The California Legislature is winding down for the year and SB250 has been placed on the inactive file. That means no further action until next year. With your help we stopped SB250, but it’s not dead, yet. When the Legislature reconvenes next year Senator Florez can bring the bill back and pick up right where we left off, at the Assembly floor vote. Or he may just let it die.

It was your letters and faxes and phone calls that stopped this bad bill. We heard over and over at the Capitol that polite, well reasoned statements were greatly appreciated and made a real difference. Thank you for your support. Take a rest for a few weeks. We’re going to.

But the bill’s not dead yet either. If it comes back we’ll be ready with something you can do. So check back every so often, sign up for our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter. We’ll keep you up to date.

[Update] If you are looking for our Easy Letter, we have given it a rest as well. If SB250 comes back, so will the Easy Letter, shinier than ever.

[UPDATED per Official California Legislative Information]

SB 250, the California mandatory spay/neuter bill, failed to pass the State Assembly today. The last of two votes today was 28 YES, 42 NO, 10 abstained. This is well short of the 41 YES votes needed for passage.

Under Assembly rules the bill can be brought up for a vote again later this week, so this is not the end. Yet.

Please call or fax the following Democratic Assembly Members who voted NO.  Politely thank these members for their vote, and encourage them to hold the line.  Bill supporters will be trying to sway these members. Your phone calls and faxes will ensure that they stay on our side.

• Marty Block—(916)319–2078
• Joan Buchanan—(916)319–2015 no more calls please, she is a confirmed solid “No”
  
• Anna Caballero—(916)319–2028
• Charles Calderon—(916)319–2058
• Wesley Chesbro—(916)319–2001
• Mike Davis—(916)319–2048
• Noreen Evans—(916)319–2007
• Warren Furutani—(916)319–2055
• Alyson Huber—(916)319–2010
• John Pérez—(916)319–2046
• Manuel Pérez—(916)319–2080
• Mary Salas—(916)319–2079
• Nancy Skinner—(916)319–2014
• Sandré Swanson—(916)319–2016
• Norma Torres—(916)319–2061
• Mariko Yamada—(916)319–2008

The following Democratic Assembly Members did not vote or abstained.  Remember that abstaining is a “polite no”, and for our purposes is just as good as a NO vote.   Please call and thank them, and encourage them to hold their position.  Bill supporters will be targeting these Assembly Members.

• Cathleen Galgiani—(916)319–2017
• Isadore Hall—(916)319–2052
• Bonnie Lowenthal—(916)319–2054
• Fiona Ma—(916)319–2012
• William Monning—(916)319–2027
• Lori Saldaña—(916)319–2076

The remaining Democratic Assembly Members voted for the bill.

None of the Assembly Republicans voted for SB 250. We appreciate their consistent position on this issue. They also deserve our thanks, but will not be under pressure to change their votes the way their Democratic colleagues will.

The latest amendments are up. The most significant thing about these amendments is that they require the bill to go back to the Senate. Prior to these amendments, the bill only needed to pass in the Assembly before going to the Governor’s desk.

There are some minor changes, but nothing that makes the bill any better. Save Our Dogs opposes this latest version.

What is important however, is that this version contains language that purports to exempt a few classes of working dogs. As we have written before, exemptions for working dogs do not protect those dogs. This is no exception.

(l)  Nothing in this section shall apply to any of the following,
provided the subject dog is licensed pursuant to Section 30801,
Section 121690 of the Health and Safety Code, or as required by
the local licensing agency:

(2) Any owner or breeder of a dog used in the business of
cultivating agricultural products.

This “exemption” was added specifically to cover insect detection dogs used to detect insect pests in vineyards. Let us consider the hypothetical case of an insect detection dog, Rita.

This is a new-ish use for dogs, so although Rita is the most experienced dog in the State, she is just two years old. She is intact and her owner/handler plans on breeding her someday, but this has nothing to do with Rita’s ability to do her job. This exemption covers Rita. But what about Rita’s parents?

