Potential Bill Effecting Massachusetts Dog Owners - Page 1

I just heard of this today and thought i would share. I went to the AKC website where there is a link to read the amended bill. I thought other dog owners might be interested as it would potentially effect everyone that owns a dog, purebreed or mixed. THis bill was initially supposed to be a "dangerous dog" bill (without regard to breed), but has been changed in "study". A couple of highlights of the changes:

1.  All dogs will have to be altered by 12 months, or the owners can pay $500/pet/year for a "permit" to keep them intact.

2.  All dogs will have to have a Leptospirosis vaccine, as well as distemper and rabies

I do not breed my dogs,I leave that up to those that know what they are doing.   I do, however,like to wait until my males are around 2 before they are neutered. I don't want the government telling me I have to do it by 12 months.

I do not vaccinate my dogs against Lepto as they are not in jeopardy of getting it. I have also seen alot of dogs have adverse reactions to the vaccine. I think this should be a decision made by the individual owner and their veterinarian.

As it stands right now, dog owners in Massachusetts will not have the ability to vote on this bill at  all, and the AKC is asking owners to contact their state reps.

Anyway, this has been bugging me all day and I finally decided I needed to vent.  Here is a link to the info at AKC. http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=3595

Thanks, I forwarded the link to my sister who lives there.

I am in MA,  this is the first I've heard of this :o(     Going to check out link...   especially considering I do not do lepto vacc. and my girl is intact also.

Heather

Hopefully the word will get out and people will respond.

Another BAD part of this bill would be that each town/city could enact BSL.

Welcome to the hell called AB 1634 that FINALLY got killed here in California.  It takes a lot of people to get involved to fight for what you believe in.  Good Luck from my side of town :-)  

Unfortunately not many people will read this thread because it is labeled a Massachusetts issue when in reality it is an issue for ALL of us because once again this is Peta's "No Birth Nation" agenda. They literally want to stop the births of ALL companion animals. THIS BILL IS A  MANDATORY SPAY NUETER BILL- just at 12 months not 4 months like in CA. For those in MA go to the www.saveourdogs.net site it has valuable information for you especially about the documented  disastrous side effects of early spay nueter. Example it is directly linked to the skyrocketing incident of patella dislocations.

Re the lepto - my vet refuses to give it because it is outdated. The vaccine is against a strain of lepto hardly ever seen anymore PLUS causes reactions.  The lepto strains that are seen are not affected by the current vaccine.

Finally some information about Massachusetts and it's shelter system. When I left 20 years ago we had already thru education reduced the shelter population to a point that several shelters ( staffed by PETA advocates by the way) were caught buying litter lots from puppy mills so they would have pups to place in their communities AND so their jobs could be preserved. Today the shelter system ( on people's tax dollars!!!!) is the biggest sole supplier of pets in the commonwealth. To do this they IMPORT dogs from FIVE other states AND Puerto Rico - from which last year they imported AND placed a dog with an active case of rabies. This system goes totally unregulated while PETA and HSUS push for greater and greater restrictions and regulations on legitimate breeders.

My suggestions to current MA residents is 1. GET involved in some way - write, speak, lobby, contact your newspapers and ask why they are not doing an expose on the importation of dogs into TAX FUNDED shelters.  If the shleters ahve no dogs or cats CLOSE them down or rent the facilities out to a non profit or spca who can choose to  import animals if they want - just not on your tax dollar. GET involved in you local animal control,. shelter , spca. Find out what and how they are doing it. Expose both good and bad practices. The good needs to be encouraged and supported. The bad needs to be stopped.

While I do not agree with all he has to say an excellent book to get and read is Nathan Winograd's Redemption ( see also his website - look for the pdf articles which are the basis for the book).

IF you can get other board members to read this thread- because this is they future and people need to start seeing it clearly. 

TIG, post another thread with your informative info. Word needs to get out. Thanks for shedding light :-) Sue-Ann