Avenue K9

Santa Barbara County has NOT passed an MSN Ordinance. Correct your misinformation. One has been proposed but now will not be presented until April or May unless you know something this County resident doesn’t. I just spoke with Supervisors offices yesterday.

How about some stats? How many litters are actually AT the ACs in a year? How many are taken by force from a home? How many are tunred in? Some details, please.

Judie seems to be throwing all kidns of numbers around with NO basis for most of them.

By the way - SB has NOT passed this law - AND Santa Cruz has NOT had as much of a decline as surrounding cities. It’s called EDUCATION!!! Something, apparently Judie and her cronies are against!

Judie - read “Redemption”!

If they are not going to be ‘knocking on doors” then why have the law.? Santa Cruz does make a compelling case .. AGAINST MANDATORY SPAY NEUTER.. while SC has the law in place the surrounding counties have a GREATER DECLINE in shelter numbers wihtout coersion You need to check your facts. SB deos not have this law.
If someone does not take care of their animals we ALREADY have laws for that.. called ANIMAL CRUELTY ..H$U$ says don’ t worry there will be plenty of dogs.. right they are.. puppy mill dogs. pet store dogs and smuggled dogs.. there is no law to stop interstate commerce in pets and the border control finds THOUSANDS of smuggled pets every year. Imagine how many they do NOT find. Lack of well bred reasonanably priced pets coming from our state will surely be the boon puppy mills and smugglers are waiting for. They laws will not affect them..
As for this affecting the deficit.. that is a laugh. This law will COST MONEY.. LA just instituted MSN..and already the AC director has asked for about a half a million dollars to start the program..and that is just to START.. where will the rest come from?/ Take a guess… YOU AND ME..NO on AB 1634. Education not Legislation..it lasts and it works

Oh yeah, we wouldn’t want to spend any money to implement a program that would cut down on the killing of animals. I guess we know you don’t care about the animals being killed in our shelters as long as you can breed and make money.

It is amazing to read the above notes and not wonder people’s motivation. I generally believe that people are born understanding the difference between wrong and right. The problem is that if an individual or group is gaining financially from some activity, their basic understanding of wrong and right is blurred. The State of California is currently in a financial crunch. Spending millions of dollars per year on killing surplus animals isn’t helping. Education, though important, isn’t helping. Recently there has been a lot of talk about information from a misguided author that there are better ways to approach this problem. And certainly some of this data may certainly be helpful. But we are facing a crisis with regards to pet overpopulation in Califonia shelters. When shelter workers are screaming for the killing to stop it appears to me that these cries can’t go unnoticed. An when I hear others who are in oposition and notice they own businesses that profit from the sale of companion animals or the show of these same creatures, I go back to my orignial analysis. There must be some blurring going on. I am for a fiscally resonsible State and Local government. LA City has spoken. It is my hope that as a State we can move on toward a more fiscially responsible and humane solution to this problem. 1634 appears to be the way.

It is difficult to believe that a DR. would support legislation over education and “fiscal” responsibilty. I am not sure what type of medicine you practice ( if any) but I for one do not want the government telling me what to choose for me or my family ( which includes my pets)over what my doctor and I decide. These are MEDICAL decisions that are the choice of the owner of the pet made in conjunction with their caregiver i.e their DOCTOR or VETERINARIAN. I do hope that I never see a physician or veterinarian who believes that the STATE takes precident over my family and my medical choices for them. Every surgery is a risk, be it to pet or to human, as a doctor you should understand that. That is why you must sign a release when you have a proceedure done and it is the same for your pet.
Children in foster care are NOT my children. Pets that have puppies and kittens are NOT my pets so why should I be forced into a medical proceedure to satisfy what someone else does? What will be next?/ I hate to think. I do not gain “financally” from owning my intact pets. It is my choice.
That “misguided author” you speak of is Nathan Winograd, author of Redemption, The Myth of Pet Overpopulation. He has years of experience in shelter work and knows of where he speaks. I would believe him before any ‘evidence” given here by supporters of this misguided bill. As for education not working then why have euthanasia rates dropped in California for the last 20 years in a row? why do free spay/neuter clinics have more patients than they can handle? Why does it take SIX weeks to have an appointment in my town to have a cat neutered and even longer for a dog spay? How about socialzed medicine for pets.. FREE spay/neuter for all citizens regardless of income. When the free spay day happens in my town ( twice a year.. hardly enough) people of all ages, races, crreds and colors are LINED UP with their pets and many are turned away. Want to spent the states money on a good program? Start with POSITIVE NOT PUNATIVE measures FIRST.. FREE SPAY NEUTER.. WHY NOT TRY IT FOR A YEAR OR TWO.. see if it makes a difference. AB 1634 proponents say it will take years to see the effects of their bill and as someone said here it will COST MONEY.. why not start spending to start saving..
As a doctor I am sure you see medicine shifting focus. Why not allow techs to neuter animals as PA’s are allowed to perform minor( if you can consider surgery minor)proceedures. Less cost.. more castrated animals.. there are lots of positive steps to take before we create a new class of criminals.. the intact pet owner..

