ANIMAL HOUSE: Humane Society in the hot seat -

H$U$ is the "Big Dog" now...Uh huh. I see their tactics weekly. They send requests for donations, targeted in a big way to the elderly of the US (via AARP lists, etc) which truly misrepresent what their agenda is. I have seen this propaganda since taking over my elderly mother's care and watched her blindly send money to them until I clarified their mission to her. But the cute little puppies and kittens in their mailings would have people think that they are in fact a shelter and that monies sent do in fact go to the actual care of animals. Pure BS, as we know.
There is no having "dialog' with double talkers like Pacelle and his ilk.

Geraldine wrote:

She was talking about the extremely rich organization called The Humane Society of the United States. Despite its vast wealth, HSUS has only one small shelter (Black Beauty Ranch in TX) and that one it didn't open but inheirited it when they took over another organization.
However, there are many fine local Humane Societies that do great work. HSUS capitalizes on this name confusion to solicit donations that people think are going for direct care of animals in shelters but are used instead for political lobbying and vegan propaganda. Please contribute to the local Humane Societies; they NEED the money! But please also realize that any money you send to HSUS will go to lobbyists and lawyers, not the care of homeless cats and dogs.

So are you saying that the local Humane Societies have no affiliation with HSUS? I work at an SPCA, and while we are a local shelter, we operate under the umbrella of the ASPCA. The ASPCA does not have it's own shelter per-se, but it's our parent group and provides support for all of the local shelters. It also lobbies for animal welfare and heads public education campaigns. Are you saying that that's not the case with the Humane Society?

Your local humane society is not a member organization of the Humane Society of the United States, although HSUS would like you to think they are. In fact, if your local HS wants direction or consulting services from HSUS, they will be charged for them. HSUS is not a parent or umbrella organization for local Humane societies in general although some may align themselves with politically or philosophically.
The majority volunteers I have met from local humane organizations including local humane societies are often extremely resentful of funds essentially stolen from them by HSUS as people send money to HSUS under the very wrong belief that somehow their local society and it's animals will be the beneficiaries while in actuality nothing is farther from the truth.
Organizations like HSUS and PETA steal from local animal rescues and welfare organizations. GIVE LOCALLY!!! That way every penny will help keep local efforts afloat and save animal lives!

Sarah, the mentioned "One of many Humane Society shelters: http://www.hssv.org " has NOTHING to do with HSUS. Do a bit more research before you comment next time.

John wrote:

HSUS is hardly a radical group, regardless of the current rhetoric. I commend Pacelle for trying to work out differences with his opposition, something I know from first-hand experience that he does often and with sincerity.
Please consider supporting AB 1634

oh yeah the HSUS are the good guys...NOT
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cf...

Never support AB1634: the people behind that bill genuinely hate animals and pets, and just wish that all animals would vanish. If it were passed, there would be no people left in the state of CA who could breed dogs, other than puppy mills. Way to go ignorant people, way to go.

Big_Sigh wrote:

<quoted text>
oh yeah the HSUS are the good guys...NOT
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cf...
Never support AB1634: the people behind that bill genuinely hate animals and pets, and just wish that all animals would vanish. If it were passed, there would be no people left in the state of CA who could breed dogs, other than puppy mills. Way to go ignorant people, way to go.

Oh yeah, the Center for Consumer Freedom are the good guys...NOT
Do you even know who they are? They represent the tobacco, meat and dairy industries! They are AGAINST Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and any other organizations for living RESPONSIBLY.

Big_Sigh wrote:

<quoted text>
oh yeah the HSUS are the good guys...NOT
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cf...
Never support AB1634: the people behind that bill genuinely hate animals and pets, and just wish that all animals would vanish. If it were passed, there would be no people left in the state of CA who could breed dogs, other than puppy mills. Way to go ignorant people, way to go.

What a horrible, ignorant and hateful thing to say. Every person that I have met who supports 1634 work in rescue and see firsthand how many adoptable animals are killed every day in shelters. They support the bill because they love animals and hate seeing so many killed simply because of pet overpopulation. The people who oppose it seem to be vested interests across the board; even puppy mill breeders oppose the bill, now why would that be if the bill exempts 'only' them as some people are trying to claim? Read the bill people. It provides over 20 exemptions for valid breeders and service or working animals. The only people who should worry are backyard, tax dodging breeders who will do anything to avoid paying their fair share of taxes for their business or an extra few bucks on licensing for the animals that they breed (if they even bother licensing them in the first place).

Jennifer! look at the future - they want "NO MORE PETS!" They use you as an example, YOU are an irresponsible owner, everyone is included in this - not one person is excluded. They have lumped, you, me, your neighbor, your relatives all together as being irresponsible owners, that do not care about your pet! Look at your dog, now think of the future when this law says no more breeding, YOUR grandchildren or your great grandchildren will not be able to own a pet, because YOU supported this bill.

