A Guy in LA
Daniel Guss, tireless animal rights advocate, has a Dust-Up running this week in the LA Times about cats and dogs and Animal Services. You think you know the dimension of the animal debate? Read Guss and think again. He kicked the week off calling for mandatory spay-neuter now. His brave opponent, Bill Hemby, founder of PetPAC, argues that mandatory spay-neuter programs actually increase shelter costs to the taxpayer, because they aren't really effective. We'll be anxious to see what kind of real debate emerges through the week.
What a shout out Jon Regardie gave MayorSam in the Downtown News this past week ("And a Little Blog Shall Lead Us...") He was careful even to give credit where credit is due: this blog's great blog commenters! Thanks much, Jon.
Best conspiracy theory I've heard this week: they're still keeping people off the hiking trails in Griffith Park because firefighting chemicals contaminated the ground.
Second best: Labonge is more inflexible than ever, trying hard to use the Griffith Park Fire as an excuse to develop the Park in accordance with his enormously unpopular Griffith Park Master Plan, which was on the ropes before the Fire, but now, with City Park repair money encumbered, looks easier to kickstart.
Myself, I've been deeply involved with the City this past week. Typically four feet deep in fact. That's the depth of the adult lap lanes at the Riverside Aquatic facility. If you haven't used a City pool in a while, you should think about it. It's free (free!) with a City library card. Summertime, and the living is easy.
° ° ° ° °
What a shout out Jon Regardie gave MayorSam in the Downtown News this past week ("And a Little Blog Shall Lead Us...") He was careful even to give credit where credit is due: this blog's great blog commenters! Thanks much, Jon.
° ° ° ° °
Best conspiracy theory I've heard this week: they're still keeping people off the hiking trails in Griffith Park because firefighting chemicals contaminated the ground.
° ° ° ° °
Second best: Labonge is more inflexible than ever, trying hard to use the Griffith Park Fire as an excuse to develop the Park in accordance with his enormously unpopular Griffith Park Master Plan, which was on the ropes before the Fire, but now, with City Park repair money encumbered, looks easier to kickstart.
° ° ° ° °
Myself, I've been deeply involved with the City this past week. Typically four feet deep in fact. That's the depth of the adult lap lanes at the Riverside Aquatic facility. If you haven't used a City pool in a while, you should think about it. It's free (free!) with a City library card. Summertime, and the living is easy.
Labels: a guy in la
Posted by Joseph F. Mailander @ 8/14/2007 11:39:00 AM
41 Comments:
Best conspiracy theory I've heard this week: they're still keeping people off the hiking trails in Griffith Park because
"City planning to build a new Mansion for dear ol' villarsalinas."
HOORAY! Nutjob Mayor Dan gets ink! I love, I love it I LOVE IT! Between ZD and Mayor Dan, this site will descend into total insanity!
WADA WADA WADA WOO WOO WOO!
Mayor Dan is back!
^ wtf is this about?
How can mandatory spay/neuter work with so many irresponsible people out there, coupled with the fact that we don't have enough police for basic protection. Does anyone seriously think there would be consequences for not snipping Fido?
We need mandatory spay and neuter in Los Angeles. 40% of all animals, over 22,000 animals, are euthanized each year in our shelters.
The guy opposing mandatory spay and neuter is a paid lobbyist. He's been sending out completely untrue propaganda. We don't want to kill all pets in California. We just need to stop killing healthy unwanted pets.
Go, Dan!
They are hearing mandatory spay and neuter of LA animals in City Council today, not the final vote.
1227-
Daniel Guss aka Mayor Dan used to blog here.
12:30 first you get a warning and a fix-it ticket. If you fix-it, no fine. If you don't send in proof of sterilization, you get fined.
They won't be able to enforce it 100%, big deal. It is just another tool to try to help stop overpopulation.
Mayor Dan's blog
http://mayordaniel.blogspot.com/
He basically just attacks Ed Boks the General Manager of LA Animal Services. They used to be friends.
Mattel is recalling another 9 million toys.
