I'm not against MSN per se; only MSN as envisioned by animal rights radicals who don't think we should have pets at all, and who are doing their best to see to it that we don't.
I'm against THIS bill in specific, because:
#1: As the first item under the permits section, it deliberately EXEMPTS anyone with a BUSINESS license as a breeder from the Show/Competition/Purebreed Registry/Titling or any of the “working dog” requirements imposed on home breeders who try to get intact permits for their dogs. That would be, um, puppy mills, right? So those taxes still get paid, and badly bred puppies/kittens will still show up in the window of your local pet store, and thence to the shelters when they don't work out.
It deliberately leaves the issue of determining reasonable costs up to local jurisdictions or their assigns. This is an open invitation to have animal care and control offices and contract agencies hijacked by radical animal rights activists, giving them the legal right to charge any breeder any amount of money they choose to justify.
It deliberately ignores requiring medical evaluation by a vet as part of the SN process in favor of a wholly arbitrary timeframe. There is NO exception for puppies whose lives/health are endangered by the procedure, only a 75 day delay. So if your puppy has a bad heart and still isn't strong enough at 6 1/2 months, too bad, so sad--better a dead puppy than an unaltered one!
It deliberately leaves the setting of any standards for breeder facilities, etc. to the local jurisdiction, again openly inviting ACC offices to be hijacked by radical animals rights activists, allowing them to set unreasonable/unattainable/potentially arbitrary criteria for whether or not someone will be allowed an exception. There's no provision whatsoever for 'best practices' review of any criteria a local jurisdiction may set down, by person, agency or professional organization. If the ACC Director of Berkeley, California decides that any person who wishes to have an unaltered dog permit in Berkeley must have 1 square mile of open land with a 12 foot fence for dogs/puppies to run free on, there is absolutely NOTHING in this law to stop that ruling, anyone to appeal that ruling to, or any mechanism to get that ruling changed.
It deliberately leaves the granting of 'unaltered' licenses to the local jurisdictions WITHOUT RECOURSE. That means if the PETA people manage to get one of their true believers placed as your local Animal Care and Control Director and he/she decides that your Field Book registered Champion Chesapeake Bay Retriever isn't a ‘show’ dog because you don't compete in AKC conformation shows, you either lose your dog to a breeder in some other state or you have it SN. Period, end of story.
Those are just the BIGGEST and most immediate holes in this bill, on its way to law. The long term consequences are even worse, in my not remotely humble opinion. And yeah, I’m confrontationa l on this point, because I work on a specialty DOG MAGAZINE with national distribution. This is a constant issue around here, with differing laws in differing parts of the country coming up all the time—and the consensus around here is that this is a perfectly dreadful law.
If you want me to support a SN law, then...
Draw up a law that applies to EVERYONE. Breeders with business licenses should have to obey the same set of arbitrary standards as home breeders to get an maintain their intact animal permits. If you’re going to require ‘show/registry/title’ standards or proof of 'working' status, then require them of everyone.
Draw up a law that puts VETS in charge of determining medically sound criteria for MSN standards by breed, to be reviewed based on the best available science at specifically stated intervals. Say every 3-5 years. Require proof of vet exams to get ANY dog license or permit renewed, not just a one-time spay neuter certificate.
Draw up a law that sets a reasonable MAXIMUM on costs. I can see an intact animal permit costing a couple of hundred dollars, but no more than that—because higher than that will only encourage more commercial breeding, where the costs can be recouped, as BYBs get priced out of the market.
Draw up a law setting very clear, specific, unmistakable boundaries around what local jurisdictions can or can't use as 'additional, more restrictive' criteria for allowing or denying intact permits; and include in that a procedure for appealing any and all of those decisions.
Draw up specific criteria for approving--or rejecting--ANY animal breeds registry, and put in place a process whereby the criteria may evolve over time, in accordance with technology.
A bill will those elements is worth discussing.
But CA AB 1634 is just a badly written bill, with purposeful holes in it that the radical animal rights crowd plan to drive a Mack truck through in their efforts to ‘liberate all animals.’
I'm telling you, don't be fooled by the bait and switch scheme of a law. And don't let them pass one like it where you live, either.
