[ SHOWGSD-L ] A Thousand Snakes In The Grass
- From: "Ginger Cleary" <cleary1414@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Showgsd-L@Freelists. Org" <showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 07:19:49 -0500
Ginger Cleary
Abusus no tolit usum.
Rome, GA http://www.rihadin.com/
Member GSDCA
Member Sawnee Mtn Kennel Club
GA Director Responsible Dog Owners of the Eastern States.
-----Original Message-----passed across the country. In CA, they are
trying to take out the entire state. In Texas and Florida, they are doing it
city by city. Several people have written to me asking how this could be
happening. Below is an excellent article that explains quite well exactly
what is going on......
Permission to crosspost, but please note submission to the Alaskan
Malamute Club of America Newsletter._ _
A thousand snakes in the grass.
By Margaret Anne Cleek
"Better the dragon you see than a thousand snakes in the grass." This
Chinese Proverb should be recognized and heeded by pet owners and fanciers.
Currently anyone who breeds animals is the target of animal rights
activists who wish to abolish the purpose breeding of pets, and in some
cases pet ownership in general. While we are made aware of federal and state
legislation threatening our ownership of our animals, for example PAWs and
the Animal Welfare Act at the federal level and CA's AB 1634, mandatory S/N
bill, and broad-based opposition is launched, I believe that the greatest
threat is from local legislation enacted as quietly as possible. The threat
is greatest at the local level because a small special-interest group of
animal right activists is following a quiet plan to rob us of control over
our pets and their reproductive capacity and enacting this plan community by
community.
Programs on how to enact legislation have been developed by special
interest animal rights organizations. Action steps are outlined on websites
with literature, sample wording, canned letters, and a plan showing how to
proceed. They are told not to reveal that a new ordinance is the objective,
but rather to form a taskforce to address animal welfare or to decrease
shelter euthanasia. Also the advice is given to remain informal as this
keeps you from being subject to "sunshine laws" which may exist to assure
open and public process and to lay the groundwork and assure support from
staff before going public.
Thus the public is not aware that behind closed doors special interest
groups are drafting an ordinance to suit their agenda. A group is formed and
under the guise of being a coalition which includes all "stakeholders"
participants further their plan. Some participants are well-meaning, some
know precisely what the real agenda is. In any case, the MSN or `pay or
spay" ordinance is drafted with city or county staff co-opted as a
participating member. Senior staff, legal, and council or board members are
now inundated with information in private one-on-one sessions. The
perception of a crisis is cultivated and the only solution is to enact
legislation forcing people to pay huge fees to own intact animals or
criminalize the ownership of intact animals. Data is provided which is
either false or misleading about the success of mandatory S/N legislation.
They may show a decline in euthanasia, but fail to note that greater
declines were achieved in communities without such an ordinance. They may
show an increase in licensing with coercive legislation, but fail to mention
that enforcement costs exceed revenue. In my municipality I found that
success was even claimed in a community that had no such legislation.
(For a comprehensive article on MSN legislation's results please see Do
mandatory spay/neuter laws reduce shelter intake and euthanasia? by Laura
Allen http://www.ab1634.com/Files/ARE_MSN.pdf
http://www.ab1634.-com/Files/-ARE_M SN.pdf )
Breeders are vilified as being responsible for the deaths in shelters
under the simply appealing but logically false premise that the birth of a
wanted pet causes the death of a shelter animal. Breeders are pimps,
heartlessly exploiting animals for money, causing the death of wonderful
shelter animals and costing the municipality tremendously in animal control
costs. A huge number is manufactured and becomes the lost revenue to the
county because all breeders are tax evaders making tens of thousands of
dollars and costing the community in animal control costs for the surplus
animals they produce.
Apparently someone failed Econ 101 as there can either be a crisis of
surplus desirable animals OR breeders selling pets for thousands of dollars.