How can they not have recalled before????
......Before this month, Fisher-Price and parent company Mattel had never recalled toys because of lead paint.
COULD IT BE MOST OF THE TOYS WITH LEAD ARE THE DORA THE EXPLORER TOYS THAT LATINO KIDS ARE BUYING AND SPENDING MILLIONS ON???
City Council just heard the mandatory spayneuter issue. They were all supportive of the motion keeping the rights of responsible breeders in mind. I think this will pass. When it was first proposed, they unanimously voted for the motion.
Dan and Boks were never friends. They talked, and still appear to be cordial when they do have to speak. But he, like many others, got tired of Boks's lies.
Jim Bickhart gets much of the blame, deservedly so, for covering for Boks. Methinks he's 12:24.
The blog link you provided hasn't been updated in more than a year, so I don't know what makes you think it's "back."
2:25 or should I say Daniel Guss, Bickhart is not covering up for Boks. Boks is making huge mistakes. There's no way anyone could cover that up. Hooters, Pitbull Academy, blogs, Kapparot, lying to City Council... It's Blackman who is not alerting the Mayor to the problem. Why, you ask? Because it was Blackman's responsibility to check out Boks' references. Blackman should have called Boks' supervisors and asked them if he did a good job or not. He didn't. He just read all those misleading Best Friends and Maddie's Fund interviews where Boks tells the world he made Arizona and New York nokill when he didn't. Blackman is just telling the Mayor that all animal people are crazy and to be ignored.
If Bickhart were not covering up for Boks, why hasn't Boks been fired? You said it yourself that Boks a boob. Bickhart is the mayor's link to Boks.
What a surprise: janice Hahn stood up to demand a unanimous motion decrying the injustice of closing MLK and rehashing the post-Watts history, etc. etc. bla-bla bla, after doing nothing, any more than the rest of her photo-ops-for-injustice like Burke, Waters, former Mayor bro Jim, and all those national black leaders who make a career of blaming others for injustice, while doing nothing (Al sharpton, Jesse jackson).
All the remaining members agreed, Rosenthal and Alarcon of course chiming in for their own purposes.
No one would have dared oppose, for fear of being branded racist.
Meanwhile, every responsible editor and op ed writer pointed out their collective failure to take action when it mattered, over all these years. Earl Hutchinson, Daily News has Opinion on how he's been branded a heartless racist for pointing this out, and for trying to get these "leaders" to act for many months now.
The mainstream is not represented.
Bickhart is the liaison between the Department of Animal Services and Jimmy Blackman in the Mayor's office. Bickhart does not talk to the Mayor or report to him. Bickhart has been telling Blackman about the issues but Blackman doesn't want to tell the Mayor. The only thing he does tell the Mayor is that all animal people are crazy, especially Guss. Someone needs to get the message to the Mayor that Boks is a failure and that someone needs to act sane.
3"12: Isn't that what the Deputy Mayors are there for? If you guys are saying that everyone if afraid to give the Mayor the truth if it's bad, or not a validation, then that would be a problem for a leader, that leads to all kinds of mistakes. Like how he mishandled the divorce/g f thing: there was virtual acceptance of his divorce announcement and request for privacy, until he called that press conference and opened up a can of worms that hasn't died down. Isn't he supposed to have advisors that he listens to?
With Boks, the Hooters fundraiser for the LAFD was outrageous; but now his link to some Madame in Nevada, which was even reported in the D N coverage of the pit bull academy, has poor p r associations.
I have a feeling this tread is about to go south faster than you can say
An LAPD fundraiser at Hooters, showing a bunch of macho guys and officials hooting it up at a bunch of big-boobed women in teeny skirts, sure is the image the LAFD needs to project -- with all the lawsuits and allegations of sexual harassment.
Good move, Boks. Is a dogcatcher really worth all this trouble? Are civil service firings that hard?
3:20 Blackman should be telling the Mayor about the problems with Boks but he's not because he doesn't want to get blamed. Instead Blackman just tells the Mayor that the animal people are just crazy, which some most certainly are.
