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.

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.

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.

Assemblymember Charles Calderon (D-Montebello) voted NO.

Assemblymembers Isadore Hall (D-Compton) and Mike Davis (D-Los Angeles) are listed as abstained, not voting, or absent.

Had nothing else changed, SB 250 would have died yesterday because it would have lacked the necessary number of YES votes.  But a last minute addition of Assemblymember Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) to the Appropriations Committee gave SB 250 the final YES vote it needed to pass.

The Chair indicated that amendments would be made to SB 250 to exempt rescue dogs (presumably means SAR dogs), herding dogs, guide dogs, and hunting dogs.

SB 250 now goes to the full Assembly for a vote.   Since it is being amended, if SB 250 passes the Assembly it will have to go back to the Senate for a concurrence vote.   Both of these steps must be complete by September 11.    Since we have two more opportunities to defeat SB 250, each of us needs to contact our own senator and assemblymember and ask them to vote NO.   Our Easy Letter will do this for you.

THE BILL BRUCE CALIFORNIA TOUR
by Janice Kiseskey Anderson

During the month of June, 2009, National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA) in conjunction with the California Federation of Dogs Clubs (CFoDC), Orange Empire Kennel Club, Silver Bay Kennel Club and assisted by The Kennel Club of Palm Springs and CARPOC, sponsored Bill Bruce, Director of Calgary Animal Services & By-Laws (ordinances), to present his model for the most successful animal services department in North America. Janice Anderson, Susan Sholar and Ellen Yamada worked together effectively as the Steering Committee of The Bill Bruce California Tour, in an effort to bring viable solutions to communities within California that are dealing with unwarranted and excessive legislation or high rates of impounds and euthanasia of dogs and cats,

“We don’t have a pet problem. We have a people problem.” This is an opening statement Bill Bruce often uses to grab everyone’s attention. Owner responsibility is the mantra in Calgary. A three prong approach to responsible pet ownership incorporates licensing, public education and enforcement, with supporting agencies all working together to achieve the same goals. Educational programs developed for school age children through adults address responsible citizenship and responsible animal ownership. Educational programs include PAWS: Dog Bite Prevention, Dogs in Our Society, Urban Coyotes and the Junior By-Law Project, just to name a few. There is strong public support for the efforts of Bill Bruce by the citizens of Calgary, as they enjoy their pets in a community full of dog-friendly parks, paths and off-leash areas. They gain comfort knowing that their kinder friendlier Animals Services Department is there to help, not harm.

Bill Bruce, as the Director of Animal Services and Bylaws in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, took over a struggling program. He has had remarkable success, developing a program which now boasts a licensing compliance rate for dogs of 91%, a return to owner rate of 85% and a euthanasia rate of only 6%. A newly implemented licensing program for cats already has a licensing compliance rate of 54%, a return to owner rate of 56% and only an 18% euthanasia rate. A majority of those animals being humanely destroyed are for behavioral issues and poor health or injuries. Aggressive animal incidents are almost non-existent. With a population base of over 1 million people, those are staggering statistics. In addition, Calgary has no limit laws, no breed specific laws, no mandatory spay/neuter ordinances and no interference from animals rights groups.

“To encourage a safe, healthy, vibrant community for people and their pets, through the development, education and compliance of bylaws that reflect community values”, their mission statement says it all. Bruce believes people” have a right to have pets and we want to ensure they’re properly cared for, so we don’t end up with more unwanted pets.” Through the use of modern technology, a licensed animal found wandering the streets is returned directly to its home (for a small fee) whenever possible. This saves time and money for everyone. However, an unlicensed animal will be taken immediately to the shelter. Before the pet can be released to its owner, licensing requirements must be met and the owner is fined $250. Repeat offenders face penalties that increase in $250 increments per violation. While educating the public is essential, sometimes money is the strongest motivator. Bruce targets owners, rather than pets, saying “any animal that ends up in a shelter is there because the human end of the relationship failed.” It’s all part of his philosophy about animals and their owners.

This approach helps to facilitate a $5 million annual operating budget, which is generated through license and penalty revenues, with absolutely no cost to the taxpayer. Fees generated from cat licenses have provided the community of Calgary with a state of the art facility providing no-charge spay/neuter services for pets from low-income homes. The clinic, staffed by a full-time vet, may be the final feather in Bruce’s cap. “Within three to five years, we’ll be a no-kill city,” said chief Animal Control officer Bill Bruce. “No animal will be killed unless it’s in the best interest of the animal.”