Please read AB 1634. The ONLY true exemption for breeding is USDA puppy mills! Service and police etc only appear protected, but in reality the bill will devastate those gene pools as it requires a crystal ball to guess which bloodlines will produce the future genetic outcrosses needed to keep these valuable dogs available and healthy.

As for other breeding exemptions being easy to obtain etc... not when each and every juristiction is allowed to adopt stricter guidelines. Saddled with the cumbersome tenants of the bill, many will simply outlaw breeding.

I am sure many who read this will think that that is just peachy, but please realize the pet market is NOT breeder driven, it is demand driven. That is why tens of thousands of purebred and designer pups are imported to California each year, why tens of thousands are smuggled across the border. And yes, why some Ca. shelters are also now importing hundreds of small to medium sized dogs from either other shelters or overseas. No one is bringing in 85 lb black mixed breeds from Mexico, or even the neighboring county to fill empty runs, but they are bringing in lots of 5-45 lb fuzzy and/or light colored dogs!

Restricting or eliminating most or all California breeding will leave the door wide open for USDA puppy production farming, smuggling, black market pups and thousands more legal imports, mainly bred in puppy mill conditions out of state. I do rescue work for a purebred rescue and ten years ago imports from Eastern Europe were rare, now they make up almost a third of our rescue numbers. They are poor little souls who had a lousy start and a lousy in between. We are trying to help them land on their feet. AB 1634 will make California a gigantic open door for these imported pups.

But at the end of the day, the historic failure of Mandatory Sterilization laws should be enough to convince people as to their ineffectiveness. MSN never works and the inadvertant negative consequences make imposing it on an entire state irresponsible. Take all the money, energy and determination from both sides of the fight and channel it into education, high volume low cost vet care including spay neuter and outreach to help individuals keep the pets they have right now and choose their next pet wisely and the future will be better for the pets of California. And everywhere else too.

pork chop writes:
“I don’t have a hands-on fondness for animals…To this day I don’t feel bonded to any non-human animal. I like them and I pet them and I’m kind to them, but there’s no special bond between me and other animals.” Wayne Pacelle quoted in Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt by Ted Kerasote

In the above article, Pacelle says the retracted invite "was more than a canceled outing for his cat, Libby." Vegan Wayne Pacelle has a carnivore as a pet, which he takes with him on speaking engagements? In fact, as pork chop’s quote indicates, he has no real bond with animals -- very strange for the head of HSUS. It sounds as though Pacelle threw in this bit about his imaginary cat to manipulate and mislead the press and the Cat Writers Association (www.catwriters.org ). In other interviews he says he has no pets because he is not home enough:
November 2006 Wall Street Journal article: "Divorced, Mr. Pacelle has no pets these days because, he says, he travels too much."
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/215846

I have to wonder -- what else has Pacelle fictionalized?

To all you who oppose AB 1634 I would like to know what you are doing in order to lower the euthanisa rate? I've been doing rescue for the past 18 years and for all the education and low cost spay-neuter clinics out there it hasn't made one bit of difference. I'd like to know when are people going to take responsibility on their own. Probably never. Therefore it makes sense to pass a law making them responsible. Pet ownership is not a right, it is a privilage. Abuse that privilage (the euthanisa rate is evidence of that) and it should be taken away. Many people say pets are property and legally that may be so but the government has every right to enact laws to make you responsible for your property. Ex. you must have a license to operate a car, insure and have it inspected. One of the biggest excuses I hear when someone doesn't alter their pet is I can't afford it. I see nice cars in the driveway, hear how they took a vacation and have 5 subscriptions to magazines sitting on their table. I have yet to hear one good reason not to alter their pet. I'm tired on picking up stray and sick cats and having to be the one to hold this poor creature as it takes it's last breath. Where the hell is the owner that abandoned this little one. As for the person who made the comment about feral cats well probably most of these creatures are a direct result of abandoned and unaltered pets. If people had been responsible all these years there wouldn't be all these poor kitties out there suffering and procreating. All these non-profits and individuals who take money out of their own pockets and the time and effort to help them are doing what the owners of these animals should have been doing all along, being responsible!

Also for all you people out there that says mandatory spay-neuter doesn't work well guess what euthanising doesn't work either. All it is is a temporary solution not a permanant one. A quick fix. It does nothing to stop the creation of more pets to euthanise. And one other thing all of the 21 cats that I have are altered and NOT ONE has had a litter in all these years. Amazing! Go figure. Yet I hear on this forum that it doesn't stop the birth rate. I have first hand experiance and knowledge and my Vet will attest to it also that altering a pet will stop it from procreating. For all of you who don't beleive me just make a call to any vet in this country and I'm sure 100% that they'll tell you the same thing. Go ahead pick up the phone and call today.

