"Save the Dogs!"

I received this email today about a California bill that would severely restrict dog and cat breeding:

Dear Mark,

We need your help to save police K-9’s. Please help COPS stop proposed legislation that will eliminate police dogs used for law enforcement and rescue activities.

The legislation, California Assembly Bill 1634 authored by Assemblymember Lloyd Levine has been craftily titled the “Healthy Pets Act” but the effect would be to force the surgical sterilization of all dogs and cats. Elimination of future police dogs would devastate police K-9 departments. AB 1634 would also eliminate many guide dogs for the blind and service dogs for the disabled.

Please sign our online petition in opposition to AB 1634.

The bill mandates all dogs and cats must be neutered at four months of age, with few exemptions. And the remaining pure bred animals with exemptions would be taxed and regulated by a newly created government bureaucracy. The legislation even threatens criminal penalties--just what we need--police arresting citizens for having unneutered cats and dogs!

Nearly all working police dogs were once somebody's pet dog. They are bought as young pups, placed with families, and then if they pass all the working and health tests, eventually they may end up with a police department. Neutering all non-breeding K-9’s will destroy law enforcements ability to have successful K-9 departments.

Without police K-9’s, our citizens will be more vulnerable to criminals and we will be unable to perform dangerous rescue operations in times of need. That’s why the United States Police Canine Association, the Western States Police Canine Association, the North American Police Work Dog Association and the Canine Specialized Search Team all agree with COPS in opposing AB 1634.

AB 1634 takes away the rights of law abiding citizens, discriminates against our disabled citizens, and creates new taxes and government bureaucracies. Please join us in opposing AB 1634.

Click here to sign the petition.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,


Monty Holden
Executive Director
COPS

P.S. Please forward this to your friends and family and ask them to sign the petition.

Here is a note from the American Kennel Club, also opposing the bill.

Here is the text of the bill as introduced; the critical paragraph is:

122336.1. (a) A person shall not own or possess within the state any cat or dog over the age of four months that has not been spayed or neutered, unless that person possesses an intact permit, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 122336.

Although the bill purportedly makes exceptions for purebreds and police dogs, note that both breeders and police are against it. And why should only purebreeds have the right to breed? This seems rather elitist; mutts and tabbies are often healthier than their inbred relatives.

Of course, higher animals ought to be treated decently, but the idea that whole classes of animals ought not to exist at all seems to deny the goodness of creation and being; but this is too deeply philosophical for me to analyze!

I am reminded of the social reformers who loved mankind while actually hating every particular man. This of course is in direct contradiction to the commandment that we are to love our neighbor as ourself, and love our enemies, too: love of mankind ought to be bottom-up and not top-down. Likewise, the core animal rights activists love animal-kind while not having concern for any particular animal. The goal of many of the organizations is the complete elimination of animals from human society, with the side-effect of having total government control over all other aspects of society.