Debbie Meier Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 The think is TDFOSTER is that you are wanting to know what is going on when no one but the offender/owner and the animal/victim knows. You can't write a law for that, not without invading everyone's privacy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Debbie Meier Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 How things evolve or could is probably similar to what has happened with parents and children, once upon a time spanking wasn't deemed as abuse, now it is. Were more children who were spanked abused? I'm guessing that there are many of us on this page who were spanked as a child, I was, do I feel like I was abuse, no. But there then will be some where the spanking went to far, it truly was abuse. The answer was to make it where you can no longer physically reprimand a child with out fear of being taken up on abuse charges and having your children removed. Is that right? Some say yes, others say it's sad because they don't believe that appropriate swat is abusive. Anyway, my point, how long before a leash jerk to correct a misbehaving dog is considered a chargable abuse offence? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz P Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 And then there's the livestock itself. I personally am against confining sows to farrowing crates for years, or killing dairy cows after one or two lactations. This is not a matter of legislation but of the market demands in the USA. Dairy cattle are often slaughtered after just a few lactations because they are bred to be big and produce a lot of milk. They become lame, they can't get pregnant, they get sick. Our market demands cows to grow fast and produce unrealistic amounts of milk that can be sold cheaply to consumers. Contrast this with other countries or even heritage breeds within the USA that are smaller and produce less milk but can live for 15+ years, producing many calves over a long lifetime. Not much different with pigs who are bred to be huge, grow fast and have little concern paid to mothering ability. Pigs are in farrowing crates so they don't crush their piglets. They are in confinement when they are growing because it's cheaper that way, keeping costs down so people can have less expensive meat at the grocery store. If you want things to change, show people how you feel with your wallet. Buy locally from farms you trust. I understand that many people in the USA struggle with putting food on the table so just buy whatever costs the least. I am not in the least angry or blaming them. Our whole system of agriculture in the USA is messed up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geonni banner Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 This is not a matter of legislation but of the market demands in the USA... snip ...If you want things to change, show people how you feel with your wallet. Buy locally from farms you trust. I understand that many people in the USA struggle with putting food on the table so just buy whatever costs the least. I am not in the least angry or blaming them. Our whole system of agriculture in the USA is messed up. You are absolutely right! And I do. It's expensive, too! I don't live in an area where I can buy directly from the (humane) farmer, so I pay $7.00 a dozen for pasture-raised eggs and I don't eat chicken, pork or much beef. Lamb is still on the menu, and I try to get domestic lamb as opposed to New Zealand - not because of humane issues, but to support those of you who grow the sheep! But I think it's important to be vocal about why, and try to send messages to those who write laws that affect pets, stock and stock-keepers. (Especially since the AKC is considered by many to be the "expert" on all things canine. As for raising big, maladaptive meat animals, I agree. It's horrible - the pigs, the double-muscled cattle, the broiler-shed chickens. How can it be good for you to eat an animal so distorted? If people worried half as much about genetically-modified crops/animals and twice as much about healthy, normal animals, the world would be a better place. Big-Agribusiness is doing to the cow, chicken and pig what the AKC has done to the German Shepherd, the Pug and the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Different reasons, same effect. And doesn't it all boil down to money? ETA. I don't eat chicken because the pasture-raised birds I can get locally are $30.00 each. But they are tasty and the dressed carcass looks nothing like a broiler-shed bird. I don't begrudge the price, but neither can I afford it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxMom Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 On a bit of a tangent... I have a neighbor who goes through a lot of pets. They've been next door for maybe a little over two years. Eventually I noticed there seemed to be a sort of revolving door for dogs. There's always a story, usually a very sympathetic one. She told me one batch of dogs was stolen from their locked backyard (but no other neighbors' dogs were taken). She said the most recent dog was killed right in her own front yard by a neighbor's loose pit bull (I never heard or saw anything). They had a kitten that's also gone now, and she tells me a friend of hers has seen it with a neighbor a few streets over who apparently stole it, removed its collar with ID tags, and lets it outside only under close supervision lest it be reclaimed. Then there are other unrelated