From my belgian list.
-- the following is forwarded by permission and permission granted to
forward to others:
AB 1634 will face its final hurdle in the California state legislature
over the next few weeks. The bill was "gut amended" in June into a
different bill, one that on the surface appeared to remove many
objections. Unfortunately the new AB 1634 is arguably worse than the
old bill. If Californians don't seriously step up the response, this
bill will soon pass the California state legislature. If the governor
doesn't veto it will become illegal to own an intact dog or intact cat
in California.
As Assembly member Levine explained in his testimony before the Senate
Local Government Committee several weeks ago, AB 1634 makes owning an
intact dog or intact cat a "secondary offense", analogous to the seat
belt law which made driving without a seat belt a secondary offense.
Make no mistake about what this means. It means that owning an intact
dog or cat will be illegal in California, no exceptions. No
exceptions for registered purebreds. No exceptions for dogs or cats
owned by responsible breeders. No exceptions for police dogs,
search-and-rescue dogs, detection dogs, hunting dogs, working farm and
ranch dogs, or any other dog. There are no longer any exemptions or
ways to obtain intact permits in AB 1634. All that was removed when
the bill was gut amended.
Furthermore, the primary offense that activates the fines and
sterilization mandate in AB 1634 includes "complaints" -- mere
allegations that need not be valid or proven. Your neighbor can
complain that your intact dog was in his yard, and even if you can
prove the allegation was untrue, even if no one believes the
allegation, you can still be fined or ordered to sterilize your dog.
Mr. Levine used this very example in his committee testimony.
AB 1634 will be voted on in the full California State Senate sometime
between August 5 and August 31 (the deadline). It already passed the
Assembly.
The State Senate is not receiving as much opposition to the new AB
1634 as they had about the previous versions. I have spoken with
Senate staff and heard this message. I am seeing only a small
fraction of the response that we had last year. Your letters, faxes,
and emails sent last year don't count anymore.
If Californians don't seriously step up the response, this bill will
pass the California state legislature. We managed to stop the old
bill and can stop this one. We cannot stop it with well-reasoned
arguments alone. It doesn't work that way. We can stop it if those
arguments come from tens of thousands of Californians.
If you own an intact dog or intact cat in California, if you want
responsible dog or cat breeding to continue in California, or if you
just don't like the idea of the state government declaring all intact
dogs and cats illegal, then please take action now. There is no longer
any time to wait.
Ways that you can take action are on the home page of the Save Our
Dogs website.
http://saveourdogs.net/
Some of them only take a few minutes of your time (a brief phone call
to your state senator's office and a customizable email using NAIA's
capwiz that already has major objections for you to select). The most
effective thing you can do is to visit the district office of your
state senator and discuss your objections.
A review of the major objections to the bill is here, formatted as a
sample letter you can edit as you see fit.
http://saveourdogs.net/documents/senateSample.doc
Please help.
Laura Sanborn
http://saveourdogs.net/