heart strangers out to save the world of critters abandoned by their irresponsible owners.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

I totally disagree with your mindset but I respect that your post is honest. I think a lot of people feel the way you do but just don't quite say it. 

To me, it's a societal problem and one that probably only has a societal solution. I care what happens to the pets of irresponsible owners whether their owners do or not. But I think that probably both our views are part of larger world view differences. I noticed that a lot (not with you specifically, just generally) back on the old political threads. There are people who are very focused on their immediate sphere and the responsibilities there and there are people who are more into a larger world view and ideas of civic responsibility. 

Just as you're unlikely to change your view, I'm not going to change mine. I don't think there's a right or wrong as far as that goes, just different strokes.







Sometimes legislation breaks one way and sometimes the other. But I'm sure we both keep pushing for what we believe in!


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I agree with Gayle here. 

There are many, many charities that I would support before offering low cost spay neuters to people who choose to have pets they cannot afford. 

My point is that EVERY dog in shelters is a direct result of an irresponsible owner or a dead/incapacitated owner. Neither of these are the fault of the breeder. Some irresponsible people are also breeders and drop off litters or pregnant bitches, but that is certainly not the bulk of breeders. It makes no sense whatsoever to punish the responsible owners by adding laws, and increasing fees on them. That may increase revenue, but it will do nothing for the number of animals in shelters.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Well, I would argue that the breeders DO bear some responsibility for creating dogs, selling them indiscriminately, and then failing to take the dogs back if and when the dog finds itself homeless. This happens all the time and every day. The vast majority of breeders are not what most people would describe as either reputable or responsible.

As far as whether these regulations would do anything for the number of animals in shelters or not - I think that's an interesting question, and it IS a question. You say it would do nothing, but that's an opinion, perhaps wishful thinking, but certainly not a fact. You might feel like regardless of whether or not it would do something, it's not worth it in terms of what it would mean to you, or it's not fair or whatever. And those are legitimate issues, but they're separate issues. 

What I'm interested in is whether or not these types of regs would reduce shelter intake or not. I've asked for stats and references for those stats but so far the only ones that have been posted that I've been able to track were fake. It's an interesting topic and one I'm hoping to research more. I have no interest in bothering or inconveniencing responsible people for no reason. The only reason I'd ever push for these laws is if they actually accomplished what they were designed to do. Whether they do or not hasn't been established on this thread yet. 

Again - there is an enormous difference in saying that you don't want these laws because of your personal views about responsibility (which I think is basically what Gayle was saying) and saying that you don't want these laws because they wouldn't work. They might both be true but then again they might not. The first is an opinion, the second should be based on empirical evidence.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

People do not bother to register their mutts. At least in this county, my guess is half if not more of the dogs in this county are not registered. 

How can this law work if the same irresponsible people that do not register their mutts are the same ones that are allowing their mutts to reproduce indiscriminately, and are the same ones that drop their dogs at shelters ALL THE TIME??? 

We will never agree on this. What Ohio is proposing is a bad law and it will hurt small scale breeders.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Do you actually know that statistically (meaning per the number of animals out there) registration for purebreds is substantially higher than registration for mixed breeds or is this just a guess? 

If we're talking about SB 250, the law would work as I've mentioned: by giving animal control another tool to require alteration before the release of unlicensed unpermitted animals that they pick up roaming at large. It would also give them a tool to require alteration when they're called out to situations of suspected neglect or dog fighting. The animals being dropped at the shelter are not the reproductive problem. It's the animals still at home making more animals to be dropped at the shelter that need to be targeted. This legislation isn't perfect for that, but it has the potential to spay/neuter quite a few of them.

I'm not expecting everyone to agree on this. I'm only trying to get people to stick to the facts and not to confuse guesses, supposition, and media hype with facts. If people are going to support or oppose legislation they should do so because of what it actually says, not because of misinformation they read or heard somewhere.

Which OH law are you referring to? The one I posted about doesn't pertain to small scale breeders, so I'm assuming you mean a different one.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Yes it DOES pertain to small scale breeders. Read through it again. Senate bill 95 I think. There are sections that specifically mention the bond and the fee for the number of dogs, but the law itself is a revamp of the Ohio dog law, which includes EVERYONE, not just breeders.


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## arycrest (Feb 28, 2006)

Here's a June 9 article by Christie Keith, San Francisco, about mandatory spay/neuter.

The article's rather long, but here some of the highlights.