stories. The time her teenaged son prevented a school shooting by reporting the would-be shooters to the police (an officer I know told me he heard nothing about it). The child who was nearly kidnapped from our neighborhood on July 4 and rescued just in the nick of time (again my police officer acquaintance heard nothing). Today she told me that early this morning someone was running down the street firing a gun into the air with five police cars after him (local law enforcement told me they didn't have any incidents of "shots fired" reported for today). Something's clearly not right with her. Their newest dog is a German Shepherd -- she says a retired police dog -- and she wants to get another one. This isn't a case of torturing animals or anything like that, but something fishy is going on. What do you do about a situation like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GentleLake Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 (Especially since the AKC is considered by many to be the "expert" on all things canine. Posted this in another thread today, but it might be even more appropriate here. . . just in case you missed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donald McCaig Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 Dear Doggers, The estimable and experienced Debbie Meyer asks: "... how long before a leash jerk to correct a misbehaving dog is considered a chargable abuse offence? 2132? Donald McCaig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue R Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 As for my feeling that making animal cruelty/abuse a felony and not a slap on the wrist - that feeling is based on real animal cruelty/abuse, not an animal rightist's distorted version of the world. Perhaps I was naïve to think that a law would be meaningful and aimed at accomplishing something truly worthwhile. I hadn't considered the idea, and I know it's not entirely unlikely, that such a law could target or be used to target responsible animal owners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geonni banner Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 On a bit of a tangent... 'snip' What do you do about a situation like that? Worms in her head. We have one of those in our neighborhood too. Well, we did, she's dead now, keeled over with a heart attack. The stories she could come up with... But she was clearly delusional. Ours was very kind to animals, but did a crap job of caring for them. Her animals frequently died because she couldn't afford a vet, but would take on strays and invent really colorful stories about their previous owners. She took on an 11 year old abused runaway girl and managed to ruin her life pretty effectively. Last time the girl was seen - age 14 - she was pregnant, hooking and dealing crack. The County tried to help, but she would run off from foster homes. The disappearing animals are probably running off or dying. It's hard to watch, but getting them seized is hard, and they just get more. A decent cruelty/neglect case requires documentation - pictures, reliable testimony - hard to get, and it frequently comes down to one person's word against another's. Be careful. These people can be very vindictive. They often have little to lose, and some are not above taking it out on their perceived "persecutor's" animals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GentleLake Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 What do you do about a situation like that? I think the question might really be, what can you do? Unless she's actually doing something illegal, and it can be proved, the answer is, probably nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gcv-border Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 What do you do about a situation like that? I would stay far, far away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geonni banner Posted October 2, 2015 Report Share Posted October 2, 2015 Cruelty statutes can be difficult to apply, even for people who are sensible and think the situation through. To drop a dime or not to drop a dime? A few years back there was a woman who was parking a van on my street, with, I think it was 3 Border Collies in it. The windows were all wide open, including the rear hatch and side door. The temperature outside varied between 75 and 85. The vehicle was usually in the shade, but the dogs barked pretty much non-stop for hours. The woman spent hours at a time in a local bar across the street. The dogs seemed to be OK, but the barking was grueling. On and on for hours at a time. I was torn. The dogs were close enough to my house to make the constant barking really get on my nerves. It didn't do anything for my panic disorder, either. But they each had water in their crates, and none seemed to be too overheated. I was unable to face trying to talk with her, but others had, to no effect. She screamed at one of them. I came here with the story and the responses were all over the map. A few were all for turning her in, as were my neighbors. But others seemed angry that I would even think of calling her in. They said that I didn't know what her situation was - perhaps she was fleeing from an abusive spouse. All true, and I had thought of that possibility myself. A landlord fed up with complaints about barking was another possibility. I took a couple of pictures and posted them in the thread, making sure not to show he license plate, and took some flak for doing that too. In the end she stopped coming