Neither of Rita’s parents were insect detection dogs. Nor were they police dogs, service dogs, hunting dogs or any of the other “exempt” categories. Nor are the owners of Rita’s parents involved in any of the special businesses that would qualify them for exemptions. So Rita’s parents would suffer the full weight of the law. And if either of them had been spayed/neutered then Rita would never have been born. The exemption does not protect Rita.

Let us suppose, though that Rita’s father, Rex, was owned by a police dog trainer. Under another section, Rex would be exempt when he was bred to Rita’s mother. But Rex was purchased at 18 months of age from a private individual. Rex’s first owner bought him as a pet, but then discovered that Rex was too much dog and found a place where Rex could do what he was born to do. But for the first 18 months of his life Rex was not owned by a police dog trainer and so was not exempt. If Rex’s first owner had neutered him at 6 months old as the law requires, then there would be no Rita and insects would overrun the California vineyards.

The problem with the specific exemption language in this version of SB250, and with all attempts to exempt working dogs, is that there is no bright line between the parents of working dogs and pets. Further this law requires that this non-existent bright line be drawn when the dog is 6 months old. It is simply impossible to protect the breeding stock for future working dogs without exempting all dogs. It is only when the dogs are five and eight years old and their offspring are working that you can say, “this dog is breeding stock for working dogs”, These laws require that the dog be identified at six months and that is impossible.

The only thing that this language does is perhaps mislead some people into believing that police dogs, service dogs, herding dogs and others are protected. We need to do everything in our power to explain that these so-called exemptions do nothing. Please contact your representative and explain this to them. All California working dogs need your help.

SB 250 was passed out of the Assembly Business and Professions Committee. Six for, four against. Once again the bill seems to have passed on “courtesy” votes. The state is about to start paying its bills with IOUs and the Legislature is passing an expensive dog killing bill on “courtesy” votes? What happened to actually voting based on the merits of the bill?

Next the bill goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Given that the California Department of Finance came down hard against the bill, it really should die in Appropriations. We’ll have information up on contacting the Committee soon. Thanks for your help so far and keep up the good work. You may not see it in the votes, but your calls and letters do have an impact.

Mandatory spay/neuter laws are devastating to working dogs. No exemptions can prevent the damage. There is no bright line between working dogs to be exempted and pet dogs that must be spayed or neutered. The traits that make a working dog are genetically fragile. It takes constant effort by experienced, thoughtful breeders to protect these traits. Mandatory spay/neuter laws remove so many dogs from the pool of potential breeding stock that it is impossible to preserve the traits that make a good working dog. In the end the dogs will loose the ability to do their jobs.

Though we often think of dogs today only as pets, in California tens of thousands of dogs are employed to do useful work. No matter how crafted, mandatory spay/neuter laws affect working dogs as well as pets.

Working dog breeding requires selection for the specific traits required to do a job, in every generation. Otherwise, working abilities will gradually diminish over successive generations until they fall below the level required to do the work.

To produce useful working dogs, breeders must selectively breed from among the dogs with the best demonstrated working abilities. “You need to breed to the extreme [workers] to produce good workers” is a commonly understood maxim of working dog breeding.

Working abilities in dogs are generally not apparent until dogs are about 1 – 2 years of age, and sometimes even older. Dogs need to mentally and physically mature into adults before their working abilities are established. It’s also necessary to wait until a dog is an adult to do many important genetic health screening tests for breeding purposes, including orthopedic tests of hip soundness.

Because of the need to selectively breed from among the best working dogs, and because there’s no reliable way to select dogs for working dog breeding when they are puppies, it’s critical to keep many more working dogs sexually intact into adulthood than end up being bred. These intact dogs are for the most part owned by working dog handlers, not breeders. This way, there is an adequate pool of intact working dogs from which to select the best breeding candidates. This time-proven process cannot work if only a tiny percentage of dog owners are allowed to keep intact dogs on account of mandatory spay/neuter laws and limited access to “intact permits”.

Here’s some examples of how mandatory spay/neuter laws affect working dogs:

Police Service Dogs

Exemptions for working dogs are totally inadequate to protect law enforcement:

Most of the breeding dogs that create working police dogs are not themselves police dogs, but are bred and used in the protection dog sports where their working abilities are tested. Because they are not themselves police dogs, most would not be eligible under any exemption for police service dogs and so would have to be spayed or neutered.

