Being the animal lover that I am, this just gets to me.

 

Governor Wants to Repeal Law Favoring Pet Adoption

 

Fri Jun 25, 7:55 AM ET

 

By Robert Salladay Times Staff Writer

 

SACRAMENTO In his brief political career, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) has challenged powerful state unions, prison guards and wealthy American Indian tribes alike. But now he is up against a group with far greater numbers and a louder voice: animal lovers.

 

Schwarzenegger wants to repeal California's comprehensive law forcing animal shelters to hold stray cats and dogs up to six days before killing them, a budget-cutting move that has enraged pet adoption groups.

 

As a favor to the state's cash-poor counties and cities, Schwarzenegger has asked the state Legislature to reverse the 1998 law, which makes adoption of wayward pets the first priority of shelters instead of quickly putting them to death. The law is dubbed the Hayden Act, after former Santa Monica state senator and activist Tom Hayden.

 

"This is an issue that affects the care and protection of tens of thousands of stray animals, and will inflict heartbreak on a lot of owners and people in the animal adoption world," Hayden said Thursday.

 

Few issues can incite animal lovers more than the abuse or killing of pets. Los Angeles' animal services director, Jerry Greenwalt, retired in April after protesters vandalized his house and spray-painted "murderer" on his car. Claiming the city killed too many animals, protesters also picketed the San Pedro home of Mayor James K. Hahn (only to be targeted themselves by Hahn's neighbors, armed with squirt guns.)

 

Many experienced politicians say it is best to either be an advocate for animals or stay clear of the issue.

 

"There is no organized constituency of cats and dogs, but certainly the pet owners of America will find this reprehensible," said Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at Cal State Sacramento.

 

"Cats and dogs are like mom and apple pie. Don't mess with the pets. Most people prefer them to other people."

 

Hahn, in fact, announced last year that the city would stop killing animals by 2008, but Los Angeles continues to put to death cats, dogs and other animals that are not adopted. The city handles more than 60,000 animals each year and kills about 34,000, or 54%. An estimated 600,000 dogs and cats are put to death each year statewide.

 

The Schwarzenegger administration said repealing the Hayden Act could save local governments up to $14 million. As proposed, shelters would be allowed to kill dogs and cats after holding them just 72 hours, regardless of whether the shelters are open to the public during those three days.

 

But animal rights activists believe cats and dogs should not be sacrificed in an effort to save money amid the state's budget shortfall.

 

"It's sad they would put a price tag on the animals," said Kathy Riordan, a member of the Los Angeles Animal Services Commission and daughter of Schwarzenegger advisor and former Mayor Richard Riordan.

 

Schwarzenegger has proposed a change in the law to allow birds, hamsters, potbellied pigs, rabbits, snakes, turtles and other animals that are not cats and dogs to be put to death immediately after capture if the shelter favors that approach, animal rights groups said. Currently, a minimum six-day window covers all animals, but the protections for everything but cats and dogs would be eliminated under the changes.

 

Schwarzenegger also would eliminate a requirement that people convicted of animal cruelty be prohibited from owning a pet for three years and be forced to pay for medical care for the animals they have mistreated.

 

Shelters no longer would be required to search for owners who have embedded microchips in their pets that store addresses and phone numbers.

 

There are signs that Schwarzenegger has a growing understanding of how volatile the issue of animal protection can be.

 

Amid complaints from animal rights groups, the Schwarzenegger administration said it has been working to keep portions of the Hayden Act that do not cost local shelters money, such as requiring pets to be offered to nonprofit rescue groups before they are killed.

 

 

 

Schwarzenegger's aides are expected to meet soon with animal rights groups and local governments to reach a compromise on the issue before the 2004-05 state budget is approved by the Legislature, perhaps as soon as this weekend.

 

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state's Department of Finance, said the administration would like to cut costs for local governments but also fix an unintended consequence that local governments said came because of the Hayden Act: overcrowding because shelters must hold even vicious dogs for up to six days. Subsequently, Palmer said, shelters have been forced to kill animals to make room for new animals than come in every day.