With a model that is tried and true, Bill Bruce has been met everywhere he goes by enthusiastic crowds. The California Tour was a whirlwind for Bill, visiting 4 cities in 5 days; San Diego, San Bernardino, Bakersfield (Kern County) and Sacramento. In every venue, Bill expertly navigated through his Power Point presentation, explaining how Calgary has become known as the most successful Animal Services Department in North America. Each presentation was followed by lengthy Q&A sessions from his audiences, which included city and county officials; animals control officers, supervisors, police officers, breeders, rescue groups and the general public. Several officials had the opportunity to meet with Bill Bruce privately and discuss his successful program in detail, while he toured SoCal shelters. Citizens and officials of Kern County had a chance to meet Bill at a social prior to his presentation. The media attention was great, with television stations, print media and Inga Barks of KERN radio taking advantage of “By-law Bill’s” visit to the state.

The presentation in Kern County was held in conjunction with the Kern County Animal Control Commission (KCACC) meeting. The commissioners voted to move the meeting and location of their June meeting to facilitate Bruce’s appearance, which was held at the County Supervisors Chambers. This location offered a unique opportunity to have the presentation filmed by KGOV. KGOV will be airing the Bill Bruce presentation in July and August and has DVD’s available to the public for a $25.00 fee. KGOV may be reached at (661) 868-3000 or accessed at here .

Early reports from Kern County verify a keen interest in the Calgary model. At the July meeting of the KCACC, a sub-committee was formed to review the Calgary Model and bring back recommendations. In addition, CFoDC has supplied The Calgary Model to KC supervisors and officials for every city within Kern County. “I want Kern County Animal Control be a leader, not a follower.” Commissioner Janice Anderson continues, “By thinking outside the box and implementing an adaptation of Bill’s program, we will succeed! I trust other communities will follow. We do not want to waste this unique opportunity.”

Cities, counties and states are being overrun with animal related legislation, much of it under the guise of ‘pet overpopulation’. Elected officials have been approached to endorse severe and expensive ordinances to limit pets and the rights of their owners. Much of this legislation is spear-headed by special interest groups that have no stake in the effect of their actions, other than satisfying an agenda that attacks the property rights of animal owners and agriculture, forcing unwarranted expenses on citizens, businesses, communities and states.

California is truly fortunate that Calgary is so willing to allow their very popular and successful Director to travel far and wide, sharing their roadmap for the most successful Animal Service in North America. A guide shared not only with communities in the United States, but around the world. The Calgary Model is one possible solution that can enable communities to successfully run an animal control program with no cost to the taxpayer.

Two of the Democrats on the committee expressed serious reservations about the bill.

Assemblymember Mike Davis (D-Los Angeles) showed a very short stack of support letters and and very tall stack of opposition letters. Nice job getting those letters sent, it makes a difference!

Assemblymember Charles Calderon (D-Montebello) said:

I hope that legislators will STOP bringing these bills. They don’t need the state to get involved or to intervene. This bill may be about euthanasia … but … this bill just doesn’t die!!

Right on, Assemblymember Calderon!

SB 250 was put into the Appropriations Committee “Suspense” file, a kind of holding pattern which is required for bills that are projected to have a significant fiscal impact to the California state budget. We need to keep contacting our assembly members and ask them to kill SB 250. Letting a bill die by never taking it out of the Suspense file is the easiest way for the majority party to kill an unpopular bill that originated from one of their own.

MSN Diverts Limited Resources Away from Spay/Neuter Programs
In addition to being ineffective, MSN imposes a financial burden on taxpayers and existing government budgets.   MSN attempts to increase the spay/neuter rate by imposing penalties on pet owners. Generally, punishment is the most costly way to accomplish any legislative goal.  In the case of MSN, government agencies – and the taxpayers who fund them – may incur the expenses of monitoring owner compliance, issuing citations, collecting fines, or participating in court proceedings for disputed citations. Tax dollars, in other words, would be used largely for administrative activities and not on actual spay/neuter programs.

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.

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

It’s very important for us to thank the senators who stood with us and did not support SB 250.

All 15 of the Republican senators voted NO on SB 250.  Please take the time to call or write and thank them for their consistent opposition to irrational mandatory spay/neuter legislation.

Democratic Senator Lou Correa voted NO on SB 250, resisting very strong pressure from his leadership to vote Yes.  Please write and thank him for his courage and position on this legislation.  No phone calls please, per a request from his busy office staff.

Democratic senators Denise Moreno-Ducheny and Joe Simitian also resisted the strong pressure from their leadership and abstained on SB 250.  Abstaining is a polite way of voting No, and has exactly the same bottom line effect since in California’s state legislature, bills must have a minimum number of Yes votes to pass.  Please call or write and thank these senators for their courage and position on this legislation.

SB 250 now goes to the state Assembly, to a policy committee.  We will convey information as we learn it.