The deputies should be protecting the mayor and giving him good advice but not all are, especially Blackman. Blackman is busy appointing girlfriends to commissions and just kissing the Mayor's ass. Blackman's resume is just helping AV with his campaigns and being his assistant as an assemblyman. AV rewarded him with the position for his loyalty. He also wanted to hire people of Asian descent.
3:25 as long as the animal people attack the City instead of each other, it should be okay.
Hemby's comments aren't untrue, and I've not seen him put out anything that was inaccurate. On the other hand, Guss' comments are so biased and distorted, I was amazed that the LA Times would print them.
FACT. The breeders who are primarily opposing mandatory s/n are the breeders who don't make money - the reputable breeders who do volunteer for rescue, do take back dogs, do care and do try to make things better for all animals, not just purebreds.
There are no profiteers in this fight. That's a complete and total crock. He lost me in the second sentence.
Most responsible breeders don't break even. If they're profiteers, they're phenomenally inept at it.
I've known these people for decades. I've rescued with them for decades. It just is not as Daniel Guss says it is.
FACT. The breeders who are primarily opposing mandatory s/n are opposing it in large part BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK.
FACT. Winograd, who Guss agrees should be brought in as a consultant, opposes mandatory s/n because - wait for it - it's INEFFECTIVE. He has a whole white paper on his web site about how coercive and punitive laws HURT efforts to become a no kill community. http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/pdf/mandatorylaws.pdf
Fact is, that Hemby is supported by a ton of dog enthusiasts who have collectively spent tens of thousands of dollars to help animals, and rescued thousands of animals. They don't need to make a big show for Guss to see them helping unwanted animals - they've done it for decades.
Hemby may be their paid lobbyist. But these are good people whose rights are being trampled in a rush to an ill considered and ineffective non-solution. They have every right to hire a lobbyist, and I applaud him for doing a good job.
Mandantory s/n laws do not make the irresponsible people responsible. They do make it impossible for responsible breeders to continue.
Mandatory s/n doesn't stop unplanned and unwanted litters.
Mandatory s/n doesn't close down puppy mills.
Mandatory s/n doesn't reduce killing rates, and actually slows such reductions.
Mandatory s/n's track record is extremely poor, with communities with mandatory s/n typically having HIGHER euthanasia rates than nearby communities without it, and MUCH HIGHER expenses.
Mandantory s/n hurts the good guys and advantages the bad guys.
How is that a good idea?
Instead of pushing a punitive and ineffective non-solution, how about looking into Winograd's approach - which all reputable people agree is effective - which does not require mandatory s/n, but has taken entire communities to 90% and above live exit rates for OPEN ADMISSION shelters? Read about how to do it at http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday he is "sickened" that President Bush and Congress went on vacation "while young Americans in our cities are massacred" by illegal immigrants.
Gingrich, who is considering a run for the White House, was referring to a recent crime in Newark, N.J., where three college students were murdered execution style in a school playground.
One of the suspects -- Jose Lachira Carranza -- is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was on bail on charges of raping a child when the murders occurred.
Gingrich said another suspect is an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua with a long record of arrests who was ordered deported in 1993 but never left
Nathan Winograd doesn't have a proven track record. He doesn't show his numbers honestly. Go take a look at Rancho Cucamunga. He consulted there and now the shelter is worse off than before.
Nathan is against all types of animal regulation. He doesn't believe in limit laws either. Winograd and Boks are both into "nokill" for the money, not the animals. They both write and speak well but neither has made a shelter nokill. They're all talk and words. They can convince people that they're nokill turnaround experts when they are not.
I too am amazed that Daniel Guss was in the Times. All he did was personally attack his opponent in the debate. Hemby did the same though not as much. Hemby is a paid lobbyist paid by breeders who uses untrue propaganda to try to sell his message. He said terrorists support the bill. He said that the bill wants to see Lassie dead. They want all mixed breed dogs to die. They want all pets eliminated. That's completely untrue. Two crazy people with personal agendas slinging mud at each other.
This is outrageous. Just log onto this site, and zuma starts talking at you from his "live" site, whether or not anyone wants to listen!
I've been in the park a couple times recently. It's full of trash and graffiti. They are bulldozing the burned trees and putting in sprinklers and irrigation, and planting. One area above Los Feliz is finished and it looks like Central Park or Vancouver, not the natural Souther California chapparel hills.
The supposedly off-limits park is full of trash and graffiti. Taggers have been going nuts in the park. Other than the fences, which are an inconvenience for equestrians, the measures to keep people out of the park are about as effective as the LAPD is at stopping crime (or as effective as as mandatory spay/neutering law would be).
Griffith Park should be open so LA Residents can learn about how fire is a natural part of the life cycle in the foothills. It was not a tragedy, it's how it is.
Besides, with all the charred trees and black ground, it'd be BITCHIN for a photoshoot. Go on a Sunday, there's no one working to call Public Safety on your ass.
Is it natural for some drunk to set the park on fire with his cigarette?
Did the Native Americans torch the forests before Columbus arrived?
4:42: Bad call. Griffith Park is burning again, as you speak; LAFD has managed to put it out, but it looked dicey for a while. There were hikers in the vacinity, too. People from Griffith Observatory staring with concern.
Now, some commentators wondered why the hikers were allowed in at all, seeing as it's so hot and still fire season -- which is months' long now.
The council is apparently meeting to reconsider how open park should be. So much for 12:07's idiotic "conspiracy theory" about why hikers are being kept out.
May be another set fire, they say.
5:20,
What's your point? ... or what's your beef? You'll probably be deleted off the thread. ... Why you mocking me? You mocking me? I don't see anyone else here.
4:22 is correct on every point.
420 is ZD's point
Actually, Winograd has an extremely good track record, and he has indeed brought shelters to no kill.
I'm personally familiar with the community shelter in Charlottesville VA that he consulted for. I went to school there, and I have many friends there. I still visit occasionally.
It's an open admissions shelter that does the animal control services for the community. Its statistics are posted publicly to the state web site.
They went to 92% live exit in one year. Not 92% of adoptables - 92% of ALL admissions.
I know the shelter, I've been there, I know people who volunteer for it, and I've visited the state web site where these numbers are required by law to be reported. These numbers are REAL.
So that's one shelter that I have solid personal knowledge of, that Winograd brought from average (about 50% kill) to nokill of adoptables (8% kill, and no kill of adoptable animals) in one year. ONE YEAR.
An open admissions shelter.
A shelter that is required by law to publicly report its statistics.
A shelter that serves animal control for its community.
The primary shelter for its city and county.
Winograd left a reasonably successful law career to do animal services, and later to consult and write about it to try to start a movement.
I don't know what the average social change consultant makes, but my guess is not much.
I happen to know what the average published author makes a year - around $5k. That won't even keep you in lattes.
If he was driven by the $, he'd have stayed in law.
Hemby is indeed a paid lobbyist, and he's paid by rescuers, working dog owners, exhibitors, and breeders - primarily the working dog people, exhibitors and reputable breeders - to try to get their messsage out. I have not, to date, seen him say anything that is untrue.
I have not seen him claim that terrorists support AB1634, but the fact is that most working dog breeders and trainers oppose it.
I have not seen him claim that anyone wanted to kill Lassie, but the fact is that TV's Lassie would not be eligible for the exeptions in the bill (Lassie is not registered, is not a show dog, etc.)
I did not see him say anything about wanting mixed breed dogs to die, but the original bill virtually eliminated all breeding of unregistered dogs, including working dogs and dogs of rare breeds that do not have stud books.
The bill had a TON of problems for reputable breeders. It had exemptions out the wazoo for commercial breeders, and eventually a backyard breeder exemption. (!) However, it made it virtually impossible for reputable breeders to do a good job of stewarding their gene pools.