Barbara:
I believe in spay/castrate for anyone that wants it for their pets.. I believe that no animal should leave a shelter without undergoing a spay/castrate. I believe that humans are basicly good and want to do the right thing. I believe that just as we train our pets (and our children) with positive reinforcement so should we with humans. I believe that money shoud be spent as you do to save the lives of pets. I believe that spay/neuter should be free for anyone who wants it. I believe that that is the best use of the government dollar, not fines and criminal charges. I just don’t believe that humans are dreck, greedy and unreliable as you obviously do. Can you imagine what our children would be like if we raised them to hate their fellow humans and to distrust them and to never give them any credit. To always think the worst about others instead of the best? A sorry world indeed.

Dr Mark:
do you really believe that people are BORN knowing right from wrong.. or is it learned through eduation in and out of the classroom, home and society/ my bet in on nuture vs nature when it comes to right and wrong. If a doctor or a hospital is “gaining financially” from their own business does that “blur” them from knowing right from wrong? I certainly hope not. There is no bigger crisis in California than the health care crisis. Hospital workers are screaming for something to be done. It appears to me that something should be done. Perhaps doctors and hospitals should forget about making a profit so that the line between right and wrong will not be “blurred” by the evil thing called money.

This truly is a heated topic…. As someone who is an animal rights supporter and only rescues shelter dogs, it DOES break my heart to know that animals that would make perfect pets are being put to sleep. How can anyone who knows the facts not want to do something about it? Yet, I have reservations about manadatory spaying/neuturing. I agree AND disagree with each comment, because everyone has points that are worthy of discussion…which is what makes this such a heated topic.

A few things I would like specifically comment on:

1) Dr. Garrison’s comment about people knowing “right and wrong” and his suggestion that people are essentially greedy by nature is oversimplifying human nature. It seems that he is implying that people who are opposed to the bill are somehow going to profit from having puppies or kittens around. Yet I somehow doubt that everyone who’s opposed to the bill owns a puppy mill…. Furthermore, the comment on “right and wrong” is highly loaded-supporting or not supporting this bill is not an issue of “right” or “wrong”; it’s so much more. Life is never as simple as a dichotomy, or black and white - there is just too much gray in between. Yet another reason why this issue is so heated.

2) It seems to me that outspoken supporters of the bill (sorry for the generalization) view opposers of the bill as “greedy” and wanting to profit from puppies and kittens. I don’t understand where this is coming from - like I said before, I just don’t think that the issue is as simple as that. There are people around who WANT to stop the high numbers of pets being put down in shelters AND not support the bill. While I disagree with Pork Chop in that I believe we all have SOME social responsibility in this issue, I DO agree with him that low cost spay/neuturing are not as available as it could be, nor is there enough education for teaching “ignorant” people about WHY they need to be spaying/neuturing to begin with.

There HAS to be other solutions to the issue of animal overpopulation. I do believe that educating people about why spaying/neuturing is neccessary is a must, as well as providing free spaying/neuturing services. Also, there is a need to address the issue of getting these services to people who are too lazy, have no means of transportation, or are just not aware of low cost/free spaying/neuturing. Addressing one issue at a time (baby steps) will eventually lead to an improved system.

Thank you Dr. Garrison for your insightfulness.
The success of mandatory spaying and neutering in Santa Cruz speaks clearly and honestly for itself. As mandatory spaying and neutering continues to sprout up in communities, it shall continue to be successful. It will end the suffering for many animals, and there will always be enough dogs and cats for people to love!
The people refusing to accept the truth are those that exploit animals selfishly or cruely and often times both.
“Pet overpopulation is animal cruelty.”

Everyone throws out that Education is the answer, how many that keep saying that are either out there educating where it is needed, or funding education? Many shelters and rescues are still desparatly trying to save lives with small Education budgets at best. Put your money where your mouth is or jump on in with some hands on help, not just empty words. All these clever word wars do not keep barrels going to rendering plants empty. Too many find it all to easy to say things without actually doing something about it…at the very least Judie is in ACTION on this issue, and she has spent plenty of time in shelters all up and down the state, how much of the opposition has set foot into just one shelter?