Opinion: Man bites man over dogs
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If you don’t believe that the Great Dog Debate isn’t among the top three issues guaranteed to send Southern Californians howling to the moon (the other two being immigration and traffic), then, well, you probably don’t work for a Southern California newspaper. Consider these data points from recent days in the Opinion section -- Joel Stein’s typically nuanced ‘I hate dog owners’ column, and the amusing response from WeHo reader Melinda Jagger ‘venturing to guess’ that our Joel ‘is a sad, lonely man.’
But there are some real, meatier-than-chuckwagon public policy and social etiquette issues about what we and our neighbors and our governments should do with and about our four-legged friendlies. This week, anti-dog-torturer Daniel Guss goes perro-a-perro with breeder Bill Hemby over that dog patch in the public square we call animal policy. Today’s first installment is about spaying and neutering, with Guss drawing first blood:
What a great way to start the week: I am a volunteer humane advocate going against you, Bill, a paid lobbyist and profiteering dog breeder allied with a PR firm that unsuccessfully defended Big Tobacco and fought against a living wage law. [...] Mandatory spay-neuter is the only solution. Believe those of us who sacrifice, not others who profit.
Hemby responds by breaking out the numbers:
AB 1634 is modeled after a similar law in Santa Cruz County, where mandatory spay/neuter was enacted in 1995. Since then, the county’s animal control expenses have more than doubled, to 109%. While their shelter intakes were reduced by 22%, the average reduction statewide was higher, at 26%. Instead of reducing shelter populations, mandatory spay and neuter programs, because of their huge fines and penalties, result in higher shelter intakes, more costs, a huge drop in licensing and unfortunately, Dan, more killing.
Stay tuned all week, and don’t forget to leave a bark or two in the comments.