And the media NEVER adequately got that message across. The bill pretty much destroyed the ability to breed dogs WELL in California, without penalizing the bad guys, and with an approach that has been proven to fail in community after community.
How often did you see that point in the media?
No wonder good, reputable, not-for-profit breeders sent him money. No one else would listen. Judie M would go off on rants on how "there is no such thing as a reputable breeder", just like Guss claims they're all profiteers. The media would cover that.
Reputable breeders would try to rationally explain the problems of the bill, and no one covered it - and Levine lied like a rug claiming that no one had pointed out the problems of the bill to him.
I've been breeding AND rescuing for nearly 20 years. I've never broken even and I never wanted to break even. It's not a business. I've taken back ten year old dogs, and rehomed them, when the owner got a divorce. I've made a lifetime commitment to every pup I bred.
When someone is trying to tell me that I am no different than Midwest puppy mills, and should be treated accordingly, you're darn tooting I'll send money to a lobbyist to protect my life's work.
And when I say life's work, it's not work for money - I have a job to pay for the dogs, not the other way around - but rather work for the future of the breed of dog I love more than anything else except my family.
If I have to mortgage my house to pay for a lobbyist to protect that, I'll do it.
If the people who are pushing this bill would actually look at reality - at the reputable breeders who are opposing it, the working dog people who are opposing it, at the experts on canine genetic diversity that are opposing it, at the rescuers who are opposing it - and LISTEN to why - then we could help animals together.
Instead, there's this effort to force a counterproductive bill down our throats by brute force. I can't imagine why anyone would be surprised that we'd fight back.
There are better ways to help animals that are not divisive, and that are proven to work.
9:37 or should I say Hemby,
Charlottsville is not an open public shelter. They can refuse animals just as Los Angeles and New York are now refusing animals. How else can they keep their euth rates low. They refuse the animals most likely to be killed, i.e. feral cats, kittens, puppies. It's called nokill math.
You should check Winograd's reputation out a little better. Just don't believe every word he says. He's a known liar just like Ed Boks of LA. Boks said he made Arizona, New York and now Los Angeles nokill. Winograd says he made San Francisco and a little city in New York nokill. None of those places are truly nokill.
Call up Nathan's last client, Rancho Cucamunga. Ask them how he did, are things better or worse. Things are worse.
If someone wants to breed two mutts under ab1634, they can with a breeders permit. Terrorists aren't behind ab1634. That is just your untrue propaganda.
'Is it natural for some drunk to set the park on fire with his cigarette?
August 14, 2007 4:46 PM
No, its not 'natural"; but Mother Nature has started fires for a thousand years. Remember that the mighty redwoods grew better after a burn.
Did the Native Americans torch the forests before Columbus arrived?
I doubt it. But they were smarter than and respected the earth.
Unfortunately, most of the current Native Americans dont know better.
Charlottesville is indeed an open, public shelter. They take all animals, including for animal control. They do not refuse anything.
I actually LIVED there, and I rescued out of there, so I'm quite familiar with them.
This sort of denial of an actual, independently verifiable FACT is typical of the discussions on AB 1634.
How do they keep their rates so low? Not by refusing admissions. They do a whole bunch of things.
They do TNR for feral cats. They have a barn cat program. They are very aggressive about adoptions. They have an active and widely publicized foster program. They have a spay/neuter outreach program. They successfully improved adoption criteria to avoid problems with student relinquishments.
Again, this is an OPEN ADMISSIONS shelter who takes in animals for ANIMAL CONTROL that went to 92% adoptions in one year. Fact, not opinion.
"No kill", as Winograd uses the term, is 90% or better adoptions. That is no kill of adoptable or treatable animals. Animals that are in pain or are excessively aggressive, or that have biting histories, are not adoptable, and warehousing them is not humane.
You can argue that euthanizing dangerous and suffering animals isn't no kill - to me, that's getting into how many angels can dance on the head of a pin territory.
The Charlottesville statistics are a matter of public record.