Exemptions only protect the current generation of working police dogs from mandatory spay/neuter. Future  generations would have to qualify for an exemption prior to some very young age to avoid mandatory sterilization. But there is no such thing as a six month old puppy who is being trained for or used by law enforcement. A dog has to mature into early adulthood before meeting those criteria. Future generations of police dogs would be spay/neutered before they even became eligible for an exemption. Spay/neuter cannot be undone, so an exemption doesn’t help police dogs at all.

Many working police dogs were once somebody’s pet dog. They were bought by a pet owner as a young pup, but were rehomed as young adults. If they pass all the working and health tests, eventually they may end up with a police department. Few of these dogs come with registration papers. Because working police dogs spent their first year or two of life as somebody’s pet dog, there’s no way to create a bright line in the law between the future supply of police dogs and other pet dogs. Most of these future police dogs, perhaps nearly all, would be sterilized before even making it into police work, under any mandatory spay/neuter law.

A few breeding dogs or potential future police dogs might qualify for an exemption. The increased cost and bureaucratic hassle will cause many pet owners not to bother, further reducing the availability of these dogs. Remember, before a dog becomes a police dog, he’s a pet. For police service work, nearly all of the dogs are intact males. There may be no other K9 work where testosterone plays such an important role in the development of the dog’s working abilities. Because of the demonstrated benefit of testosterone in the working ability of Law Enforcement dogs, leaving even non-breeding males intact plays an important role in the success of these dogs. The lives of police officers and citizens may be put at risk by the reduced working ability resulting from early neuter. Neuter these dogs when they are six months old, and it will massively reduce their odds of growing up to be police service dogs. Few would make it.

It is already very difficult for law enforcement to find dogs who are suitable for police work. A very large majority of dogs who are evaluated fail to pass the screening tests. Dogs have to be imported from all over the world just to supply the need in California. Any mandatory spay/neuter law would make an already difficult task many times more difficult. Mandatory spay/neutrer would increase costs to the taxpayers to purchase dogs from a shrinking supply of suitable dogs. Crime could increase as there would not be enough dogs to fill all the law enforcement jobs. There’s really no way to create a mandatory spay/neuter law that would not do serious harm to law enforcement in the state of California.

Guide Dogs and Assistance Dogs

Among the greatest services that working dogs perform is assisting people who need help in their everyday lives. The most well known of these are the Guide Dogs for the Blind, but there are many other kinds of assistance dogs. As with all other working dogs, mandatory spay/neuter laws would destroy the breeding programs for Guide Dogs and other assistance dogs.

Guide Dogs for the Blind of San Ramon, CA has their own breeding program. Those dogs could be made exempt, but this would not save the Guide Dogs. The Guide Dogs program regularly breeds to dogs outside of their program. This is vital for the genetic health and success of their program. These outside dogs belong to private individuals; they are pets and so would not be exempt. While an exemption would slow the decline, the end would be the same. Without a wide range of intact breeding stock from which to select, decline is inevitable.

Guide Dogs for the Blind is not the only assistance dog program in California, only the most well known. There are at least sixteen other accredited assistance dog programs in the State. None of the others has a breeding program so any exemption for breeding assistance dogs would not cover them. Some of these programs train very carefully selected shelter dogs, but most get their candidates from the same working dog breeders that supply police dogs, search and rescue dogs, herding dogs, and other working dogs. Any mandatory spay/neuter law no matter what exemptions it included would in the end destroy these invaluable dogs.

Search and Rescue Dogs

Search and rescue (SAR) dogs use the dog’s greatest asset, her nose, to work saving human lives. It takes a special dog to work for hours in bad weather, nasty terrain searching the air for even the tiniest hint of scent. Each time the dog detects a fragment of scent she must track down the source. Only the very best dogs can do this just as well at the end of a grueling day as they did fresh out of the truck. SAR trailing dogs do what is possibly the most demanding job we ask of any dog, following days old scent trails across miles of varied terrain. It looks like a miracle every time you see it. Yet to well bred and trained SAR trailing dogs, it is just all in a days work.

