VERY EXCITING NEWS
 

Last year. on April 24th, Bill Shelton, standing on the sidewalk in front of the Capitol Building, announced the formation of Concerned Dog Owners of California, a California corporation.  He told you that we had hired a professional public relations group and were in the process of hiring a professional lobbyist.  Your concerns that day were clear; you knew AB1634 was not the answer and you wanted a group that would be part of the solution to the problems, rather than just another organization to say no.  You asked why the dog people never proposed legislation. 

We heard the message.  CDOC has been committed to educating legislators, in Sacramento, counties and cities, about the flaws in AB1634.  Last year we stopped it; this year we will defeat it.  But we have also been talking to these same people, as well as reasonable animal welfare people and shelter directors about how to take some positive steps.

California, with voluntary programs, has made great strides over the past ten years in reducing impounds and euthanasia in dogs.  And we want to continue to see those numbers go down.  One huge impediment is the availability and cost of affordable spay and neuter programs.  Another is the lack of bi-lingual education about voluntary spay and neuter. 

We are pleased to tell you that this session there will be at least three bills in the legislature that you can support and indeed, without responsible dog owners, they would not exist.  The first we have mentioned before.  Senator Calderon has a bill to add penalties to the dog fighting bill and we have agreed to be a sponsor.  We have also asked him to  make attending a dog fight a felony, as it is in 17 other states.  And there will two other bills to generate funding for free and low-cost spay/neuter programs. 

All of us are in favor of voluntary spay and neuter where appropriate and we understand the costs are not minimal.  So we have two bills to let people voluntarily contribute funds.  The first is a new Responsible Dog Ownership" license plate.  Like the special college plates and the Save Our Whales plates, fees from these will go to a fund to provide free spay/neuter services.  The second is a check off box on the California State Income Tax Form.  You can choose to add a donation to a fund for free spay and neuter and spay/neuter education.  We will give you all the bill numbers as soon as they are assigned.

The people behind AB1634 have tried to push negative legislation which is unhealthy for dogs, leads to higher euthanasia and lower licensing rates.  Support for AB1634 comes from, among other organizations, PETA which just announced that they killed 97% of the animals they took in in 2006.  And for some time theirs were the only voices.  But now  through CDOC, we are being heard and we will start to see some reasonable solutions to helping dogs.

What about AB1634?

Assemblyman Levine has not brought this back yet, we hypothesize he is waiting until February 5th to see if he will have a job in the Assembly.  If Proposition 93 passes, Levine will not need to run for the Senate; he can stay where he is, as can Perata and Nunez. 

But he is certainly changing his story.  On April 24th, May 16th and July 11th Assemblyman Levine testified that AB1634 would save the state $300 million a year.  The Los Angeles Times on January 13th, on page B8, reports the following: