February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: Looks like Canada, along with all the rest of the world, is finally waking up to the fact that breed-specific legislation is costly, ineffective, and unenforceable.

From the Winnipeg Sun:

…After launching an e-mail campaign, advocates for ownership of the reputedly vicious dog breed are expected to urge a group of councillors Monday to repeal the municipal prohibition that began in 1990. Coun. Gord Steeves, who met with some of the pit bull supporters in December, says he’ll listen with an open mind when they come before the protection and community services committee.

“They have certain feelings on the breed, and feel that it’s been unfairly treated over time with this ban,” said Steeves (St. Vital), the committee’s chairman. “It’s probably fair that we have the discussion. And then we can ask our people to review it.”  Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: There are some surprising statistics in this article, like that in the U.S., 5,479 “pit bulls” are killed daily in shelters.  Boy if that doesn’t just break your heart, I don’t know what would!  Great article with lots of great quotables.

From the Danville News in Danville, Pennsylvania:

[Drayton Michaels of Red Bank, N.J.] known as “the Pit Bull guru,” has worked professionally with dogs for more than 10 years. He presented a seminar Sunday in Wagging Tail Doggie Day Care, attracting 30-plus people from areas including Danville, Lewisburg, Bloomsburg, Lycoming County and as far away as Connecticut and Baltimore.

“There is no epidemic of dog bites,” he said.

With about 300 million people in this country and 74 million dogs, .0002 percent of people bitten by dogs die, he said. People have a 1 in 25 million chance of being killed by a dog, he said.  Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: It’s so rare that we get good bully-breed news that I just had to share the article below. There is no love like the unconditional love that pets give us. They really are God’s little guardian angels. 

From the Peoria Journal Star:

A man [in Spring Bay, Illinois] escaped injury from his burning mobile home after his dog awoke him, fire officials said.

[Fire Chief Dennis Perry] said the home was a total loss…The homeowner, Ralph Cody, told Perry he had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette but that his pit bull woke him up, allowing him to escape, Perry said.

Read this article in its entirety here.

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

When Nathan Winograd’s groundbreaking book Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America came out a few years ago, those of us who were true animal welfarists — not that faction of animal welfare that was leaning dangerously close to animal rightism — finally had a voice.  We rejoiced because we love animals and didn’t want to see them needlessly killed. (And it’s not euthanasia to needlessly kill perfectly adoptable animals in shelters.  Killing in shelters for reasons other than illness and a few other exceptions isn’t mercy killing; it’s just needless killing.)  And I finally understood why some shelters, Animal Controls, animal rights groups, and even some animal welfare groups didn’t want to save perfectly adoptable animals.

As Winograd pointed out in Redemption, the elimination of domestic animal ownership is in keeping with an ideology called “nativism.” Winograd defines nativism as the,

“…belief that the value of an individual animal comes from lineage and that worth as a species stems from being at a particular location first” (79).

In the minds of many environmentalists and animal rights activists, since you can’t set domestic animals free (after all, they are, according to them, unnatural human creations), you must necessarily kill them.  So, in their view, in order to return to the “natural order” of things, indigenous species should take precedent over human encroachment, which includes human domestication of animals, because wild (i.e. natural, indigenous), animals were there first.   Another way to put that is some animal rights and animal welfare organizations, as adherents of nativism, may not have an interest in saving pets’ lives, but may in fact be willfully seeking to exterminate them because pets are domesticated, not wild. Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: Illinois State Representative for the 89th district Jim Sacia has posted a few times about the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) on his blog, but the blog post I’ve excerpted below is the most poignant. It is literally an answer to prayer (at least mine anyway) that elected officials start outing the agenda of the HSUS which has made a sport of slickster lobbying, defrauding the public, and unconstitutional legislation such that any elected official who entertains the HSUS’ legislation should be looked upon with a suspicion of treason. But kudos to Rep. Sacia for telling it like it is about the HSUS. I would simply point Rep. Sacia to the Activist Cash article about the HSUS’ alleged domestic terrorist ties and ask him, since he’s a retired FBI agent, why it is that the FBI does not investigate the HSUS’ domestic terrorist ties, or if they have investigated the HSUS’ domestic terrorist ties, why hasn’t anyone from the HSUS been prosecuted?  As Sacia himself notes in the blog post below, the HSUS is being investigated by the IRS for tax fraud.  Can’t we do better than that?  At what point does government stop entertaining the malfeasance of the HSUS and shut them down???

