California bill to legislate dog breeding

[Janet McNally]

Hi All,

California is trying to pass a bill that is down right scary. The details are huge so I'm going to send you to another website to view the details
www.ruralheritage.com click on 'drovers forum' and then "Peta wins big....."

In short, California is going to require that dog owners obtain a licence to be able to keep their dog intact. There are requirements on that licence including that the dog MUST be a registered purebred and they even spell out just which registries the dog must be registered with. The fees for these intact dogs are to subsidize spay and neuter clinics, so you can bet they are going to be steep.

Most of our purebred livestock guard dogs would not qualify, and certainly the hybrid LGDs won't, nor will the popular cattledog/BC cross used on a lot of cow calf outfits. .

this is very ill conceived. the state is assuming they know what dogs best suit the needs of the people and assume that only purebred dogs are worth owning. It also appears to me that some one is simply trying to control who breeds dogs by a set of standards that is by no means universally accepted.

This must be stopped. This is an unnecessary hardship on livestock producers. anyone here live in California??

janet

[Janet McNally]

oh, almost forgot...they are going to require all dogs be neutered by 4 months old too. the very large breeds of dogs, including our livestock guard dogs are demonstrably more likely to develop hip displaysia if neutered at such a young age. There is much to be said for waiting until a dog is 7-8 months old before neutering for the health of the dog.

The *ONLY* reason this young age is chosen is because it is assumed the dog owner will not control breeding of their dog as it reaches puberty. While this certainly does happen, it does not make jeapordizing the well being of all dogs justified.

the other compounding problem with this is as a person who raises 2 dogs per year from our own breeding to 1 or 2 yrs old, so as to see first hand how they turn out, this would require that spay/neuter decisions are made long before you can tell if they are even going to turn into a good LGD or not.

Janet

[Lana Rowley]

Janet, well i am happy to say i don't live in CA but i live next door and have many friends there. Two of the outspoken ones have told me they are all over this bill and are lobbing against it with the help of at least one congressman. This is apparently a souther cal deal and one of the many reasons why my friends in Northern Cal say they are from the "state of Jefferson" and not California.

Lana

[Bill Fosher]

You can leave comments for the bill's sponsor at

http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/legcomme ... hor=levine

Here's what I wrote:

I am a sheep producer on the other side of the country, but I still feel compelled to write about this bill. As currently drafted, it would ban the breeding of two kinds of dogs that are absolutely critical to the sheep industry: working Border collies (which are not registered with the AKC, but with the American Border Collie Association) and many kinds of livestock guardian dogs, many of which are mixes of various breeds and purebreds with breed-specific registries like the working Border collies.

Without these dogs, I could not do my job. Califorinia is one of the largest sheep producing states in the US, and I know many of my fellow shepherds rely on their working dogs to get their day's work done and to keep their sheep safe from predation.

While the intention of reducing unwanted, unintentionally bred dogs is to be applauded, this bill is ham-fisted and would produce real harm to those of us who work in the animal agriculture industry.

Thank you for your time and consideration.