I am all for S/N, just not this way. LA has started going door to check, it's a new income source. They are handing fines to people for rabies tags that have notes their vets stateing it would harm the pet. When show/agility and service dog owners PAY for their exemptions they are turned down at first, then they are told they are on the "list" and will be visited.
AB1634 is here in Sacramento. If it passe most other states will follow.
Lawsuit Filed Over Los Angeles
Mandatory Spay/Neuter Ordinance
Issues Pertain To Every State And Municipality
by JOHN YATES
The American Sporting Dog Alliance
http://www.american sportingdogallia nce.org
LOS ANGELES, CA – Concerned Dog Owners of California filed a lawsuit
this week against the City of Los Angeles, seeking to overturn a new
ordinance mandating the spaying and neutering of all dogs.
The lawsuit is primarily based on constitutional grounds, and
alleges that the ordinance violates the civil rights of dog owners
in several ways.
The American Sporting Dog Alliance believes that the importance of
this lawsuit extends far beyond the City of Los Angeles. It marks
the first of several anticipated legal challenges to onerous laws
and ordinances as dog owners turn to the courts to fight for their
rights on constitutional grounds. This lawsuit is based on legal
issues that exist in every state.
An estimated 1.85 million Los Angeles residents have at least one
dog or cat.
The ordinance mandates the sterilization of all pets at four months
of age. An exemption can be obtained by purchasing a breeder's
permit, for a dog registered with an approved national registry and
is being shown or used in competition, and for other categories such
as seeing-eye dogs and police dogs. Fines and penalties are provided
for violations.
The American Sporting Dog Alliance (ASDA) strongly supports
Concerned Dog Owners of California in this lawsuit. Mandatory
sterilization laws and ordinances violate the basic rights of dog
owners in many ways, and ASDA considers them a major part of the
hidden animal rights agenda to eliminate the private ownership of
animals. We urge our members and all dog owners to offer their full
support to Concerned Dog Owners of California, and also to
financially assist this group to pay for the cost of the lawsuit.
They can be reached online at http://www.cdoca. org/.
Here is a summary of the legal issues in the lawsuit:
· It violates the rights and familial relationships of 650,000
pet-owning households.
· The options provided in the ordinance to avoid pet
sterilization are not constitutionally valid. It infringes on basic
rights of freedom of association, freedom of speech, the guarantee
of due process and freedom of religion.
· It won't work. The evidence is clear in communities that
have passed similar ordinances. Similar ordinances have been proven
to increase the number of dogs euthanized, increase shelter
admissions, increase the costs of dog control programs and increase
noncompliance with licensing requirements.
· It will increase the number of puppies born, because people
will choose to get a breeding permit and to breed their dog simply
to avoid mandates to spay and neuter.
· It exposes pets to unjustified risks to their health.
Current research shows that many significant and sometimes fatal
health problems are associated with sterilization, especially at a
young age.
· Pet owners are threatened with immediate and irrevocable
injury when the ordinance takes effect October 1.
· Existing laws are not being enforced. An estimated 75% of
the pets in the city are not even licensed. Other proven means of
reducing shelter admissions and euthanasia rates have not been tried.
· Much of the ordinance, including the basis for exemptions,
is arbitrary and capricious, ambiguous and discriminatory.
The lawsuit states its case succinctly: "Owners who wish to keep
their healthy pets unaltered have no constitutionally valid options
to the MSP (mandatory spay and neuter) ordinance. Although the
ordinance provides for six alleged `exemptions, ' and a breeder's
permit, these exemptions and the breeder's permit are, in actuality,
nothing more than arbitrary and capricious compelled associations
that violate an owner's fundamental free speech rights."
The ordinance forces a dog owner to join an organization approved by
the city, and to identify her/himself as a breeder, which is state-
compelled speech, the document says. By requiring the city to
approve of a dog owner's membership in an organization, such as a
dog registry or club, government is both compelling membership and
dictating a list of acceptable organizations that a person is forced
to join. The ordinance then mandates that a dog must compete in an
event sanctioned by one of those approved organizations, or is in
the process of being trained to compete.
To obtain a breeder's exemption, a dog owner also is compelled to
join one of those approved organizations and identify him/herself as
a participant of that organization, which is an infringement of free
speech, the documents show. The right of free speech is infringed by
forcing a dog owner to identify her/himself as a breeder on
government documents that are available to public inspection.
In essence, a person is forced to say, "I am a breeder," even if the
person does not consider her/himself to be a breeder, or if he/she
is personally opposed to breeding.
Documents were attached to the court filing to show examples of
harassment and vilification of breeders that were distributed by the
groups that support the ordinance. In essence, identifying oneself
as a "breeder" exposes the person to danger, harassment and
defamation of character as consequences of government-compelle d
speech.
Several religious groups prohibit their members from sterilizing an
animal. These groups include Orthodox Judaism and the Jehovah's
Witness faith. Members of these faiths are unable to sterilize their
pets without violating their religious beliefs, which puts the city
in the position of violating their constitutionally protected
freedom of religion. Los Angeles has the second largest community of
Orthodox Jews in the nation.
The ordinance also gives the city the power to forcibly seize and
confiscate pets that are not spayed or neutered, if their owners are
not granted one of the arbitrary allowed exemptions. This violates
the pet's owner constitutionally guaranteed rights of due process
under the law, that also are violated because the ordinance does not
provide recourse through a hearing.
Forcing a dog owner to spay or neuter also represents an
unconstitutional "taking" of property rights, as the ordinance
compels taking away the value of a dog's reproductive capacity, and
due process is denied.
To compel pet sterilization also is to deny an owner the freedom to
act according to her/his own religious beliefs, personal ideology or
political viewpoint, all of which are protected under the U.S. and
California Constitutions.
The lawsuit also contends that the City of Los Angeles has failed to
take far less draconian actions that have been proven to reduce the
number of animals entering shelters, such as enforcing licensing
requirements (a reported 75% of the dogs in Los Angeles are not
licensed), offering low-cost licensing for puppies that would allow
their owners to be educated about the issues, or mandating permanent
identification of pets so that animals taken to the shelter could be
returned to their owners.
Because of the reported dangers of spaying and neutering (especially
at an early age) shown in numerous research findings, the city also
is denying dog owners the right to protect their pet's health and
infringing on the relationship between a pet owner and his/her
veterinarian.
The ordinance also infringes upon the basic concepts of the liberty
and happiness of a pet owner, and also of the relationships between
an owner, her or his family, and the pets that are part of their
family. Although most pet owners consider their dogs as family,
rather than property, they are legally defined as personal property
and protected as such under the fundamental right of property in the
California Constitution. The ordinance is an arbitrary and
capricious "taking" of those property rights by government,
especially since the evidence from other communities shows that the
ordinance will be counterproductive to its stated goals.
The lawsuit also alleges that the ordinance contains much vague and
ambiguous language, such as undefined concepts like "adequately
trained" and "poor health," or not stating clearly what registries
have been approved, and which have not.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the ordinance
unconstitutional, and to order the city not to enforce it.
Please feel free to use any information contained in this report,
and also to cross-post it and forward it to your friends.
The American Sporting Dog Alliance is the unified voice of sporting
dog owners and professionals in America. We work at the grassroots
level to defeat unfair legislation and policies that are harmful to
dogs and the people who own and work with them. Our work to protect
your rights is supported solely by the donations of our members.
Your participation and membership are vital to our success. Please
visit us on the web at http://www.american sportingdogallia nce.org.
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