And while a few years ago I would have echoed Sacia’s sentiments to donate to your local shelter, I know the one I used to volunteer for was overtaken in what looked like a hostile takeover by radical animal rightists, so you have to be careful on the local level as well.  If your local shelter or Animal Control extols the supposed virtues of PETA, the HSUS, or the ASPCA, you might want to be careful.

From the blog of Illinois State Representative Jim Sacia:

…I’ve written of [the HSUS] before and the appeal they have for your money. Over the Christmas Holidays their ads were everywhere. Beaten down dogs, one eyed cats (and of course it was a big sad eye), and a lame, old, starved, and debilitated horse. And you, the concerned citizen, could fix all of this for a mere $19.00 per month sent to them to help care for these beaten, downtrodden animals.

Had you taken the time to do the research, you would have learned that the $19.00 per month translates to $228.00 per year and of that $228.00 total sum, $1.03 would have reached an actual hands-on animal shelter. By comparison, HSUS had 555 employees and paid them $37.8 million in 2008. This includes over $2.5 million contributed to employee pension plans. HSUS’ chief executive, Wayne Pacelle, made just over $251,000 in salary and benefits.

This agency just must receive closer scrutiny. Using Ohio as an example, “HSUS made zero donations to Ohio pet shelters in 2007 and 2008 and gave just $5,200 in 2006. This year, however, the organization is gearing up to spend millions of dollars in Ohio on the anti livestock farming ballot initiative.” (The Center for Consumer Freedom, not your local Humane Society, go to humane watch.org.)  Read the rest of this entry »

February 22nd, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: The Denver Daily News article didn’t mention the 2004 case of Margolius v. the City of Denver in which it was demonstrated that “all of Denver’s animal control officers were disqualified because they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt they could identify what is known as the American Pit Bull Terrier” as defined by their own ordinance.  Just like in Toledo, Denver is killing indiscriminately and apparently now not even informing Denver dog owners of their right to appeal.  And while the article below refers to dogs mislabeled as “pit bulls” in Denver as “innocent dogs,” the breeds they call “pit bull” are just as innocent and deserving of life.

From the Denver Daily News:

Denver animal control officers mislabeled another dog as a pit bull, raising additional questions over the department’s credibility when handling the lives of both the dogs themselves and the families they come from.

An administrative-law judge this month ruled that animal control officers mislabeled a 10-month-old boxer-mix puppy as a pit bull.

Despite being identified by three independent animal control officers as being a pit bull, the administrative-law judge heard testimony from experts stating otherwise, and ruled that the animal control officers had mislabeled the dog. Read the rest of this entry »

February 22nd, 2011 by Editor

Feb. 22, 2011 update.  Councilman Kevin Voisin sent the following regarding Monday’s meeting:

“…We are sending the issue back fo more work and it will be reviewed soon.  One of the issues we identified as needing work at our meeting last night was to avoid a breed specific ordinance.  Thanks for all of the information.  I am sure that we will come up with something that works and moves us forward…”

Editor’s note: Please contact the Terrebonne Parish Council here and politely inform them that there is no such breed as “pit bull” and that breed-specific legislation is ineffective, unenforceable, and unconstitutional.

From Houma Today:

Published: Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 6:01 a.m.

Pit-bull law. Terrebonne Parish Councilman Billy Hebert, who represents Bayou Cane and Broadmoor, researched the possibility of a breed-specific dog law after a 4-year-old was mauled last month in Houma. The issue will be discussed at the Policy, Procedure and Legal Committee meeting at 6:15 p.m. Monday. Any change to parish law must also go to a public hearing, which has not been scheduled in this case, according to council documents.  Read the rest of this entry »

February 17th, 2011 by Editor

March 18, 2011 update: According to HB 1080′s status page, HB 1080 has been kicked back down to the Rules Committee where its sponsor is most likely hoping for an assignment to a more amenable committee.  We hope HB 1080 dies a well-deserved, dishonorable death in the Rules Committee because the bill and its sponsor stand for low-ball politics.