around. I never called anyone - there was too much I didn't know. If there was that much dissension and difference of opinion over that situation, how would it be in another case which was even less clear-cut? I did not want to see the dogs impounded, considering that the woman may already have been in a bad situation. She seemed to be doing her best to make the dogs comfortable. One call from me or someone else might have resulted in her losing her dogs. And what of them? They would surely be split up, their futures uncertain. Seeing someone take a baseball bat to a dog is fairly straightforward - usually. Seeing an emaciated pit bull chained in a yard with no water is too. But what about the lady described in Tx Mom's post? Is she really vicious? Or is she mentally ill? Or is there some other explanation? How do you write a protocol for investigating these things thoroughly and dispassionately, without violating the rights of the people involved? And how do you prosecute if clear cruelty is found? As others have said, punishment is often inappropriate - accomplishing nothing, and how are the animals served? Are they held in municipal shelters while the "wheels of justice" grind away their lives? I want to see effective cruelty statutes written and even-handedly applied, but it's a tall order, and will take many heads to craft. I don't even know if it's possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxMom Posted October 4, 2015 Report Share Posted October 4, 2015 I thing the question might really be, what can you do? Unless she's actually doing something illegal, and it can be proved, the answer is, probably nothing. That's kind of what I've come to (along with other suggestions of staying out of her way). She did tell me yesterday that they might be moving in the next year due to a job transfer/promotion for her son-in-law (she lives with them), and I'm kind of hoping that for once she's telling the truth. She's always outside smoking on the front porch so it's hard to avoid her, but I smile and nod and try to move along quickly. It's just the sort of thing where you'd like to be able to do something, and it's obvious something is wrong... but there isn't a clear line to draw, and if you try you're probably going to do as much harm as good. I think it makes me agree with those who are cautious about new legislation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D'Elle Posted October 5, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 As for my feeling that making animal cruelty/abuse a felony and not a slap on the wrist - that feeling is based on real animal cruelty/abuse, not an animal rightist's distorted version of the world. Perhaps I was naïve to think that a law would be meaningful and aimed at accomplishing something truly worthwhile. I hadn't considered the idea, and I know it's not entirely unlikely, that such a law could target or be used to target responsible animal owners. Any law can be improperly applied. I am still very much in favor of the change that is being made (making animal cruelty a felony) because it should be a felony. Considering how difficult it is (as pointed out in this thread) to reach a conviction on such cases I doubt that very many people will find themselves jailed or have their animals taken from them for inappropriate reasons. Saying that the law should not be in existence because it could be wrongfully used is like saying that child abuse laws should not exist because CPS has been known to remove children from homes wrongfully. That happens sometimes, and it ruins lives. Rather than saying the child abuse laws are bad and should not have been passed in the first place, I think we would all agree here that CPS needs to be better monitored and maybe their workers need better training. A law cannot be written to cover all contingencies and possible scenarios. Nor can laws raise consciousness; that is the job of the individual or of groups of people. Any law can be applied inappropriately, but that is not necessarily a fault in the law itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliepoudrier Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 ^^Agreed. J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geonni banner Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 Absolutely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donald McCaig Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 Dear Doggers, When I started with sheepdogs it wasn't uncommon for a disappointed handler to drag his dog off the course and behind his pickup from where everyone could hear the sounds of a beating. While brutes still exist, abuse is rare and concealed and never - as it once was - boasted about. Donald McCaig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geonni banner Posted October 5, 2015 Report Share Posted October 5, 2015 One of the more troubling things I've seen in the world of sheepdog trials happened at the Nationals. I think it was 2012 or 2013. At the end of a not-stellar run, which involved a lot of angry-sounding yelling, the collie literally fled the course, through the gate, into the crowd and away. I always had the feeling that dog knew it was in for a bad time. Her tail was tucked, her ears were flat against her neck, her head was down, and she was a picture of worry. Maybe there was a completely different explanation. But it bothered me for quite a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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