The nose, the intelligence, the work ethic, the trainability required to make a SAR dog are genetically fragile traits. Breeders must select the best breeding stock in each generation to produce the next. The best SAR dogs don’t show their real quality until they are several years old. If these dogs are spayed or neutered at an early age they are lost to the breeding program. And as with all other working dogs, most of the breeding stock for SAR dogs are not themselves SAR dogs. They are family pets used for tracking, protection sports, agility, hunting. Any mandatory spay/neuter law that tries to carve out an exemption for SAR dogs will miss the majority of the breeding stock that should produce the next generation. Within a few years there will not be any SAR dogs in the woods looking for lost children.

Stock Dogs

Stock dogs are used to herd livestock or protect them from threats such as predators. California has thousands of working stock dogs. The dogs are bred from lines that have been used and proven in demanding stock work for decades, sometimes centuries.

Typically none of the working stock dogs in California would qualify for a spay/neuter exemption under a mandatory spay/neuter law. Most of these dogs are unregistered, and many are mixed breeds. Of those that are registered few working stock dogs are trained for or compete in trials. As a result almost none would qualify an exemption. Mandatory spay/neuter would destroy working stock dog breeding in California.

A number of stock dog breeds would simply go extinct in California. They would not be eligible for an exemption. Ironically, this includes the McNab, a working stock dog developed in California over 100 years ago. This unique part of our state heritage, handed down from generation to generation for over a century, would disappear in just over a decade if mandatory spay/neuter becomes law.

As with police service dogs, there would be no future generations of California-bred stock dogs under mandatory spay/neuter, because very few of them are used for herding or guarding livestock when they are puppies. Almost all of the future generation of working stock dogs would be subject to mandatory sterilization before they would be eligible for an exemption. This destroys the breeding population. There is really no way to write an exemption to a mandatory spay/neuter law to adequately protect the livestock industry.

Other Working Dogs

It might be tempting to try to carve out more exemptions in any mandatory spay/neuter law for working dogs to try to address the obvious harm they do. This approach cannot protect working dog breeding. One reason is that there is no way to write a law that can distinguish working dog breeding programs from pet dog breeding. There is no bright line that can separate them, as we see most obviously in the example of police dogs (above).

Another reason is that there are so many types of working dogs, that it’s impossible to list them all in a law. New roles for working dogs are being developed all the time, as we learn more about the amazing talents of man’s best friend. For example, cancer detection is a brand new working role for dogs.

Some of the many roles that working dogs are used for include those listed below. Mandatory spay/neuter laws harm all working dog breeding programs in California, and harm the citizens in California who depend on their working dogs.

• Tracking/trailing Search & Rescue dog
• Airscent Search & Rescue dog
• Urban Search & Rescue dog
• Water search dog (drowning victims)
• Water rescue dog (retrieve swimmers in distress)
• Avalanche dog
• Guide dog for the blind
• Signal dog for the deaf
• Mobility assistance dog
• Service dog for the disabled
• Police service dog
• Police trailing dog
• Dual purpose police dog
• Evidence dog
• Narcotics detection dog
• Explosives detection dog
• Guard dog
• Watch dog
• Accelerant (Arson) detection dog
• Military working dog
• Cadaver dog / Human remains detection dog
• Termite detection dog
• Mine detection dog
• Natural gas detection dog
• Lost pet search dog
• Sled dog
• Sighthound
• Wildlife detection dog
• Cancer detection dog
• Seizure alert dog
• Livestock herding dog
• Livestock guardian dog
• Multipurpose farm dog
• Agricultural produce detection dog
• Terrier
• Upland hunting dog – pointer
• Upland hunting dog – spaniel
• Hunting retriever

SB 250 has been amended one more time. You can read our analysis of the previous versions of the bill if you want to follow along. There are only two substantive changes: bird dogs are now included in the meaningless “hunting dog exemption”, and your local government can charge you a fee if they deny or revoke your intact license. Yes, that’s right. Your local government not only can revoke your intact licenses, they can make money in the process.