_ "Under the bill, every California pet owner must obtain a license to keep a dog or cat who hasn't been sterlized, a license that can be revoked if the owner violates a number of animal laws -- not just big ones like animal cruelty and neglect, but little ones, like letting your dog stand next to your car in a beach parking beach without his leash on. If that happens, you can be forced to spay or neuter your pet, unless a veterinarian certifies that the animal would "suffer serious harm or death if surgically sterilized." If a pet owner can't afford that option or refuses to comply, the animals can be seized and sterilized or even killed at taxpayer expense. "
...
"Although it's being sold as a cost saving measure, the California Legislative Analyst's Office determined determined that SB 250 would increase animal control expenses at the state and county levels, especially in the short run, although they weren't able to put a dollar amount on that increase. "
...
"While spay/neuter rates among pets owned by middle and upper income people approach 90 percent, only 53 percent of pets owned by poor people are spayed or neutered. The majority of lower income owners say they want to alter their pets but either can't afford to pay for the surgery and/or can't get their pets to a facility that will do it. 

In many communities, no form of public or private assistance is available to defray the cost of spay and neuter surgeries, which range from less than $100 for a cat to $900 for a very large dog, depending on local veterinary rates. And for people without a car, simply transporting pets to clinics or hospitals can be nearly impossible. "
...
"While spay/neuter surgery is the right choice for most pet dogs and cats, it nonetheless carries some health risks. Those begin with the small risk of death from anesthesia or surgical complications, but they don't end there. 

In a paper published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Margaret V. Root Kustritz found that surgical sterilization of dogs and cats can increase many health problems, including the painful, costly and fatal disease known as osteosarcoma, a bone cancer. 

Though the risks are small and most owners will (and do) opt for the surgery, isn't the obvious liberal position that it be a matter of choice, reached after discussion with the pet's veterinarian, rather than forced on them by lawmakers in Sacramento who have never seen their pet and are, by the way, not veterinarians? "
...
"Of course, it's consistent with progressive ideals to prevent animal suffering and death; we all want that. But the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in a recent policy statement on mandatory spay/neuter laws, states that they are "not aware of any credible evidence demonstrating a statistically significant enhancement in the reduction of shelter intake or euthanasia as a result of the implementation of a mandatory spay/neuter law." "
...
"California's Democratic lawmakers can save the lives of animals and cut costs without hurting people or violating progressive values. They can vote against SB 250 and for Assembly Concurrent Resolution 74 , which urges the adoption of a set of programs that have worked in communities across the country to lower shelter intake and deaths while saving money -- without punitive legislation or putting an unfair burden on low income pet owners. 

It's non-binding, so it won't cost the state a cent. In fact, the programs it espouses, such as low-cost spay/neuter programs like the one adopted by New Hampshire, usually result in cost savings in the communities that implement them. And its passage would signal that the days of Democratic support for regressive, uncompassionate and ineffective animal legislation are over. " _ 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/06/09/petscol060909.DTL


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## JeanKBBMMMAAN (May 11, 2005)

Actually, legislation is used a lot to shape behavior. Click it or ticket. No smoking in buildings. No trans-fats in NYC. Pet overpopulation can be considered a public health issue-disease, bites (listed on the CDC website), etc. You may not like any of those things, and that's fine, but it is an effective way to make changes. I am not saying that anything in this thread would change as a result of whatever this thread was about in the beginning-which was based on inaccurate reading and passing on of information from a source. 

That article though in the SF Gate is written by someone affiliated with ADOA. 

To me, they are like the PETA of "people rights" groups. So that tells me that there is a point of view that will be expressed in one definite way. 

Again though, the bottom line is that people need to read this stuff-no matter what your bias-carefully. 

If you don't like the facts, that's fine. But, going back to the beginning, just make sure they are the facts.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)




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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

> Quote:Yes it DOES pertain to small scale breeders. Read through it again. Senate bill 95 I think. There are sections that specifically mention the bond and the fee for the number of dogs, but the law itself is a revamp of the Ohio dog law, which includes EVERYONE, not just breeders.


I had been looking at the house bill not the senate one, but they are pretty much the same. 

There are some things about prohibiting the sale of puppies at flea markets and auctions that I can see potentially affecting a breeder who doesn't produce more than 9 litters a year but I feel sure those aren't things you're wanting to do. What is it specifically that troubles you about this one?


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## arycrest (Feb 28, 2006)

> Originally Posted By: JeanKBBMMMAANActually, legislation is used a lot to shape behavior. Click it or ticket. No smoking in buildings. No trans-fats in NYC. Pet overpopulation can be considered a public health issue-disease, bites (listed on the CDC website), etc. You may not like any of those things, and that's fine, but it is an effective way to make changes.
> ...
> That article though in the SF Gate is written by someone affiliated with ADOA.
> ...


