Archives for Legislation category
So all over the nation the no-kill movement is growing and growing and growing. Building momentum. More and more people are getting involved, not accepting the status quo (that they “have to die, there are no other options“), and putting an end to the killing in their neighborhoods. BSL is being fought, kill shelters are frowned upon, TNR is supported and good is conquering evil.
Each day, each week, each month, we hear more and more success stories. We learn more about the good that people are doing and we watch as the “evil-doers” are verbally and legally attacked by their community for their killing. People flooding meetings to standing-room-only status, bringing law suits against their shelters, and standing up for what is right and good. No longer backing down, but fighting to save lives. The “bad” is no longer covered up, but put out there with the press covering it, blogs light up across the internet with “do you believe this?? SIGN THIS PETITION”.
We rejoice that you are no longer tolerating it.
Good for you.
However it still seems that tiny people with small minds and with a wee bit of “power” are out there abusing it and trying to use it to do harm. Old-style shelter directors, animal hating animal control officers, town officials, co-op board members that seem to have nothing better to do than to continue to try to kill animals that their own communities want to protect and save.
On Tuesday we will be going to court to fight just such a situation. Let me tell you about it.
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Filed in
Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on Sep 25, 2011. There are comments.
With only a couple of weeks left in the legislative session, it is urgent for New Yorkers to contact NYS Senator Joseph Robach and urge him to bring the Companion Animal Access and Rescue Act (CAARA) to the Senate floor for a vote. CAARA will save roughly 25,000 animals a year currently being killed in New York State shelters despite qualified rescue groups willing to save their lives at no cost to taxpayers.
CAARA would:
- Make it illegal for shelters to kill animals if qualified rescue groups are willing to save them;
- End “convenience” killing when there are empty cages and when animals can share kennels or be sent to foster care;
- Require pounds to post strays, including photographs and descriptions, on the Internet so their families can search for them online;
- Require transparency in operations by requiring shelters to make their statistics public;
- Require pounds to scan for microchips, maintain lost/found lists, and match lost with found animals in the shelter;
- Require fresh food and water, environmental enrichment, clean living environments, as well as prompt and necessary veterinary care; and,
- Allow shelters to transfer stray animals to rescue groups during the holding period to free up cage space or get vulnerable animals out as soon as possible, subject to the same rights of redemption for the animal’s family.
Senator Robach is a sponsor of CAARA, but he is being opposed by powerful industry groups in his own district. We need to thank Senator Robach for standing up for the animals and urge him to ignore the Naysayers who want to make sure that their power is not upended since they do not represent either his true constituents or the people of New York.
Please telephone or e-mail Senator Robach today: Thank him for sponsoring CAARA and let him know that if he pushes forward, he will be a hero not only to the animals, but also to the many thousands of animal-loving supporters of CAARA, who have written, telephoned, emailed elected officials in Albany to let them know how much we care and want this bill passed as it is currently written.
As always, please be polite and positive.
Telephone: (518) 455-2909
E-mail: robach@nysenate.gov
Filed in
Legislation by kerry on Jun 16, 2011. There are comments.
Oreo’s Law (now CAARA) WILL “die” without your calls and letters!
On Monday or Tuesday, Oreo’s Law (now known as CAARA – Companion Animal Adoption & Rescue Act ) will be voted on by the New York State Assembly Agriculture Committee. But it is not likely to pass without a large showing of community support between now and then. That is because the opposition has been lobbying strongly against the bill once again. We told them last year we would NOT allow this to happen again.
WE NEED YOU NOW.
“Where New York goes, SO GOES THE NATION.”
CAARA would:
- End “convenience” killing when there are empty cages and when animals can share kennels or be sent to foster care
- Require pounds to post strays, including photographs and descriptions, on the Internet so their families can search for them online
- Require transparency in operations by requiring shelters to make their statistics public
- Require pounds to scan for microchips, maintain lost/found lists, and match lost with found animals in the shelter
- Require fresh food and water, environmental enrichment, clean living environments, as well as prompt and necessary veterinary care
If CAARA is defeated, thousands upon thousands of cats, kittens, dogs, puppies, rabbits, and other animals will continue to be needlessly killed in NYS shelters every year—animals CAARA has the power to save.
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Filed in
Legislation by kerry on Jun 03, 2011. There are comments.
Today, marks six weeks since shots rang out in Chesterfield SC, killing as many as 22 dogs, and yet to date no arrests have been made, no criminal charges have been filed and the men accused of these reprehensible acts remain on PAID administrative leave.
Yes. Paid. After viciously murdering animals, they can sit home, basically on vacation, and get paid for it.
Sheriff Sam Parker’s office, which oversees the Chesterfield Shelter, initiated the investigation. So here we have the department that is directly connected with running the operation investigating themselves. Nice, right?
Well, YOU didn’t think so, and thanks to your calls and outrage, Governor Nikki Haley’s office stepped in and asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to takeover. SLED was asked to lead the investigation and turn over their findings to the Attorney General’s (AG) office. Great, right? Welllll, not so fast….read on.
On March 31 when the investigation was “complete” and the findings turned over to the Attorney General for review, it appears almost NONE of the KEY people responsible for calling attention to this were even interviewed!! That includes the volunteer who first unearthed the bodies of these animals, the 4 animal control officers accused of these crimes, the eye witnesses who came forward regarding the abuses they witnessed at the shelter, and none of the evidence of dog fighting was ever examined.