There is some language that purports to exempt hunting dogs some of the time. If you have a hunting license and you are using your dog to legally hunt mammals or birds, your dog cannot be considered running at large under section (f) [was section (e) in the previous version]. This does not cover most working dogs. It doesn’t cover hunting dogs when they are training, at home, or when doing anything else. What is so special about hunting dogs while actually in the act of hunting that makes it necessary to exempt them in this special way? We know a fair bit about hunting dogs and we can’t think of a thing. If this bill is bad for those dogs (and it is) then it is equally bad for many other dogs like hunting dogs in training, search and rescue dogs, police dogs, bomb detection dogs, ranch and farm dogs, guide dogs, service dogs,  performance dogs, etc.

Save Our Dogs opposes forced sterilization of dogs. We speak from the perspective of working dogs but we do not seek and will not support exemptions for working dogs.  Exemptions do not work.

The hunting dog “exemption” in SB 250 is in practice meaningless because you are still subject to having your intact permits revoked. A dog running at large is a violation of various local animal control laws. The “exemption” only applies to section (f)(1)(A) of SB 250. It does not apply to local leash laws. Say you are out hunting with your dog. Through a combination of circumstances your dog is picked up for running at large. Section (f)(1)(A) doesn’t exempt you from the local leash law so you are found guilty. You have violated a local animal control law so your local animal control agency revokes your intact permits under section (b)(2) of SB 250 and you must surgically sterilize your dogs.  Yes, SB 250 is so badly written that the only exemption specified is contradicted by another section of the bill.

Section (b), the core provisions of the bill, is unchanged. Violate an animal control law even once and you may never be allowed to own an intact dog ever again. One violation and your intact licenses can be denied or revoked at any time, forever. No one can have intact dogs under those conditions. Suppose your county unknowingly hires a PETA member as head of animal control. In an effort to balance the budget, this person revokes and denies all intact licenses, including yours, generating millions of dollars in fines. He/She is fired six months later but it’s too late, your dogs have already been surgically sterilized. It’s not possible to reattach the parts even if they decide to give you back your licenses.

This will cost local jurisdictions money. Say you get a citation for some minor animal control infraction. No longer can you just pay the ticket.  You have to fight tooth and nail every step of the way to preserve your future right to own intact dogs. If you lose you either get out of dogs or leave the state. Instead of getting a check for $50 in the mail, the county will have to hold a hearing, and maybe an appeal hearing, go to court, etc. In the end the county will pay thousands in staff costs to collect one $50 fine. It’s only $50 to the county, but it is your life with your dogs to you so you’ll do whatever it takes.

The new fees for having intact licenses denied or revoked almost seem designed to drive dog owners underground. The state has a poor licensing compliance rate already, 10-30% compared to over 90% in Calgary. If you apply for a license and it is denied, you can be charged an additional fee for having the license denied. Maybe the local agency doesn’t charge such a fee now, but they may when it is time for renewal. Just one more thing to drive people away. And of course what will they do if you don’t pay the fee? Impound and kill your dogs, of course. You can’t even sell your dogs or give them away. You have to have a intact license to do that.

All these new fees and punishments will be enforced with the threat of impounding your dog. Any law that impounds owned dogs or increases the cost of redeeming impounded dogs will kill dogs. Most owned dogs that are forcibly impounded are ultimately killed. Taking dogs from their owners is usually a death sentence. Increasing the costs to redeem a dog, especially with an 11% statewide unemployment rate, will kill dogs. Before they are killed, the impounded dogs will sit in the shelter for the state mandated waiting period. The state is required by the existing Hayden Act reimbursement mandate to pay local governments for this cost. The state already pays over $20 million a year for this reimbursement. How many more fire fighters, police officers, teachers, and nurses will have to be laid off to cover the addition reimbursement the state will have to pay out if SB 250 passes?

We fail to see the point of this bill. There is no action that is currently legal that SB 250 makes illegal. All it appears to accomplish is give local animal control the power to forcibly spay/neuter as many dogs as possible. What it does do is make responsible pet owners afraid of their local animal control agency. This will reduce licensing compliance and licensing fee income. It will increase the cost of enforcement. Fewer dogs will be adopted because the public will avoid contact with the shelters. More dogs will be impounded. More dogs will be killed.