Those laws you sited are far different than what we're discussing in this thread. First, I'll admit that in the dark, shameful history of the United States forced surgical procedures have been inflicted on some human beings, usually the mentally ill, however, those laws permitting this horrid practice have been rectified. But how many laws are on the books today, save the recent mandatory spay/neuter laws already passed here and there throughout the United States, that force pet owners, or anyone for that matter, to have forced surgical procedures performed? There's a huge difference between forcing people to click a seat belt versus forcing them to put their pets through a invasive sugical procedure. 

I don't know about Christie Keith's affiliation with ADOA, I assume you're correct - but what facts that she provided in her article are not factual or skewed in some way? Based on her past articles about various pet related topics, she's always done an excellent job researching her facts before publishing them.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Most of it's just op ed, so I'm not sure specifically what facts you mean but there is the stuff about it being a financial hardship for lower income people. On that point, I agree with her. If laws like that are being proposed, there should be low cost s/n available to help people who are trying to comply but can't afford it. In the cases I've read about so far that's been the case. For example, San Francisco county's law pertains specifically to Pit Bulls and they're providing free alterations for Pit Bulls to help people stay in compliance.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

For starters, how about this:

Sec. 955.10. No owner of a dog, except a dog constantly confined to a registered dog kennel registered under this chapter or a regulated dog breeding kennel licensed under Chapter 956. of the Revised Code, shall fail to require the dog to wear, at all times, a valid tag issued in connection with a certificate of registration. A dog's failure dog found not wearing at any time to wear a valid tag shall be prima-facie evidence of lack of registration and shall subject any dog found not wearing such a tag to impounding, sale, or destruction. 

So if your dog slips its collar and is picked up it can be destroyed. If you are in your living room, and the dog warden comes over and sees your dog not wearing its collar and tags, he can impound it, sell it or destroy it. If you dog is in a crate, not wearing a collar and tags it can be siezed and destroyed. 

*************************************************

The warden and deputies shall make a record of all dogs owned, kept, and harbored in their respective counties. They shall patrol their respective counties and seize and impound on sight all dogs found running at large and all dogs more than three months of age found not wearing a valid registration tag, except any dog that wears a valid registration tag and is: on the premises of its owner, keeper, or harborer, under the reasonable control of its owner or some other person, hunting with its owner or its handler at a field trial, kept constantly confined in a registered dog kennel registered under this chapter or a regulated dog breeding kennel licensed under Chapter 956. of the Revised Code, or acquired by, and confined on the premises of, an institution or organization of the type described in section 955.16 of the Revised Code. A dog that wears a valid registration tag may be seized on the premises of its owner, keeper, or harborer and impounded only in the event of a natural disaster. 

more of same, but hunters need to realize that this only allows them to hunt at field trials. Huh? People who own hunting dogs may trial with them, but mostly they actually do hunt with them. 

************************************************

(G) "Regulated dog intermediary" means a person who buys, sells, offers to sell, donates, gives, or exchanges more than nine dogs annually in this state or who sells or gives one or more dogs to a pet store annually. "Regulated dog intermediary" does not include an animal rescue for dogs, an animal shelter for dogs, a humane society established under Chapter 1717. of the Revised Code, a medical kennel for dogs, a research kennel for dogs, or a veterinarian.

-- this would be anyone who sells a litter. Cost is $500 on top of you other license fees.

*************************************************

(2) The director shall not issue a license under this section unless the director determines that the applicant will operate or will continue to operate the regulated dog breeding kennel in accordance with this chapter and rules adopted under it. 

-Um, so if you live in a trailer, maybe they automatically determine you will not operate the kennel in accordance with the chapter. How does this director determine that the applicant will comply. It sounds like a way to deny or revoke licenses based on NOTHING. 

*************************************************

(C) Money collected by the director from application and registration fees submitted under this section shall be transmitted by the director to the treasurer of state to be credited to the regulated dog breeding kennel control license fund created in section 956.17 of the Revised Code. However, the treasurer of state shall transfer to the county in which a regulated dog breeding kennel is or will be located fifty dollars of the application fee received from the person who is applying for a license to operate the regulated dog breeding kennel or an amount equal to the fee charged on January 1, 2009, by the county for the registration of a kennel under section 955.04 of the Revised Code, whichever is greater. The county auditor shall deposit the money in the county's dog and kennel fund created in accordance with section 955.20 of the Revised Code. 


--uh so even if you have a gigantic kennel and are paying 750$, the county gets just 50$ which is what they currently get from little yayhoos like myself. 

************************************************

I am just a page or so in, there is much more that I object to. Just a few more:

DD) Fail to provide heartworm preventative to a breeding dog as determined by the dog's veterinarian; 

(MM) Keep a dog in an enclosure, crate, or cage that includes exposed metal caging without a protective plastic or rubber coating. 

