HEALTHY PETS - KIMI PECK

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Patt Morrison

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From the Los Angeles Times |

A law for bad humans
Don't listen to the naysayers -- the spay and neuter bill in Sacramento is worth passing.

Patt Morrison

July 5, 2007

HONESTLY, PEOPLE. Here it is, the day after Independence Day, and some "independent" citizens you all are, still expecting someone else to clean up after you.

There are all kinds of public messes — from leaving it to the schools to discipline your kids, to trashing the public landscape. (Last week, a driver in front of me at a red light tossed his fast-food empties out of his car. If I'd had time to scoop it up and dump it back in his window, he'd probably have shot me, and the headline would have read: "Columnist trashed one last time.")

This time, I mean the animal messes. Not the ones you let your pets leave on the sidewalk, but the criminal mess of pets you allow to be neglected and killed.

Not every Californian trashes the highways; not every Californian is callous to animals. But enough of you are that half a million unwanted, homeless cats and dogs get put to death by California's city and county shelters every year. Just about one life every minute. I'm one of those who cleans up your messes. Every dog I've rescued and found a home for is one you flicked aside like an empty Arrowhead bottle.

Dogs like Oliver, eating garbage outside the market. Penelope, pushed out of a car on a freeway. Bob and Osgood and Annabelle and Hattie and Lucy and Woodrow and blind Berkeley and all the dozens of others, left to starve or become road kill. Like many other freelance animal lovers, I've spent hundreds of hours and thousands of bucks saving dogs and finding them good homes.

I'm tired of cleaning up after you. California is tired too; its cities and counties have no room or money to keep all the homeless kittens and puppies, all the old dogs and cats you allow to overbreed or leave out on the street like an old refrigerator. And so they have to kill them.

Who cares? You should. You, the California taxpayer, shell out a quarter of a billion dollars a year for this.

And because you won't tidy up your messes, other people have to do it for you. Like Lloyd Levine, the Van Nuys Democratic assemblyman whose proposed California Healthy Pets Act could save millions of dollars and thousands of creatures.

The bill requires California dogs and cats 6 months and older to be spayed or neutered. If you get caught with "unfixed" animals, the $500 fine can be refunded once you do the right thing; the fine comes with a guide to cheap spaying and neutering. If you want to breed your pet, you can buy a permit that allows one litter a year.

The objections to Levine's bill run from the selfish to the ridiculous.

The American Kennel Club has threatened to pull its annual Long Beach dog show over this, even though purebred show animals and licensed breeders' animals would be exempt from the law, as are police dogs, rescue dogs and therapy and guide dogs.

The bill's opponents yammer that it's animal social engineering, socialism, mutt genocide (around my house, please remember to say "multicultural canines") and anti-business — and therefore un-American.

There's one business the bill is anti: illegal, underground animal breeding — all those backyard puppy mills churning out defective Dalmatians or border collies or whatever purse-sized dog happens to be hot. My vet took in an abandoned puppy-mill Chihuahua — Scooter, born without front legs because of overbreeding.

Want to ruin your own life? Perfectly fine by me. Heroin? Live it up, baby — just don't break into my house to pay for your habit. Ride your hog without a helmet? Go for it — unless your smashup means my taxes pay to support you for the rest of your comatose life. Same goes for critters. When thousands of them have to die for humans' irresponsible choices, playtime's over.

Yet even some animal lobbies are fighting Levine's bill, because it's either too much or not enough. But you don't kill a good bill because it isn't a perfect bill.

Some point out that Levine's AB 1634 doesn't address pet smuggling. But if the federal government can't halt illegal immigration, a California law can hardly stop the flow of contraband Chihuahuas. The bill also doesn't stop people from dumping their sick pets at shelters because they can't afford treatment. These are matters for another bill and another session; AB 1634 doesn't have to do everything to accomplish something.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to do what I do every July 5: look for terrified dogs who broke loose and ran away because of the noise from illegal gunfire and illegal fireworks shot off by you boneheads. Someone's got to stop them from becoming road kill — just as Sacramento should do for Levine's bill.

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CALIFORNIA
July 11th at 8:00 AM - Hearing in Sacramento

YES - AB 1634 -  Healthy Pets | Home | Republicans |
It's crunch time! The California Healthy Pets Act is to be heard in the Local Government Committee on July 11th at 8:00am. We must pass out of this committee or the bill is dead!!!! I know there’s been a lot of action to take along the way, but please do not stop now!