SB 250, The Pet Owner Punishment Act, just kills dogs.

It took 13 amendments to kill AB1634, so I guess we are making progress. SB250 has been amended yet again. Either someone is reading our analysis or is reaching some of the same conclusions. The bill is still ridiculously punitive, but the most ridiculous part has been deleted.

Under previous versions of the bill your intact licenses could be denied or revoked at any time, forever, at the whim of local animal control for just being cited for violation of an animal control law or “being neglectful” of your animals. Just get a ticket, even if you are later found not guilty, and you can never have an intact dog again. Under the latest amendments, you at least have to be found guilty and the vague “neglectful” clause has been struck.

Still, be found guilty even once and you can never confidently own an intact dog ever again. One violation and forever after your local animal control can deny or revoke your intact dog permits at any time. No one can have intact dogs under those conditions. Suppose your county unknowingly hires an animal rights whacko as head of animal control. The ARista revokes and denies all intact licenses, including yours. Maybe he/she is fired six months later but it’s too late, your dogs have already been surgically sterilized. It’s not possible to reattach the parts even if they decide to give you back your licenses.

This will cost local jurisdictions money. If you get a citation for some minor infraction, you won’t just pay the ticket. You’ll hire an attorney and appeal any adverse decision all the way to the Supreme Court. One ticket is a death sentence. Rather than pay the ticket and go on, you have to fight tooth and nail every step of the way. If you loose you either get out of dogs or leave the state.

Older dogs sometimes lose control of their anal sphincter and unknowingly have accidents. So you are taking your senior dog for a walk in the park. He accidentally poops without you seeing it. An animal control officer sees you walk away from a poop on the sidewalk and gives you a citation. Prior to SB250 you’d just pay the ticket. You are probably guilty. You didn’t actually see the dog poop so you don’t know for sure, but it’s $50 or whatever so you just pay. After SB250 you hire an attorney. If the county can’t prove via DNA testing that the poop came from your dog, you won’t pay and you’ll fight to show the DNA test was invalid. You will spend whatever it takes because the alternative is forever being at the mercy of whoever is in charge at animal control that day. One violation and your intact permits can be denied or revoked forever.

Instead of getting a check for $50 in the mail, the county will have to hold a hearing, and maybe an appeal hearing, and go to court, and appellate court, etc. In the end the county will pay thousands in staff costs to collect one $50 fine. It’s only $50 to the county, but it is your life with your dogs to you so you’ll do whatever it takes.

There is some language that partially exempts some hunting dogs. If you have a hunting license and you are using your dog to legally hunt mammals, your dog cannot be considered running at large under section (e). This is disappointing. It doesn’t cover all working dogs. It doesn’t even cover all hunting dogs. What is so special about dogs hunting mammals that makes it necessary to exempt them in this special way? We know a fair bit about hunting dogs and we can’t think of a thing that is unique to dogs hunting mammals. If this bill is bad for those dogs (and it is) then it is equally bad for many other dogs. Save Our Dogs opposes forced sterilization for all dogs. We speak from the perspective of working dogs but we do not seek and will not support exemptions for working dogs.

The hunting dog “exemption” is in practice meaningless because you are still subject to having their intact permits revoked for any animal control law violation. A dog running at large is a violation of various local animal control laws. The “exemption” only applies to section (e)(1)(A) of SB250. It does not apply to local leash laws. So you are out hunting mammals. Through a combination of circumstances your dog is picked up for running at large. Section (e)(1)(A) doesn’t exempt you from the local leash law so you are found guilty. You have violated a local animal control law so your local animal control agency revokes your intact permits under section (b)(2) and you must surgically sterilize your dogs.

Section (g) of previous versions of the bill specifically stated that the owner of an impounded dog had to pay all sorts of costs to get the dog back. These amendments try to disguise that dog killing provision with vague language.

The owner or custodian shall comply with any additional impoundment procedures.