Animal Welfare wrote:

Jennifer! look at the future - they want "NO MORE PETS!" They use you as an example, YOU are an irresponsible owner, everyone is included in this - not one person is excluded. They have lumped, you, me, your neighbor, your relatives all together as being irresponsible owners, that do not care about your pet! Look at your dog, now think of the future when this law says no more breeding, YOUR grandchildren or your great grandchildren will not be able to own a pet, because YOU supported this bill.

I bet you could enact a mandatory spay-neuter law in every state for 5 years and there still would be animals to adopt. There will always be people who don't comply with the law and there are so many stray and feral cats in this country that it would take at least 10 years of rescuing ferals and strays to even make a dent in the population. I rescue many ferals and with them are so many kittens who can be tamed and adopted and we are still euthanising kittens by the dozen every week. I call them the born to die babies cause that's exactly what happens to them. When will all these killings cease to exsist? When will there be no more shelters in this country to do socieities dirty work?

Animal Welfare wrote:

Jennifer! look at the future - they want "NO MORE PETS!" They use you as an example, YOU are an irresponsible owner, everyone is included in this - not one person is excluded. They have lumped, you, me, your neighbor, your relatives all together as being irresponsible owners, that do not care about your pet! Look at your dog, now think of the future when this law says no more breeding, YOUR grandchildren or your great grandchildren will not be able to own a pet, because YOU supported this bill.

Forgot to mention that pets are a 41 billion dollar industry and I can assure you that there is no one out there that want this industry to go away. On the contrary they want the bad image of this industry to go away and that is the euthanisa of all these poor innocent creatures who die due to human ignorance. Breeders and backyard breeders rake in the money hand over fist but ultimately the animals who die are the ones that make the sacrifice and pay the price for human greed. I'd like to know how many of you breeders enter a shelter and hold all these animals in your hands while they die and apologise to them that sorry there is no home for you today? You call yourself animal welfare, you could care a less about any animals welfare from the sound of your post. You need to change your name to one that is befitting of your ideas.

Norskejente wrote:

I have yet to hear one good reason not to alter their pet.

Because you show your dog? Or because you responsibly breed them? Or because you know that it's not a black and white issue with regards to neutering them?

I've owned intact dogs for years and years and never had a litter. I think that's typical in Europe btw: they don't neuter their pets at the rate we do, and yet they don't have the problems we do.

Pass a law mandating the neutering of animals and people like me would have to do it: but the real scum, the people who abuse animals and who fill up the pages of local papers with, "Free puppies!!" ads still won't. What will you have accomplished?

Big Sigh - People want to breed their animals fine, but lets leave it up to responsible breeders and not some Joe Smo down the road. So how do we determine if you are a serious breeder or not. You'd have to have rules and regulations as a prereqisite in determining who is a breeder and who is not. First and foremost would be that all breeders must take a course on how to breed your pet and the responsibilities that go with it. Second would be all breeders must be licensed and open to inspection.(This would eliminate a lot of puppy mills) Third would be the pet to be breed must recieve a certificate of health from a vet and Forth that all pets and offspring be registered. I am not totally against breeding, but there has to be a begining to the end of euthanising all these unwanted animals. Like I said earlier euthanisia is not the solution, it's actually part of the problem. It's an easy fix and the permission for people to continue being irresponsible. You may have an intact dog and don't let your dog breed but you are an exception to the rule. Make my suggestions a law and pass a mandatory spay-nueter law and you will see a difference in the euthanisa rate. I also understand that there should be exemptions to this law such as Breeders, show dogs, rescue dogs, for health reasons, and others. That's a given! But you have to have something out there that will weed out the irresponsible pet owner that breeds their pet because they lack the incentive to do so. I met a women who was breeding her beagle still at the age of 7 years only because they wanted one with certain colors and markings. She didn't breed to sell the puppies. Very ignorant and was a poor excuse for a pet owner. As for Europe I have been there many times and I don't think there is a counrty in the world that doesn't have this problem. I don't know where you went but I'd love to know the statistics of that countries euthanisa rate. My question to you is what is your ideas on how to eliminate the euthanising of all these unwanted animals and what are you doing about it?

Breeders are cruel people who care about nothing but $$$$$

dogman wrote:

Breeders are cruel people who care about nothing but $$$$$

I'd say that's true for about 85 to 90% of people and breeders who let their animals procreate. If anybody has any doubts on that all they have to do is look at the euthanisa rate in every county in the country. I wonder how many we put down on a daily basis and I'm not talking about the very sick ones either. We need to tighten the reins on who can breed and who can't. Until then these poor creatures will continue to pay the price for human ignorance. In todays society that should be unacceptable.