Animal Laws and Rights - Page 8

When reading Brewers FB posts, she had just hired 2 employees on trail status.

One of the social media posters, worked for the shelter, was this also one of the people that was hired?

Oh, and a tornado damaged the property shortly before all of this began...

The video in the news report, shows the shelter has a high proportion of bully breeds, with only a few other breeds, and dogs living in crates.

The GSD's have been disbursed already.

The talk of crates and 'spare rooms' makes it sound as though, even if not there long, the dogs were subject to worse conditions IN THE SHELTER than they were at home ?

NIce attempt at deflection, Kim Rall.

4 dead dogs all on a sudden - what would you do?
Wait for the result of the autopsy?

Whenever people start to breed dogs because of money ( most often the only income ), and not because of love for the breed ( better: for dogs as a whole ), there is a more than real chance that those dogs won´t have a good life ( better said: will have a real bad life ).
Did you realize that those "breeders" don´t tend to show pictures of their kennels/their facility, but only cute puppy pictures, and pictures of the dogs they want to sell ( or pictures of "mom" and "dad") ?

Whenever I hear about so called "breeding facilities" with 20+ adult dogs, I start to question the ability of the "breeder" to take appropriate care of the dogs.
"Appropriate care" may be possible in case you have 3 - 4 well paid full time kennel helpers, but this won´t calculate, so it´s no real option for someone depending on the income out of his/her dogs.

It´s sad there is no rule forbidding to "crate" dogs in the USA, it´s sad there is no rule asking for appropriate kennel size in the USA, and it´s sad there is no rule that dogs have to have the ability to go outside for a certain amount of time/day in the USA ( don´t misunderstand me - there is animal abuse in Germany, too, but our rules make it possible to "get" the bad guys sooner or later ).
You need dogs "covered in feces", or better "dead dogs"...

In your country animal control does not have any real guide lines, they have to decide by themselves, be it a good decision, be it a bad decision...
I guess people who are part of animal control, became part of it because they love animals - but the "love for animals" doesn´t necessarily involve objectivity and knowledge.
There simply are no "basic rules" to base any decision on...

JonRob made some good points about law and order - maybe someone should fight a case throughout every instance - it´s unbelievable that legal owners have to pay 1000s of dollars BEFORE a court decided about right or wrong.
But honestly, is this really always true, or did this just happen in Randys case because he was not able to be there in time out of personal reasons/call it "bad luck"?

Somehow I am not able to believe all of those horror scenarios ( every single breeder involved says it´s the fault of animal control, never his/her own fault - does animal control really have that much power, all over the USA?

I am really confused.

Susie, yes, in some areas, animal control has a lot of power. In other areas, not nearly enough. It's a very sad situation here. USDA has rules about "enclosure" size but not good enough, imo. On the other hand, some of the WORST puppy mills are USDA licensed. They get fined for violations, they pay, the officers come back at a later date (appointment, not surprise!!!) and they keep their license. Sad when the government makes money off of dogs' misfortune.

WRT to the situation in Alamance, North Carolina, my first thought upon reading the account of the events was to wonder if the two 'new hires' resulted in these dogs being exposed to one of the canine influenza viruses that have been circulating, especially in the South, since the start of the summer. These viruses CAN kill perfectly healthy adult dogs in a matter of days if the affected dogs aren't correctly diagnosed and treatment isn't begun soon enough--and most dogs in the US have no immunity to these two viruses because they hadn't yet been vaccinated against these agents, and hadn't had any exposure to them in the past. I'm getting a strong Animal Rights agenda feeling from the reports I've read of this particular breeder's situation.

I am dismayed by how acceptable it seems to be for breeders and/or trainers, as well as for 'rescues' and shelters, to stack crates up against a wall, two to three tiers high in some instances, and 'store' the dogs in them until it's time for the dogs to be exercised, or for training or breeding. If you've got too many dogs to have loose inside your house at one time, I'd think you'd have enough outdoor kennels for each of your dogs and use those as their primary living quarters--that way, the dogs at least have room to move about, stretch their legs, etc. They're living creatures, and don't deserve to be shoved into what amounts to a cupboard or display cabinet when they aren't needed to do something or go somewhere.

I can see the point of having the dogs acclimated to being crated like that, in case there's some type of disaster and the dogs need to be confined like this as an emergency measure--that's not what I'm referring to. I'm speaking of those who use this as their primary method of 'housing' their dogs [which coincidently is also a method used when a person is trying to conceal exactly how many dogs they have from other people--only letting a few outside at a time, so it looks like there's only a couple of dogs living there when there may be 20 or 30 of them...].

[likes Hexe's post]


"The breeder on a small scale, one who works with 1 or 2 bitches, is the most suitable breeder for service dogs because he can care for his breeding animals & their progeny to such an extent that he can produce strong sound animals that can be trained."