You cannot have both. There is rampant emotional manipulation. Pictures will
be shown of darling puppies. Then the numbers of animals killed in the
shelter will be given. This leads the targets of the message to believe that
these darling puppies are killed. In fact, the number presented includes
wildlife injured and brought in, small animals, reptiles, owner surrender
for euthanasia because of age or illness, feral cats and unweaned kittens,
and dangerous dogs. They present as if the community is killing huge numbers
of adoptable animals, but when the data is examined, the numbers of
adoptable animals is revealed to be very low. Many shelters cannot meet the
demand for puppies and smaller dogs and only have large mixed breed, often
pit type available in any numbers for adoption.
Anyone who gathers this data is dismissed, because now the numbers, which
were once touted as so compelling, are "not important". The council members
or supervisors are sold "the big lie." The Big Lie is a propaganda
technique. It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein
Kampf . It is a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone
"could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".
In the case of pet overpopulation the Big Lie is promoted over and over to
city officials and the public, to the point of where they no longer can
process logical arguments against the lie and accept it as fact without
question. They come to fully believe that there is a crisis of pet
overpopulation, that the public has not responded to education and the
problem is getting worse and worse and we must enact coercive and draconian
legislation because all else has failed. Breeders are unethical and
unregulated and need to be controlled. Intact animals bite and run at large
while altered ones do not. Every intact animal is a ticking time bomb and a
single female cat can produce 470 thousand cats in seven years and a single
female dog 65 thousand dogs?everyone knows this to be true!
In fact, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of pets
euthanized. The most reliable data available indicates between 3 and 4
million animals were euthanized in shelters last year. This includes feral
cats, ill and infirm animals, dangerous animals, and owner turn in for
euthanasia. These numbers are a far cry from the 25 million estimated 30
years ago and these numbers have decreased in spite of an increase in the
number of total pets and a doubling of the expected lifespan of dogs in
homes (mostly due to leash laws). It is estimated that voluntary S/N rates
for cats are around 90% and 75% for dogs (numbers from HSUS, American Pet
Products Manufacturer'-s Association and Animal People). Spay/neuter for
pets is an easy sell and represents one of the most successful social change
efforts of this generation.
Before dog and cat fanciers are aware that such legislation is even being
considered, senior staff and legislators have been indoctrinated to believe
that there is a crisis so great and so intractable that extreme coercive and
punitive action must be taken, that breeders are the scum of the earth, that
a single intact animal is a threat to the community and thus vets must
report animals not neutered by 4 months to animal control, that the
community supports this draconian legislation, and that it has been hugely
successful every where enacted. Any evidence to the contrary is dismissed as
false information from breeders who are trying to protect their "business".
Anyone who opposes the ordinance is demeaned as a selfish and heartless
"special interest" while the so-called coalition is presented as
representing the interests of the larger community and the animals.
The legislation is then presented to the municipal legislative body by
staff as the extensive work of a "taskforce", all "stakeholders" have been
involved, and it is specially designed to meet the needs of the community.
In fact, the legislation is the "canned" product of an animal rights group
and these taskforces are rigged, and anyone who does not agree with the
agenda is not invited to the private meetings, or if initially involved but
not with the program, "chilled" out of the proceedings by the dominant
group.
The real kicker in all of this is that the agenda and legislative lobby
work of a special interest group (possibly with a 501c3 status which means
they should not be political) is presented to the council members or
supervisors as a recommendation of staff. This makes passing it a knee jerk
as councils or boards rubber stamp just about anything staff recommends in
virtually every community. In some cases a MSN ordinance is not even
presented to the public and is attempted to be snuck through on a consent
calendar (Sacramento City August 2007).
It is my belief that the greatest threat to the ownership of pets lies in
the stealth enactment of these ordinances in our communities. And this is
not just happening in California, the land of fruits and nuts.
Hendersonville, NC, Palm Beach, FL, Little Rock, AR, San Antonio, TX,
Albuquerque, NM are some of the communities considering or enacting extreme
AC ordinances.
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