SAY WHAT??
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Filed in
Animal Rescue,
Legislation by kerry on Apr 16, 2011. There are comments.
So we were able to get Oreo’s Law put forth again to the Agricultural Committee (Thank you Micah Kellner).
This is just the first step of getting this bill passed.
Truly none of us felt it would be a problem, initially, to get it through this first committee. It was later we thought we’d have the true battle. But we underestimated the ASPCA – they have done this before, we were neophytes. They recognized that the best way to make sure it never saw the light of day was to influence the first committee to can it…and they did. They didn’t actually shut it down, they were just able to get it “tabled”, which meant that months ago they just all agreed NOT to vote on it until next session.
So in that time, we estimate that 16,629 number of animals have died in New York Shelters as a result.
Well here we are again.
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Filed in
Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on Feb 11, 2011. There are comments.
So Best Friends said this, in the recent backlash they are getting over Oreo’s Law:
>>In 2007, Best Friends rescued a failed and dilapidated Pets Alive sanctuary by investing over a million dollars and 8 months of a rotating cadre of Best Friends staff to get the organization back on its feet. Best Friends has spent millions of dollars and countless hours of staff and volunteer time in the past few years bailing out or cleaning up after 501c3s and rescues that have gotten in over their head with animals they can’t handle. These include Pets Alive, Gabbs, Nevada, FLOCK in Las Vegas, Oasis Sanctuary in New York….
…In fact, a number of dogs from Pets Alive, to whom the current management did not feel they could do justice, and who had languished there in squalid conditions prior to our intervention in 2007, were taken in at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah.<<
Yes, Best Friends, this is true. Well MOST of it. It wasn’t a million dollars you spent here. We know, because we got the bill from you that your past CEO, Paul Berry eventually waived, when he saw how great we were doing and how we would become a force for animals in this area. That bill, before it was waived, was just under $500,000. A minor point, but please, no need to inflate it. Let’s stick to the facts here. We have not bad mouthed you or beaten you up – in fact when people were saying they were going to withdraw support from you, we said “DON’T DO THAT”! We have stressed how we disagree with your opinion on being neutral about this and how critical we needed your support on this bill. That’s it. Others have run with it and it has gone viral but to attack us isn’t really necessary. We didn’t…we COULD. Remember all the things that happened in those eight months? Ouch. We all know each others secrets, don’t we? Secrets that are better left between us, yes?
WE – Pets Alive – don’t really have any secrets. Our bad history has been all over the web (and we include it on our website). In fact, we make no secret about it at all – I am the one that called you when I saw Pets Alive, and how bad it was. I was the one that personally begged you to come down and save all the animals. WE, the people here now, are NOT the people that were here THEN when the situation was so bad. YOU put us here, YOU trained us, WE are YOU. We follow all your protocols, and all your job descriptions and indeed use YOUR adoption contract, and YOUR surrender forms, and your hiring methods – we are you. We are what you trained us to be. And you trained us to always be on the side of animals and speak out and help where we see wrong.
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Filed in
Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on Jun 29, 2010. There are comments.
There are so many forces at work with trying to get Oreo’s Law passed.
The ASPCA and the Mayor’s Alliance, both charged with saving animals and
given millions of dollars to do so, are pouring money and resources into
defeating the bill, ensuring that they continue to control which animals
live and die in New York City and throughout the state.
It’s a classic David versus Goliath proposition, and Goliath is winning.
They’ve convinced the chairman of the Agriculture Committee (Robert
Magee) to table the bill because the “language isn’t clear.” What part
of “if a qualified rescue requests an animal that would otherwise be
euthanized the request must be fulfilled” don’t they understand?
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Filed in
Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on Jun 14, 2010. There are comments.
So over the past week many of my friends, relatives and fellow rescuers, have been sending me a petition to sign.
I warn you that I see and read a lot of “horrible animal stuff” on a regular basis, doing what I do for a living. Reading this one resulted in a lot of grief and tears for me from the imagery it presented. I’m not quick to that reaction anymore. Perhaps I’ve been desensitized or learned coping methods of not letting it in too far. I won’t analyze it, but accept that how I shut a lot of it out is a necessary survival mechanism.
So I read a little of this one and was not able to shut it off and I didn’t finish the read. You can if you like, here is the link: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/ban-the-use-of-gas-chambers-in-north-carolina-pounds.html
For the weak of heart I will summarize.
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Filed in
Legislation by kerry on May 20, 2010. There are comments.
Imagine this — there’s a knock on your door and two policemen and an Animal Control Officer enter your house. They walk to where your dog is sleeping peacefully on his bed, put the loop from a pole around his neck and drag him out. He is euthanized that evening along with dozens of others.
His crime? He’s a pit bull and he lives in Ohio. This is called breed-specific legislation, and the worst I’ve ever seen has been introduced by a moronic legislator by the name of Tyrone Yates of Cincinnati. Here is the yutz himself.
The details are simple:
The bill requires all owners to surrender their “pit bulls” within 90 days of the effective date of the proposed law. The bill is unequivocal that the dog warden “shall” euthanize all pit bulls within 10 days of their surrender.
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Filed in
Legislation by Admnistrator on Jun 05, 2008. There are comments.