Be it known that:
• Animal rights extremists have claimed that "not enough homes" exist for pets. There are 23 million homes for pets opening up each year in the USA, and between 3-4 million animals killed in shelters. We have a failure of shelter leadership and management.
• Shelter killings are only justified in cases of illness, infirmity, severe injury, or owner-requested euthanasia. No adoptable animal need ever be killed.
• Pet lovers across the land are appalled that this killing continues when there is no reason for it.
• The latest national pet owner survey reveals that 78% of all owned dogs and 88% of all owned cats are already spayed or neutered.
• Mandated sterilization results in increases in shelter intakes and deaths everywhere it has been tried.
- Shelters and rescues import hundreds of thousands of dogs into the US each year, and many more are smuggled in to meet the current demand for pets.
Be it further resolved:
• ANIMALS, including dogs, cats and other pets are property. The Government should recognize the inherent right to property as specified in the US Constitution.
• The government shall set no limit on our right to own animals excepting local nuisance ordinances.
• No restriction shall be set on the numbers of animals owned or the animal husbandry methods employed by animal owners beyond basic health, sanitation and rabies control.
• No adoptable dogs or cats in animal shelter should be killed. Animal control agencies must fulfill their duties to seek out homes or rescue group placement for all such adoptable animals, and to trap, neuter and release feral, unadoptable cats.
• The reproductive rights for our animals rests with owners and the government shall not interfere with those rights.
Proposal: a federal law prohibiting limitation on ownership of animals as personal property; nor shall any animal ownership regulation be imposed that does not directly affect human health nor violate existing animal welfare laws.
I'm interested in learning more about shelter/pet home statistics for some writing I'm doing. I'm dizzied by all the different numbers I see. Can you direct me to the sources you've found? I'd be happy to email privately if you'd prefer.
ReplyDeleteHi thelocaldog,
ReplyDeleteThis one particular piece does not have reference, but please check the articles in the archives. The post from Sunday about the Huffington post article has quite a few references, as well as "The Overpopulation rhetoric Continues". For shelter and rescue import information, please see "It's Raining Dogs...from Other Countries. There were some links to good articles also provided in the comments section of the "Raining" article. Please also see "Rethinking Spay and Neuter" which has many more references posted. I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for. The national pet population statistics are reported by Maddie's Fund and the thoughts about more homes than shelter animals are in Nathan Winograd's blog post entitled "Debunking Pet Overpopulation". Links to that article and others are in the links section on the right hand column under the heading "Myth of Pet Overpopulation". Directly below that section is a passel of links about health effects of spay-neuter. Happy reading! And please do contact me if I can be of further assistance to you.