 

"Because of space limitations, the shelters are being forced to euthanize animals who are otherwise highly adoptable immediately after the holding time," Palmer said, "whereas before that they could use some discretion and delay that."

 

Pet adoption and animal rights groups said repeal of the Hayden Act would sacrifice protections for animals in order to save cities and counties money, although exactly how much money is being disputed. But many also said they do not believe Schwarzenegger would purposely advocate killing animals sooner to save local budgets.

 

"They are attempting to cut this budget with a hatchet instead of a scalpel, and they are not thinking rationally," said Rich McLellan, director of the Animal Legislative Action Network in Los Angeles and a consultant on the 1998 legislation.

 

Jennifer Fearing, director of programs for United Animal Nations in Sacramento, said the Hayden Act managed to move California to fairly reasonable shelter standards certainly not groundbreaking and ending the law would set California back. "It wasn't like we revolutionized things," she said, "but we greatly improved the status of animals in shelters, and we focused on a policy of not killing animals. This undoes all of that."

 

Under the current law, animals at shelters must be held at least four business days before the shelter can consider killing them. A stray animal must be kept at least six days if the shelter is open only Monday through Friday and does not offer evening hours.

 

The optional evening and weekend hours often give owners time to search for lost pets after work and allow nonprofit rescue workers time to search for dogs and cats to offer for adoption themselves. Nonprofit rescue shelters also pay government-run shelters to take cats and dogs and save them from death.

 

Some lawmakers say Schwarzenegger should not repeal part of the law that requires people convicted of animal cruelty to pay the veterinary costs of the injured animal. That item is under discussion this week.

 

"If we repeal that, guess who has to pay for the cost? The taxpayers," said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys). "We are overturning a policy I think most people would agree with and we are going to be costing the state money."

 

The state has been struggling with how to close a $15-billion shortfall, and counties and cities have been complaining that lawmakers continually put spending mandates on them without reimbursement. For counties, the requirement to hold cats and dogs has been a complaint since the Hayden Act passed.

 

Exactly how much local governments are being forced to spend because of the Hayden Act has been the subject of dispute for years. The Commission on State Mandates said two years ago that local governments are owed $79.2 million, a figure the state auditor later said was inflated. Who pays for state laws about animal shelters is now the subject of a lawsuit and a bill in the Legislature.

 

"I believe it's premature not only because of the pending court cases, but also premature because we don't have an assessment of how much is owed," said Taimie Bryant, a UCLA law professor who teaches a class on animal law and helped write the Hayden Act.

 

Lawmakers say repealing the Hayden Act has not been given a proper hearing in a policy committee and should not have been inserted into the proposed state budget without oversight. Now, some are threatening to withhold their vote on the budget until the Schwarzenegger administration withdraws or alters its plan.

 

"As far as I'm concerned, this throws a wrench in the budget negotiations," said Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood). "I would not want to make this part of the budget vote. Why would we want to make it easier to kill adoptable animals?"

With the shortage of police and blind eye dogs, why not train them and use them for these purposes? National Security agencies need the dogs.

Animals are cool and all but this saves money.

I didn't see that many stray dogs when I went over there. However, there were alot of dogs.

With the shortage of police and blind eye dogs, why not train them and use them for these purposes? National Security agencies need the dogs.

unless you get a dog early its very hard to train them after a few months.

 

 

 

and most police dogs have to fit a certain build.

 

 

 

small mutts wont get the job done.

Leave it to CA to be outraged over the death of stray mutts when their whole state in bankrupt.

 

Kinda cutting off thier nose despite thier faces, eh?

What did ya expect? He's The Terminator ya know.

Jay Leno must be thrilled. He now has enough monologue jokes to last a month.

*Waits for earthquake to finally get rid of all the fruit loops in CA*

*Waits for earthquake to finally get rid of all the fruit loops in CA*

That's just wrong, dude. :thumbdown

oh come on, he didnt mean it

 

:shifty

"Don't mess with the pets. Most people prefer them to other people."