Of course what this means in practice is that the owner must pay to get the dog back. Any law that impounds owned dogs or increases the cost of redeeming impounded dogs will kill dogs. Around 80% of owned dogs that are forcibly impounded are ultimately killed. Taking dogs from their owners is a death sentence. Increasing the costs to redeem a dog, especially with an 11% statewide unemployment rate, will kill dogs.

We fail to see the point of this bill. There is no action that is currently legal that SB250 makes illegal. All it appears to accomplish is give local animal control the power to forcibly spay/neuter as many dogs as possible. What it does do is make responsible pet owners afraid of their local animal control agency. This will reduce licensing compliance. It will increase the cost of enforcement. Fewer dogs will be adopted because the public will avoid contact with the shelters. More dogs will be impounded. More dogs will be killed. SB250, The Pet Owner Punishment Act, just kills dogs.

SB250 was amended April 21, 2009. This version of the bill is not fundamentally different from the bill as introduced or as amended April 21. There is some minor rewording and reorganization but no important changes. The most notable change is that the language about dogs and the language about cats have been separated. The sections of the bill pertaining to cats is now consolidated at the end.

In the April 15 hearing, Senator Wiggins stated that there were serious problems with the bill and forced Senator Florez to accept some amendments. Those amendments are reflected in this new version of the bill. Unfortunately Senator Wiggins’s amendments did not make any meaningful changes in the impact of the bill if it becomes law. She (or her staff) did not recognize the enormous harm contained in section (c). The amendments changed section (e) (formerly section (g)) to restrict it to five specific offenses. This doesn’t matter as section (c) still gives Animal Control the power to force you to spay or neuter your dogs almost without limit.

The following is repeated from our analysis of the April 2 version of the bill.

In spite of the all the complex language, the bill is really very simple.

SB250 is the Pet Owner Punishment Act

There may be some odd corner cases, but overall no new infractions are imposed on dog owners. But the new penalties for existing infractions. Holy Cow! One misstep and for the rest of your life, your dogs are subject to mandatory spay/neuter at the whims of your local animal control agency. Get cited for a barking dog, even if you were out of town and the dog was with you, then for the rest of your life, at any time, AC can swoop in and force you to spay/neuter your dogs. You can’t even sell your dogs or give them away. You must shell out $300 plus to have each and every one spayed or neutered. Or turn them over to the pound to kill. The only new legal requirement is that an unlicensed intact dog that is impounded, must be spayed or neutered, at the owner’s expense, before the dog can be released. And of course that additional $300 plus cost of spay/neuter wouldn’t prevent anyone from reclaiming their dog would it? SB250 will kill dogs.

Here are the two critical points:

First: The bill requires that every dog be licensed “pursuant to Section 121690″ or as required by the local jurisdiction. That’s just the normal dog license you are already required to get. State law requires that the license for an intact dog cost at least twice as much as for a spayed or neutered dog.

Second:

(c) An unaltered dog license may be denied or revoked for one or more of the following reasons:
[omitted]
(c)(2) The licensing agency has issued one citation verified by the agency
pursuant to existing policies and procedures that the owner,
custodian, applicant, or licensee has allowed a dog to be stray or
run at large or has otherwise been found to be neglectful of his or
her or other animals.
(c)(3) The owner, custodian, applicant, or licensee has been
previously cited for violating a state law, or a city, county, or other
local governmental provision relating to the care and control of
animals.

That pretty much covers it. You have to have an intact license and if you have ever been cited for an animal violation or “been found to be neglectful of [your] other animals” your intact licenses can be denied or revoked. At any time. For all of your dogs. Forever.

If that weren’t bad enough here’s the real horror. You don’t even have to be found guilty of the violation you were cited for. Just receiving the citation alone is enough to drop the ax. Here’s the definition of “citation”.

citation

n. 1) a notice to appear in court due to the probable commission of a minor crime such as a traffic violation, drinking liquor in a park where prohibited, letting a dog loose without a leash, and in some states for possession of a small amount of marijuana. Failure to appear can result in a warrant for the citee’s arrest.

