We all have the right to vote the way we want. Even governors.
Still, I kind of liked Nava's bill #241, which Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed. I have been following it for months.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_241&sess=CUR&house=B&author=nava
It deals, not only with population control in dogs & cats (many cats & dogs are 'being put to sleep' in California shelters), but also in helping damp down the monopolizing of dog breeding by a few big puppy mills, and the deterioration of breeds by incest from most of the puppies of the next generation all coming from a small group of over-bred dogs; ditto for show cats.
The fault is mine, and yours. A governor is just a person, he can't be expected to know everything. He's a governor, not a leader of any avant guard movement - he is hired to work for the whole state of California, and he rightly focused on broad issues like getting enough water for the state, and managing the state's money problems.
The pet industry is a specialized study. It is unlikely that ANY of the governors or the legislators understand it - except in the sense that they understand profit, advertising, the ways businesses run, and consumer motivations.
But the details, the things that make producing dogs different from producing furniture, are not understood by most state legislators. And that is how it probably should be, their jobs require them to focus on big state issues.
Dogs are a city problem, dogs are a county problem. But lack of the right state laws, makes for the problems in the counties and cities. And helping the counties & cities do well IS a state problem.
We, who want to fix the problems in animal populations, need to get the public and the cities & counties to understand, not to expect state law makers to understand animal issues. But it nice when places like Virginia & Louisiana have state legislators that are ahead of the game.
But I don't push for them to try too quickly. Look what happened last year.
California's 1634 is, IMO, the worst piece of dog legislation ever proposed.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov
levine, assembly bill 1634, session 2008.
It would have given "the bad guys" a functional monopoly in California.
It would not just of made things worse, it could have made them unfixable.
How do you un-spay a dog? After you have forced someone to have their male dog castrated, how do you say: "Oops!", we were on the wrong side, the dogs we let go un-neutered are the very ones who most need to be castrated, but we shouldn't have made you get your dog castrated.
1634 would have caused un-fixable problems.
And it is likely that the problems would have remained un-fixable (in California) on a macro level as well.
The adding of revenue to a side that really needs an up-date but is spending it's efforts in resisting updating, not in implementing change, would have effected the whole US.
This is why working on a local level is so important.
The problem is the national dog clubs zoom over to local governments and lean on them, trying to indoctrinate them with their propaganda.
In this case, the truth is spoken by a few voices, some soft like mine, some loud enough to be heard world wide, like Jemima Harrison's Pedigree Dogs Exposed (on youtube in 6 parts, but you have to be over 18 to see the first part).
Terrierman speaks the truth about dog shows groups very clearly:
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/search?q=AKC
Read the above link by Terrierman - he has told the simple & obvious truth - and with good photos too. If you read the whole thing it's like a free-to-read book. If your computer wont display that whole subject in one gulp, go to the site it'self (why should I write on subject someone else has already done so well on?) Type into the Search: AKC
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/
PS to Govenor Schwarzenegger: normal people don't keep over 50 cats and dogs in their house, neither do responsible breeders.
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