Say NO to California AB 1634!!

Hello, everyone--I am very sorry to bother you and intrude upon your day, but would you please sign this petition () to oppose California bill AB 1634? I feel very strongly about this, as it will affect all pet owners in the state of California. While the woman who constructed this bill had noble intentions, she clearly did not consider the true, awful ramifications that this bill will produce, some of which I have tried to outline as briefly as possible below. If you don't wish to provide your e-mail address on the petition site, please write your local California assemblyman (find the name here at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html) or, if you are out of state, I will provide the address for mine.

The proposed bill, AB 1634, erroneously tries to simplify a very complex issue--i.e., the tremendous pet overpopulation in California kill shelters--by calling for the mandatory spay/neuter of all dogs if they have reached the age of four months, which, first of all, is too young. Can you imagine having gotten a total hysterectomy or bilateral orchiectomy (i.e., having both testicles removed) as a prepubescent child? The resultant premature lack of sex hormones would have been extremely detrimental to your growth, development, and future life. This bill also stipulates that all current adult dogs--including seniors--be spayed or neutered, regardless of whether major surgery is advisable due to advanced age or ill health. While there are exemptions for individual animals, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to get them, and the cost of maintaining an "intact" yearly permit will be exorbitant. I will not get into the specifics here, but suffice it to say that these "exemptions" seem to have been designed in a catch-22 sort of way.

This bill has amazingly ALREADY passed the California State Assembly and is now going before the State Senate, and this will now be the only chance we have left to try and stop it! If this bill is written into law, it will essentially ELIMINATE the availability of any future purebred dogs and working (meaning: service, herding, police, performance) dogs, as all current adults will have to be neutered, and thus there will be no more puppies from their lines. More specifically, I should say, there will no longer be any well-bred, good-tempered, healthy dogs available from reputable breeders, because the #1 problem with this bill is that it penalizes small, individual breeders--i.e., the kind from whom you should buy a dog in the first place, if you are looking for a purebred puppy--and WILL NOT stop the people who are responsible for the animal overpopulation in the first place--all the "backyard" breeders, Internet breeders, pet stores, USDA puppy mills, and illegal dog fighters who mass-produce dogs for profit without regard for the animal itself, without regard to whether or not they are truly improving the breed by mating two animals, and without regard to the health or temperament of the pups. How many finished champion purebred show dogs do you see in the shelters? Few, if any. How many ill-conformed, alleged purebreds do you see in the shelters? Plenty. How many other mixes--particularly pit bull and bully mixes--are in the shelters? Sadly, far too many for the number of homes who want them. To re-emphasize: responsible breeders are not the problem, but they will be taken out of the equation by this bill. The people who should be penalized will not be, and the problem will not only continue, but will be MADE WORSE as the general public, determined to have a "purebred," will turn in even increased numbers to pet stores (supplied by puppy mills with breeding dogs out of state), and backyard breeders with unlicensed animals (thus, out of reach of the bill) and get puppies from these disreputable sources, and when these dogs turn out to be sickly, ill-tempered, and unmanageable, guess where they will end up? In the shelter.

There are two other major overpopulation issues the bill does not address: that of feral cats, and that of the people who place dogs in shelters in the first place. How many people do you personally know who, once the puppy grew up and stopped being cute, have given their dog up to a shelter because they were 1) moving and "couldn't" take the dog, 2) the kids got sick of the dog, 3) the kids went away to college and the parents got sick of the dog, 4) everyone got sick of feeding/exercising/training the dog, 5) the dog's vet/feeding/grooming bills became too expensive, 6) due to a lack of exercise/training, the dog developed behavioral (biting, chewing, barking, digging) problems that no one could handle? These dogs are in no way affected by this bill since they are mainly adult dogs, and are already spayed/neutered and have never bred; in today's throwaway society, however, people seem to take more trouble in selecting a flat-screen television than in properly choosing a pet that will be right for their lifestyle and learning what its care entails, particularly since the pet will be around for 15+ years. Instead, when it becomes too inconvenient, they just get rid of the pet....and, thus, we have our shelter problem. AB 1634 will do nothing to educate people and teach them how to keep their pets out of the shelter. AB 1634 will do nothing to prevent people from getting pets on a whim that they do not have the time, means, or expertise to care for.

Please don't get me wrong--I fully support the spay/neuter of all pet animals. Regular pet owners have no business breeding! If you do not have a show-quality animal that is worthy of passing on its genes for the improvement of future generations of the breed, or if you do not have a working animal who is so good at what it does that it would be a detriment to remove its genes from the pool, or if you don't even know what any of this means and you just want the kids to "witness the miracle of life," you have NO BUSINESS BREEDING. I also fully support adopting mixed-breed dogs from shelters and purebred adults from breed rescues instead of buying a new purebred puppy, as there are so many dogs already out there who need new homes! Yet, if one still wants a purebred puppy (certainly tempting for obvious reasons), I definitely believe that right should be retained. We should not be FORCED to obtain a shelter dog as our next pet, particularly because we WILL have to live with the animal for 15+ years, and we should certainly like what we get, because if that isn't what is wanted, then that animal will then stand an even lesser chance of a happy life. Of course, taking on such a shelter challenge is the honorable thing to do, and if you have the desire and the capacity to do so, do it! As the proud current owner of BOTH a spayed purebred dog obtained from a reputable breeder as a puppy and a neutered mixed breed I rescued as an adult stray, I feel I can speak to both sides.

Please sign the petition and say no to AB 1634! In summary: although we certainly need to do something about the pet overpopulation, while this bill is well intended, it was ill-conceived, and so will only allow the unscrupulous to continue to profit from poorly bred, mass-produced puppies, who grow up to become poorly socialized, ill-tempered, and unhealthy adults, which only fuel the shelter population. I obviously feel very strongly about this--please sign and forward to your friends! If this passes in California, it will quickly spread to other states!!!

If you wish to read more about the issue for yourself:

The American Kennel Club (AKC), the largest dog registration organization in the United States, is strongly opposed to the bill (read about it at http://www.akc.org/canine_legislation/CA_action_center.cfm). Another website dedicated to the opposition of AB 1634: http://www.ab1634.com/

Sincerely,
Koi