 

 

:lol :lol

He has now reversed his stance on the issue after drawing so much criticism from animal rights groups and the like.

p***y

atleast now they can use the dead dogs to cut cost and feed children in public schools.

i say if these animal rights activists dont want these animals to die, then they should take them in, its not the states responsibility to keep them. if they cant find a home in the alloted time, then sorry. i love animals more than im letting on, i have a dog, 2 cats a bird and...well, my brother. all of which i love, even my brother, who we let out of his cage every now and again.

 

 

point is, if it helps out the economy, let is roll. its not a big deal. and uh, down with PETA.(thought id throw that in)

With the shortage of police and blind eye dogs, why not train them and use them for these purposes? National Security agencies need the dogs.

I'm sorry, but the picture of a bomb-sniffing chichiuhua was just too funny to resist.

 

Also- it takes years (3-5) and about 20,000 to train a dog to become an assistance animal, both for the blind/handicapped and for Law enforcement.

 

Not cheap and certainly not cost effective, seeing as how Ahhhhhnold wants them killed in 72 hours.

 

Talk about a crash course.....

atleast now they can use the dead dogs to cut cost and feed children in public schools.

:lol

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

Scooby Dooby Doo, Where are You?

Arnold gives in on strays issue

 

Compassion triumphs over budget woes at animal shelters

 

By Jill Tucker, STAFF WRITER

 

As an action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger was unbeatable.

As a politician, however, the governor was bested Friday by stray puppies and kittens.

 

Before Friday, Schwarzenegger's budget proposal included a $14 million savings by making it easier for animal shelters to put down cats and dogs.

 

But the idea -- allowing euthanization of stray pets after waiting three days rather than six -- unleashed the fury of animal lovers and activists across the state and nation.

 

By late Friday afternoon, after finding himself in the doghouse, the governor had backed off the idea.

 

In a hallway scrum with Sacramento reporters, Schwarzenegger said several errors were made in the rush to get a budget put together and lowering the boom on lost house pets was one of them.

 

"Animals will be kept in the animal shelters for six days, and so everything will stay exactly the same," he added.

 

Asked if he was bowing to public pressure, he replied, "As a matter of fact, my daughter brought it up to me."

 

But the governor's daughter

 

wasn't the only one barking up his tree.

 

Congressman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, founding co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Animals, blasted the governor for even floating the idea.

 

"I am appalled at Governor Schwarzenegger's cruel recommendation," Lantos said in a statement. "To try to deal with the state's budget problems by euthanizing stray animals more quickly is outrageous."

 

And then, going even further, Lantos called on Schwarzenegger to banish the Terminator role "to the fiction of the movie screen, not try to play it in real life at every animal shelter in the state of California."

 

Schwarzenegger's proposal would have repealed at least parts of a 1998 law instituting the six-day waiting period. The governor's plan also would have eliminated any wait period before allowing shelters to euthanize other animals, including rabbits, pot-bellied pigs, snakes and hamsters.

 

By doing so, the state would have been off the hook for reimbursing local communities for the costs associated with the 1998 law -- which the Commission on State Mandates estimated was about $14 million annually.

 

Local animal activists said the so-called Hayden law has been greatly effective in helping to reduce the number of animals euthanized in the past six years.

 

The law, combined with a simultaneous requirement to spay and neuter sheltered animals and efforts to promote adoption, have cut in half the number of cats and dogs euthanized in Alameda County, said Kirsten Park, director of marketing and communication at the East Bay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

 

The county euthanizes about 9,000 cats and dogs now. Statewide, an estimated 600,000 cats and dogs are put down each year in shelters.

 

"Our reaction has been one of surprise that he would take these steps," Park added of the governor's proposal. "It really isn't that much money."

 

Staff writer Josh Richman contributed to this story.

about friggin' time, those strays attack me all the time.