A citation is just a notice to appear in court. No requirement that you were ever found to have actually been in violation of any law. So even if you were found innocent of the charges in a citation, you are still guilty under SB250. And you have to have an intact license to sell or give away a dog. So your only choices are to pay to spay/neuter or dump the dog at the pound.

The other disaster in the bill is this:

(h) If an unlicensed unaltered dog or cat is impounded pursuant
to state or local law, in addition to satisfying applicable
requirements for the release of the animal, including, but not
limited to, payment of impound fees pursuant to this section, the
owner or custodian shall also do one of the following:
[omitted]
(2) Have the dog or cat spayed or neutered by a veterinarian
associated with the licensing agency at the expense of the owner
or custodian. That expense may include additional fees due to any
extraordinary care required.
(3) Arrange to have the dog or cat spayed or neutered by another
veterinarian licensed in this state.

So when an unlicensed, intact dog ends up in the shelter, and the owner comes to pick him up, not only does he get to pay all the existing fees. He must pay to have the dog spayed or neutered. In this economy a lot of people may not be able to afford that additional $300 plus. They might just tell the shelter to keep the dog. Now that’s another dog ripped from his home to either be adopted or killed.

This bill is just about punishing people and killing dogs. Nothing more. As dog trainers we know that rewards work far better than punishment. Too bad the backers of this bill are still in the jerk and choke era of training. Punishment builds resentment and fear. Rewards build cooperation and confidence. In both dogs and people.

This morning SB 250 was passed out of the Senate Local Government Committee on a party line 3 to 1 vote. Senator Aanestad was not present. Senator Cox provided the lone NO vote. He has been a reliable opponent of mandatory spay/neuter and we thank him for his continued opposition.

Senator Wolk expressed substantial reservations about the impact on working dogs and extracted a promise from Senator Florez to amend the bill to exempt working dogs. We thank Senator Wolk for her concern for working dogs, but we have our doubts about the approach she has taken.

Senator Kehoe also expressed substantial reservations. She asked for clarification of the actual impact of the spay/neuter law in Santa Cruz. NAIA will be involved in providing that analysis. She also expressed interest in Calgary and we will be working with CDOC to provide her with more information.

Chairwoman Wiggins rightly recognized that the bill is seriously flawed and forced Senator Florez to accept some amendments. Unfortunately those amendments do not in any way reduce the serious harm this bill will cause.

Although disappointing, the outcome was not surprising. Senator Florez is the Majority Leader and one of the most powerful members of the state legislature. As we discovered in the early days of AB 1634, the process is driven more by political horse trading than by the merits of the bill. Had the vote been on the merits of the bill, comments from the senators suggest it probably would have been defeated 3 to 1 or even 4 to nothing. Instead Senator Florez made several promises about future amendments and that was enough to get the Democrats to support their leader.

As bad as this bill is, and even with Senator Wiggins’s amendments it is very bad, we believe that we are better positioned than we were at the same point in the process with AB 1634. Several organizations that were just being formed at this time two years ago are well organized and experienced in the legislative process. Save Our Dogs is working closely with CDOC and NAIA. While we don’t agree on everything we have good working relationships with them. Together we form a much stronger opposition than we would separately. We would also like to acknowledge the AKC’s contribution. While AKC is not as active as they were on AB 1634, they have been helpful.

We estimate that opponents of SB 250 outnumbered supporters 10 to 1 at the hearing. For some reason the Committee chose not to acknowledge the public participation in any way. We are confident that the senators could readily see the overwhelming majority of “No on SB 250″ buttons. For those of you who made the trip, our thanks and your presence mattered. All of us are volunteers and your encouragement, thanks, and good wishes help keep us going.

For those of you addicted to social networking, Save Our Dogs now has a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, in addition to our RSS feed. We will tweet the title of every new article that appears on the site. Facebook and MySpace both display the RSS feed of our new articles.

We don’t have a lot of time to maintain these pages, so not much else will go there. We have disabled comments because we just don’t have time to moderate them. Sorry. We created the pages because we’ve had several requests for them. We hope these new pages are useful to those of you who use these sites. If there is something we can do to dramatically improve the way we use one of these services, and you can give us precise, detailed instructions, send us an email with your idea and the instructions.