" Breeding on a large scale and in a Kennel is the ruin of all sound shepherd dog breeding. It is not possible to keep shepherd dogs in 'herds'...his master must be able to be busy with him, especially as a young dog".

From "the German Shepherd Dog" by Max v Stephanvitz - founder of our breed

Oh for Pete’s sake responsible parents crate small children. Parents who don’t crate them end up with dead or seriously injured kids. We call the crates for kids playpens and cribs. A parent who let his toddler run loose when he couldn’t watch the kid every second and wound up in the emergency room with the kid would likely be charged with child neglect.

Responsible dog owners crate dogs if needed. Some dogs are absolutely trustworthy and safe loose in the house and others are not.

Here’s what happened to some dogs I know whose owners didn’t believe in crates:

Owners knew their dog was hyper and excitable, thought crates were cruel, dog smashed through a glass door while the owners were home watching him, huge bloody gashes everywhere, dog almost died of blood loss on the way to the vet, owners spent a year paying off the enormous vet bill and never managed to get all the blood out of their car which looked like a slaughterhouse when they arrived at the vet.

Owners got convinced by a PETA freak (yes PETA hates crates too) that crates were cruel, started leaving their two dogs uncrated all the time, came home one day to find the smaller dog in bloody pieces, torn to bits by the bigger dog.

Owners thought crates were cruel, left their dog uncrated, heard a horrible scream from another room, found the dog missing half his tongue with the remaining half still smoking, owners managed to put out the fire started by the electric cord the dog chewed though before it took out their entire apartment building.

But hey at least these lucky dogs weren’t crated.

Give dogs a choice between an outdoor kennel isolated from his family and a comfortable crate indoors with his family and guess what most dogs will choose?

Biggest problem is not crates but owners’ failure to give the dog enough exercise. And I don’t mean three 20-minute walks a day on a leash. I mean running free, tearing around like a madman, hopefully with other dogs, as long as it takes to wear the dog out. One of the happiest sights I know of is dogs running joyfully free together in a safe fenced area.

“It´s sad there is no rule forbidding to ‘crate’ dogs in the USA.” PETA enthusiastically agrees with this because a rule like this would result in the slaughter of millions of USA dogs, and PETA advocates the extinction of every dog on the planet. PETA kills almost every dog (and cat) they get their hands on—to the point of stealing a dog from her owner’s porch and immediately slaughtering her in their death van (the theft was videotaped and PETA admits killing the dog):

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/jen-gerson-the-day-peta-killed-a-pet-dog/wcm/cd6a5e2e-41d3-4549-853f-f370bac69aa2

The dog’s family is suing PETA’s ass off:

http://www.nathanwinograd.com/peta-maya-lawsuit-update/

But hey at least this lucky dog wasn’t crated.

If crates were outlawed in the USA, millions of owners would be forced to give up their dogs, and the resulting flood of dogs in the dog pound would result in mass slaughter of the dogs.

I’m hoping some animal control fool seizes some dogs because the owner crated them. That would be an ideal case to take all the way to the top and bring some serious justice to control freaks who trample on the Constitution by unlawfully seizing property. A case like that would get crowdfunded in a hurry. And when it went to trial, a bunch of the jurors would probably be sitting there with their safely and comfortably crated dogs at home.

Its not that crates are of themselves 'bad'; its that too many people have more dogs than they can responsibly care for, and get round that by stacking crate above crate, and leaving the dogs in them too long. This goes across all breeds, from big working ones to tinies, and it is not a healthy way to keep an animal. No one sensible and unmotivated by greed would say you should not have A crate for A dog; sometimes they are extremely useful. But some people feel it is fine to shove more than one dog into a single crate, even when it isn't big enough for them to stand up and turn round. Some people believe it is just fine to leave dogs stacked 3-high in crates against a wall, so there is restricted air circulation. Some people believe it is okay to go out and leave the dogs in the crates for hours or days on end. Some people believe that when you crate your dog(s) you don't have to exercise them properly, just let them out for 10 minutes at a time at 5 hour intervals (give or take), so then they mostly toilet out of the crate and leave the people less cleaning to do. Conditions produced by this practice are like the worst of jail conditions for humans. Some would argue that's ok for criminals, so its ok for dogs ... but what crimes are the dogs paying for ?
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

"Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

The folks doing that are the ones making statements like "It´s sad there is no rule forbidding to 'crate' dogs in the USA."

Obviously it's wrong to cram a dog into too-small living quarters with not enough exercise whether the dog is in a crate, tiny kennel, or closet, and whether the dog is the only dog or not.

In my work as a dog trainer, I've seen breeders with many dogs that were extremely well cared for--lots of exercise and attention, room to run, great food, and whatever vet care was needed.

And I've also seen people with just one dog that wasn't treated nearly as well as some breeders' dogs.