Prop B "changes" moving forward, and the need to replace the current voice against puppy mills

Yesterday, the Agriculture Policy Committee of the Missouri House of Representatives unanimously backed a bill, HB 131, that would remove most of the requirements of Missouri's Proposition B.  HB 131 appears to be a straight companion bill to SB 113, which got the endorsement of the Senate Agriculture Policy Committee a couple of weeks ago.   

I won't talk a lot about HB 131 or SB 113. The bills themselves strip out most of the policies in the voter-approved Prop B.  While some of the stipulations in the bill were quite good, a large number of them were actually really bad. I've been very vocal in my opposition to the 50 dog breeding limit (primarily because there appears to be no satisfactory answer to the question "what happens to the rest of the dogs?" - but also I think limiting the size of someone's business may be legally problematic), but there also appear to be a lot of problems with some of the criminal statutes as well.  From the folks I've talked to, there appear to be a couple of different issues with the criminal codes (and again, I'm not a lawyer, but there are people smarter than I am telling me this stuff -- one of whom is a lawyer, so I'm going to relay this the best I can):

1) They require misdemeanor charges for any violations -- no matter how minor. Anyone who has ever worked in the restaurant industry knows that it is virtually impossible to pass an inspection with a 100% clean record, and imagine if that 1 minor violation resulted in a misdemenaor charge.  Prop B also has a higher scale for second time offenders -- but with no time limit on the second time. So someone could get busted for a fairly minor infraction in 2012, and then, have 20 years of a clean record, and get busted for another minor infraction in 2032, and the scale would increase on them.  This has been apparently pretty problematic in the legislature.

2) The other problem appears to be that the bill creates what are criminal activities, but then excludes shelters and rescue groups from violating the criminal code. For a lot of good reasons, the court systems don't like that, and basically have decided that if an activity is illegal, then it is illegal for anyone to do it, not just one group of people.  Apparently this was part of the impetous for SB95.

These types of legal problems are exactly why the state retains the right to adjust laws passed through citizen's initiatives.  While it isn't uncommon for errors in legislator-passed laws to be "cleaned up" after their passing, it certainly isn't uncommon for the same thing to happen in citizen's initiatives. This is why I think a lot of the cries about "this is a fight for democracy" are unfounded.

So there is little doubt that changes will be made -- and this is in spite of HSUS' continue approach that there should be "no compromises".  But there have to be. Because the law is not workable in its current form.

So instead of taking the approach of actually coming up with compromise solutions, they continue to send emails to Missouri residents claiming we should insist that the law stay in place in spite of its problems. 

It shouldn't be a big surprise that HSUS and Wayne Pacelle would be on the unreasonable side of this.  This is, after all, the same Wayne Pacelle that insisted that the dogs confiscated from Mike Vick's kennels were the "most dangerous they had ever seen" -- in spite of the reports from evaluators that most were "pancake dogs" that would cower at the sight of new humans. This is the same Wayne Pacelle that thought these dogs should all be killed without an evaluation -- even though the majority are doing well now living as members of society. This is the same Wayne Pacelle that welcomed Mike Vick back with open arms, has said he is rehabiliated, and that he would be a good dog owner again some day -- in spite of Vick's handlers saying they don't care about the dogs and that he is frequently heard complaining about having to lecture people on the horrors of dog fighting.

So it shouldn't be a surprise if Pacelle, and HSUS, are found to be unreasonable. 

But the problem is, that the people in the animal welfare community, the people who really care about animals, seem to be ok with letting HSUS be the voice for them when it comes to things like Puppy mill cruelty.  And that needs to change.

Instead of making a positive impact for the animals, HSUS had created further divide between the legislators and those who are really trying to help the animals.  Now, it seems that many of the state legislators -  at the very sound of mentioning a need to fix the cruelty problems in commercial breeding facilities in the state - put up a wall and cast said person in the same category as HSUS.  We're instantly typecast as being unreasonable and uncompromising.

We need to take back the voice of caring about animals away from HSUS, and bring it back to the people who are more concerned about that animals than they are about making policies (regardless of how poorly those policies are written).

We need to stand up for very respected men like Dr. Bud Herzog. Dr. Herzog is an EXTREMELY well-respected veterinarian in a suburban community here in Kansas City -- and has been for decades. I've had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Herzog when several area communities were talking about breed bans in the KC metro several years ago. He is a good man. Two days ago he wrote a letter to the Kansas City Star stating that there are problems with Prop B and that the wording of the law is misguided. Meanwhile the ususal, uncompromising internet trolls and HSUS activists again showed up in the comments section -- even accusing Dr. Herzog of just protecting his financial interests (which, to the best I can tell, he has no financial interest at stake here given the community in which he serves).

But it is the unreasonable among us that have become the most dominant voices. It is HSUS, who has the money to make themselves the dominant voice -- but only if we let them.

Fortunately, wiser heads are starting to prevail at the state legislature. Instead of just moving on with the two bills that strip down Prop B -- they are looking at making improvements.

The House Committee has also approved an amendment that will increase the annual fees for licensed dog breeders by $25 a year -- which would raise about $34,000 that the state then plans to use to investigate and shut down unlicensed breeding operations. Based on all of the reports (from the USDA, Better Business Bureau and the State Auditor's department), this single act alone would do more to solve the primary issues with illegal and unethical dog breeding in the state than Prop B.  It's a good first step.

The problems with animal cruelty in commercial breeding  kennels are a real problem in this state - -and they do need to be addressed. But I think taking a reasonable approach to solving the real problems will go much futher than the unreasonable, uncompromising approach that is being pushed by HSUS and Wayne Pacelle.  The animal welfare community needs to take their voice back on this isssue...or risk having their voices completely ignored.

Comments

[MichelleD]

St Joe does not adopt out pit bulls either - I'm not sure they even let rescues take them. One of the women working there said (in so many words of course) it was to keep the horrible black people from adopting them - so they could have the pleasure of murdering the dogs instead.

[Rita]

Great idea! Start packing, Shelley! St. Louis won't miss ya a bit! They really didn't mean to vote for Prop B. It was just those deceptive commercials......they 'sounded' good.

[kmk]

Hey, I think I've found an explanation for Shelley:

http://www.examiner.com/social-media-in-national/us-gov-software-creates-fake-people-on-social-networks-to-promote-propoganda

[LSMR]

Please don't lump all rescue folks into one.
Not all supported Prop B.

[Brent]

Fair enough. That wasn't my intent, but I see how you took it that way. I am one of those rescue folks who didn't support Prop B.