Please write the Rules Committee and politely ask them not to give in to Rep. Bradley’s attempt at an end-around of the democratic process.  And yes, merely changing one word in a so-called “amendment” in order to get HB 1080 out of the Agriculture Committee where it didn’t stand a chance, and back to the Rules Committee where it is hoped that the bill will get an assignment to a committee that will pass it on to the House floor is an end-around of the democratic process.  So is cancelling meeting after meeting where the bill is scheduled to be heard in committee in hopes of waiting out your opposition.

March 11, 2011 update: HB 1080 is now scheduled to be heard March 15, 2011, in the Agriculture & Conservation Committee:

Agriculture & Conservation Committee Hearing
Mar 15, 2011, 1:00 p.m.
Stratton Building, Room 413
Springfield, IL

A couple of years ago when Illinois was considering breed-specific legislation (BSL) at the state level, week after week the meetings where the BSL was to be heard kept getting cancelled just like what is happening now with HB 1080. They were waiting everyone out because they knew most people couldn’t keep making the trip hundreds of miles from all over the state to committee meetings that kept getting cancelled.  It was a subversion of the democratic process, just like what is happening now with HB 1080.

In this case, it looks like Bradley knows he clearly has no support for HB 1080 in the Agriculture Committee and so he has added some nonsense amendment (the “amendment” simply strikes out the word “the” and replaces it in some text about rabies vaccines) to the bill to try to kick it back to the Rules Committee hoping he gets a better committee assignment than Agriculture.  I’m guessing the “amendment” is also why his office is misleading people telling them that HB 1080 doesn’t have a committee assignment yet when you call.  Bradley is probably well aware that he has no support for the bill in the Ag Committee, but neither that, nor the fact that a majority of Illinoisans don’t want HB 1080 to pass, seems to be a deterrent for him. Usually that means there’s some special interest backing the bill from the shadows and that the bought-off “representative”  has to earn his payola, er I mean, his “campaign contribution,” and pull out all the political dirty tricks to try to get the bill through.

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From the AKC:

Illinois Committee to Consider Removal of BSL Ban

The Illinois House Agriculture & Conservation Committee is scheduled to consider a bill…that would remove the state ban on breed-specific legislation. All responsible dog owners are strongly encouraged to contact the committee and ask them to oppose House Bill 1080.  Read the rest of this entry »

February 16th, 2011 by Editor

Feb. 24, 2011 update: Word is that BSL was voted down in Friday Harbor, 3-2.  That’s close, so folks please stay vigilant.

Editor’s note: It looks like a discussion of BSL is on the agenda for tomorrow’s council meeting:

http://www.fridayharbor.org/PDF/Council%20Packet/021711/dog.pdf

If you’re in the area, you may want to attend.  Otherwise, please write the Friday Harbor Mayor and City Council here and politely inform them that breed-specific legislation is ineffective, unenforceable, and unconstitutional. (Notice that on the town council’s page they have posted the same quote from Benjamin Franklin that we often use here: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” I wonder if they know that the breed-specific ordinance that they’re considering would negate those very essential liberties that Franklin was talking about while ironically BSL wouldn’t even make residents of Friday Harbor safer.)

From the San Juan Journal:

Just how far they’re willing to go remains to be seen.

But the Friday Harbor Town Council made no bones about its intent to tighten up on town law and to clamp down on dangerous dogs, and on potentially dangerous ones as well.

At the council’s request, town staff is expected to present a set of preliminary regulations for consideration when the council meets this Thursday, Jan. 20.  Read the rest of this entry »

February 16th, 2011 by Editor

Last Friday I stumbled across what I thought was going to be a promising article in The Seattle Times that began,

“Pit bulls are the most abused, reviled, abandoned and euthanized dogs in the United States.”

Anyone who has ever rehabilitated abused bulldog breeds knows first-hand the heartbreaking truth of the above statement.  But while The Seattle Times seemed to be attempting a “pit bull” apologetic, it doesn’t look like they quite had all the facts.  Read the rest of this entry »