(JJ) Permit a dog to have more than one litter per calendar year; 

(II) Breed a dog that is less than eighteen months of age or more than nine years of age or breed a female dog without a certificate from a licensed veterinarian that the female dog is in proper health for breeding; 

(U) Fail to provide a dog with at least two hours per day of interaction with other dogs, provided that the dog is not sick and does not present a risk of illness to other dogs; 

(R) Keep or confine a dog in an indoor enclosure, crate, or cage where the temperature is below fifty degrees fahrenheit or over ninety degrees fahrenheit; 

And lastly, this is how the kennel control authority will be made up:
Sec. 956.18. (A) There is hereby created the kennel control authority board consisting of one member of the senate appointed by the president of the senate, one member of the house of representatives appointed by the speaker of the house of representatives, and the following seven members appointed by the governor: 
(1) Two members representing animal care and welfare organizations in this state; 
(2) One member who is a county dog warden; 
(3) One member who is a veterinarian; 
(4) One member representing pet stores in this state that are licensed under this chapter as regulated dog breeding kennels or regulated dog breeding intermediaries; 
(5) One member who is a member in good standing of a national breed parent club of the American kennel club; 
(6) One member representing the public. 


*Pet stores are represented, Breeders have only one representative who is a member of a national breed parent club of the AKC, so maybe a maltese breeder. Not knocking malteses, but breeding them and breeding shepherds are a whole different ball game. 

This is just too much information for a thread I think.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

Anywhere it specifies "breeding dog kennel" that's only for people breeding 9+ litters, so some of the above doesn't apply to you and you've got them kind of mixed together. 

The roaming at large and licensing stuff of course does, but I thought you were in favor of zeroing in on the people who allow their dogs to roam rather than the law abiding folks who contain their dogs responsibly. I couldn't find anything in there about the number of dogs for regular people (not involved in large scale breeding kennels) are allowed to own or anything that will hit small scale breeders (other than just regular stuff that will affect all dog owners). 

I agree with you that the one offense dog picked up not wearing a tag thing seems a little draconian. It does offer exceptions for acts of nature and other things not the owners fault but the wording is still a little concerning since collars can and do sometimes come off through no fault of the owner.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

you are not hearing me. If the dog warden walks in your yard and sees your dog without a tag they can confiscate it, sell it or euthanize it. Some of us do not wear collars on our dogs because they are DANGEROUS. 

It is 9 litters OR 40 puppies. But if you sell only 9 puppies you are a dog intermediary and you must pay $500 for the privilige. 

Sorry, the way this law is written is not good for any of us. 

And the way they are making up a kennel review board without including anyone who is a breeder, save maybe by accident, that is simply not acceptable.


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## pupresq (Dec 2, 2005)

I thought it had an exception for dogs on the owner's property but reading it again, it sounds like it's referring to dogs kept in kennels all the time. In that case, I agree with you - I don't think a dog should be seizable for failing to wear a license if they're on their owner's property.

So I'm in agreement that not every part of this law is good. But I guess this has been my point throughout this thread - not every law is good, not every part of every law is good, but I don't think that means there shouldn't be any. 

I would love to see some changes on what's currently allowed. I think the way mill dogs (as well as livestock for that matter) is currently legally treated is pretty horrific. 

Do you think there should be any regulations or restrictions on the treatment of dogs at large scale breeding operations? And if so, what form do you think they should take?


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Yes I do. 

I think every dog depending on breed and size should have at least a minimum amount of square footage. 

I think that if a dog is seriously overweight or underweight, there should be vet bills and some indication that the owner is trying to manage the problem. 

I think that if a dog is physically suffering, having wounds caused by collars or fencing that are not being treated and or are being irritated by insects or larva, the owner should be charged with animal cruelty.

If a dog is suffering from dehydration, the owner should be charged with animal cruelty.

If a dog is left in an outdoor kennel, they should have protection from the elements. Shade in the summer months, a dog house to protect them from rain and snow, etc.

No dog should be left lying in urine or fecies. That includes floor grates. A dog should have enough area to move away from their eating/sleeping area to defecate and that should never build up more than 24 hours. An owner who allows a dog to be in standing fecies, several days worth in a kennel, less in a crate, or if the fur is matted with fecies the owner should be charged with neglect.

Actually, I think that most of the problems with large scale breeding facilities can be covered under animal cruelty and animal neglect laws. I think there should be a measure, dogs that are physically suffering will be evidence of animal cruelty. And animal cruetly should be a felony that has if convicted a ban on pet ownership.


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