The Opponents Are Organized - AB 1634 NO
| the opposition - sponsored by Kennel Flora - Danish/Swedish Farmdogs | - American Kennel Club |

Bill to require pets be fixed dies
The author pulls the proposal after it raises hackles of
a Senate panel and thousands of pet lovers.

It may return.

By Patrick McGreevy
Times Staff Writer

July 12, 2007

SACRAMENTO — A bill to require Californians to spay or neuter their pets or face stiff fines was pulled from consideration for this year by its author Wednesday after it ran into strong objections from members of a state Senate panel.

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) said he hopes to resurrect the idea in January.

Levine said he would consider amending the legislation, as suggested by a member of the Senate committee, to limit a proposed $500 fine to owners whose unaltered dogs and cats are picked up while running loose by animal control officers or are discovered at homes during investigations into other violations.

"I think we can get to a solution," Levine told the Senate Local Government Committee and an overflow crowd at a Capitol hearing room. "But the first thing opponents must do is to acknowledge that there is a problem and work with me to solve it."

Levine's legislation, AB 1634, had cleared the Assembly with no votes to spare June 6, but ran into opposition in the Senate after about 10,000 pet owners, breeders, guide-dog owners and police officers objected that it would infringe on their rights and use of animals.

A similar number of pet owners and animal control experts had lobbied for the bill, making it one of the most hotly contested pieces of state legislation this year.

About 20 people testified for or against the bill Wednesday.

Backers said the mandate for dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered at 6 months is justified because 454,000 unclaimed cats and dogs are put to death each year in California shelters at a cost of about $300 million.

Despite previous amendments to allow work dogs, show animals and breeder animals to obtain exemptions from being neutered, it became clear to Levine that the five-member committee was not prepared to vote it out to the full Senate.

Sen. Gloria Negrete-McLeod (D-Chino), the committee chairwoman, told Levine that her family has cared for stray dogs and cats for years and has always acted responsibly and had them spayed or neutered.

"I don't think I appreciate being charged with something that I already do naturally," she said.

Sen. Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach), another member of the panel, said his family has had hunting dogs for years, and that the proposal to require dogs to be spayed or neutered at 6 months would interfere with the breeding of hunting dogs that are often not selected until they are more than 18 months old.

"There needs to be something in the bill for those working dogs," he said.

Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) suggested the amendment that would limit the fine and the spay-and-neuter requirement to those animals picked up by shelter workers.

"One of the fear factors around this bill, and there are a lot of them, is that it's too broad, that responsible owners would be subject to having to take action on their pets, that it's not fair," Kehoe told Levine.

The assemblyman offered to accept the amendment if the committee would vote the bill out of committee, but there did not appear to be the votes.

"If you are talking about taking amendments this morning on the fly, that's not acceptable," said Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks).

As a result, Levine asked that the bill be shelved until January.

"We'll take our time," Levine told reporters afterward. "We've got six months to work to educate the committee and work on the amendment.

"The amendment would have just said if you are in violation of other animal laws then you have to spay or neuter your animal. It would not have penalized otherwise law abiding citizens," Levine added.

However, opponents, who have formed the group PetPAC, will continue to organize in preparation for any attempt next year to resurrect the legislation.

"We're very pleased" that the bill was withdrawn, said Bill Henby, chairman of PetPAC.

"We will regroup and continue to grow our coalition so that by the time this comes back in January we hope to be representing over a million dog and cat owners."

Asked about the proposed amendment that would narrow the legislation, Henby said, "We are still concerned."

Wednesday's hearing was not without its light moments. Attendees included the ninth generation of the film star Lassie, and the collie's owner, Bob Weatherwax, an opponent of the bill.

When told of the dog's presence, Negrete-McLeod said to the bill's opponents, "OK, but if Lassie is going to talk it's going to count against you" for time.

The chairwoman also found humor in a mistake in the text of a written argument submitted for the bill.

"I don't think you meant that you want 'spay and neuter programs for low-income individuals,' " she quipped.

Still, at the conclusion of the 1 1/2 -hour hearing, Levine said he ended this year's fight for the bill with a bitter taste in his mouth.

"I've been personally attacked and vilified," he said. "I am very upset. I will stipulate that my opponents love their animals. We have different approaches to how to solve the problem. But I don't like the fact that it's gotten personal."

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email: patrick.mcgreevy at latimes.com