I happen to believe what Winograd says about Charlottesville BECAUSE I KNOW ITS TRUE. Not from Winograd - from having lived there, and knowing many many people who live there, and volunteer for that shelter, even now.
San Francisco, per Merritt Clifton's published statistics, has the lowest euthanasia rate in the country. If that's what you're criticizing Wingorad for - that he "only" created the lowest rate in the whole country - then I have to ask you, what would YOU consider success?
Here is the latest from the LAFD
http://lafd.blogspot.com/2007/08/grifith-park-burns-again.html
You claim that if someone wants to breed two mutts together, they can, with a breeders permit. True enough. But not everyone who has legitimate need to keep an intact dog qualifies for a breeder's permit under the law.
AB 1634 requires a business license to get a breeder's permit, even if you don't otherwise meet the requirements to require a business license. A business license, if you are breeding dogs, means that you have to get a commercial kennel permit, just as if you were a commercial breeding kennel.
In other words, to keep one dog intact, in the AB 1634 world, you need a business license, a conditional use permit, a commercial kennel permit, and a breeders license.
That doesn't make sense.
If you have a dog you are keeping intact, as part of a planned breeding program, that will be used at stud by the co-owner and breeder? You aren't a breeder yourself, but the dog will be used once or twice in its life, to preserve desired genetic characteristics?
Under AB 1634, you can't keep it intact, and since you aren't a business, and probably live in a home rather than on agricultural land, you can't get a business permit for a commercial kennel. Yet you will never breed a single puppy yourself.
Breeders often do this - so that their dogs live in homes, not in kennels. The more the breeder is attuned to genetic diversity and genetic health, not to mention the welfare of the individual dog, the more likely a breeder is to want to do this sort of thing.
If you work on a ranch, and own a McNab stock dog? Can't breed it more than once, can't keep it intact to a reasonable age where you know about its health and working ability, and can't keep your bloodline going - unless you own the property you work on.
Of course, if you want to breed two underage pit mix mutts together, you certainly can do that under the latest version of AB 1634. You're right about that.
Never mind that pits and pit mixes - per HSUS's Wayne Pacelle in his NPR interview - make up 30% to 70% of dogs euthanized in California shelters.
AB 1634 does nothing to eliminate backyard breeding, and it specifically exempts commercial breeding.
What gets crippled are small scale, planned breeding programs with attention to working ability, genetic diversity and genetic health. Not to mention the welfare of the dogs they breed.
And, BTW, I did not claim terrorists were behind AB 1634, any more than I believe that Bill Hemby claimed it. It isn't my "untrue propaganda", it's something that you just made up. First you made it up about Bill, then you falsely claimed it about me.
It is, however, true that every person I know with police dogs, herding dogs, and other working dogs in California opposed AB 1634, including people whose exploits have been featured on television.
Unstink this blog; dump the dog.
1:15 p.m.: A propos your research on "breeding two mutts together," would Dogg and Matt need a license to do this?
Not that society needs more MattDoggs. But they are in love.
Bill Hemby is a known liar. That's what he's paid to do. Daniel Guss is a known liar. He does it for the amusement value.
Both of them are worthless. The LA Times should be embarrassed for having given either of them a forum for spewing out their BS.
Coming across this I just felt I should point out that Bill Hemby is a lobbyist who works also with AKC (they don't want breeder regulation because their biggest business is registering puppy mill puppies http://www.bogartsdaddy.com/Bouvier/Bouv_Pages/article-inquire-puppymills-AKC.htm )
Petpac is basically a lobbying group for puppy mills
http://www.petpacnonsense.com/
And as for Nathan Winograd, Nathan is now involved with PetPac. He is showing up at their functions and also at breeders' dog shows and spreading his propaganda. They are promoting his junk.
He opposes regulations and rules for breeders, they in turn promote him and spread around his propaganda and make him money.
Equally slimeball.
Winograd is also involved with http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom THey lobby for breeder too. CCF or CEnter for Consumer Freedom ( Rick BErman ) has been issuing press releases for Winograd.
It's a very dirty pool these chatacters are playing in.
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