Think Twice



Avoid Spay/Neuter. His life may depend on it.

 According to a piece of email propaganda that I received today from the HSUS, Californians took ample advantage of a feature on the state income tax form to donate to spay/neuter programs in our state. And donate they did, to the tune of approximately $250,000.

Spay/neuter tax fund. Spay/neuter laws. spay/neuter license plates. Spay/neuter advertising. Spay-neuter promotion in veterinary schools.

We are subjected to so much brainwashing, it's no wonder we mutilate our animals unnecessarily more and more every year.

Like dutiful little citizens, we comply in droves with societal pressures to neuter our pets. 4 out of 5 dogs....sterilized. 19 out of 20 cats....sterilized.

Veterinarians surely should rejoice at this trend, as it assures them abundant work. It's the ultimate "job security".

More and more dogs with incontinence, bladder stones, hypothyroidism, hip and knee joint problems, and life-robbing cancers of various types including bone cancer, hemangiosarcoma, prostate cancer and bladder cancer.

More dogs sickened with weak immune systems, unable to tolerate simple vaccinations or recover from infectious diseases. More fearfulness, more anxiety and more dog-human aggression.

Naw, let's ignore all these scientifically proven facts and believe the politically correct mantra. SPAY NEUTER. BE RESPONSIBLE. Just ask the paradoxically-named "animal rights" groups like HSUS, PETA and Best Friends.

Spay/Neuter. It's dandy. It's the responsible thing to do. After all, if we told you the truth, you'd never voluntarily choose such a course of action.

So, the lies trip off our tongues so often that you believe them. After all, everyone says spay/neuter is beneficial, so it must be.

Ignore those pesky studies that show how much longer intact animals live. That show how much healthier they are.

Now I expect to hear from the normal pack of animal-rightist people who will recount how their neutered pet lived a long and healthy life. Who believe that everyone's pets should ALL be sterilized.

Rational people will draw the obvious conclusion; that pets will go extinct and/or suffer immensely from dangerously narrowed gene pools produced as a result of mass sterilization. But, your veganized, vitamin-deprived pea-brain just doesn't "get it" because you are incapable of independent thought and reason. 

Besides, your individual, anecdotal experience in meaningless. The STUDIES that compare vast groups of animals in a scientific manner are what provide us with useful information.

Those studies show that dogs are healthier and live longer when they remain intact. They have all their organs for very specific reasons, and those reasons extend beyond simple reproduction.

In my humble opinion, it is criminal to do something to your dog that will likely result in painful problems like arthritis and cancer. Don't our companions deserve to live their optimal lifespans, without our inflicting pain and early death upon them? After all, companions, we want them around us as long as possible.

Look it up. Study. Read. Make your own decisions.

Don't let AR nuts with their misanthropist, nihilist world views dictate our policies and our societal norms.

If you love animals, think twice.  

License Plate Propaganda

You remember PETA, the people who would rather kill dogs and cats than find them homes? Yep, aren't they just too precious. We've blogged about them here on many occasions. Check out www.petakillsanimals.com for some eye-popping truth about the underlying evil nature of PETA.

In 2007, PETA employee Jane Garrison, her buddy Judie Mancuso and their husbands formed an animal rights group in California. They called it “Social Compassion in Legislation”. The goal? Agitate for spay and neuter laws in the state of California. The method? A relentless political campaign for spay-neuter legislation, enabled by well-planned  propaganda to promote public acceptance.

The left wing slant in the state of California has gotten so out of control that we actually had Judie Mancuso, a PETA supporter and founder of “Social Compassion”, recently appointed to the California Veterinary Medical Board! Fresh from her crusades sponsoring failed bills that would have required all pets in the state of California be sterilized, Mancuso continues to push her anti-pet breeding agenda from a position of authority as a member of the CVMB.

“Social Compassion” was behind two recent onerous pieces of proposed legislation; AB 1634 and SB 250. The former would have required all pets in the state to be sterilized, with a few narrow exemptions. The latter would have required mandatory sterilization and would have also prohibited the sales of unaltered dogs and cats. Several other animal rights groups also joined Social Compassion in official support of these bills.

So far, our state legislature has rejected this proposed intrusion into pet owners' rights to choose their pet's reproductive status. However, with a newly-elected Democratic supermajority in both the California Senate and Assembly, the next legislative push for spay-neuter laws will likely be successful. Meantime, as the animal rights groups strategize their next move, the focus has temporarily shifted to spreading propaganda.

And what better way to spread propaganda than on the back ends of thousands of cars?

Almost two years ago, "Social Compassion" began a push to mass produce a California spay-neuter license plate. With "Social Compassion" founder Mancuso sitting on the California Veterinary Medical Board, it was easy to solicit CVMB support for this license plate program. A minimum threshold of 7500 orders is required to begin production of special license plates; that's the break-even on the expenses of printing up special license plates. Yet today, many months later, the animal rights groups can't quite manage to sell the minimum amount of spay-neuter license plates. They desperately pushed a bill attempting to get themselves a special exemption to reduce the numbers of pre-orders down to 2500 to get their “pet project” rolling. When that effort failed, they introduced another bill, AB 610, that passed and successfully extended their pre-order deadline for another year, until June 2013.

Why there's some of the perps now!!

Now mind you, our state has nearly 40 million residents, yet the spay-neuter fanatics can't seem to find more than about 6,300 people gullible enough to pre-order this special license plate. That's only 0.016% of the population, or less than 1 in 6200 people. Understandable, because not only is this plate UGLY, but this license plate promotes the urban legend that sterilization is healthy and beneficial.

Seems that “Social Compassion”, PETA and the HSUS are devoting a great deal of time and effort to promoting these license plates. But don't be fooled; propaganda is the top priority; they don't care about actually funding any pet clinics; nor finding homes for shelter animals; nor setting up programs and policies that help people keep pets in their homes. The priority is to push lies about “overpopulation”and the presumed need for widespread pet sterilization.

This week, “Social Compassion” sent out an email blast with a special offer. Pierce Brosnan, the Hollywood actor/artist who designed the license plate, is offering to PAY for a free license plate for anyone who wants one. He is being joined in this offer by Katherine Heigl, another Hollywood celebrity nutjob. Heigl recently set up a website in support of animal neutering proclaiming “I hate balls”. (www.ihateballs.com) This website demonstrates how misguided, sick, twisted and desperate these animal rights nuts are.
A friend of mine who spoke out against the license plate program received this note by email:

“Can't figure out what was wrong with AB 1634. Also can't figure out what is wrong with the California Pet Lover's license plate. Proceeds from the plate provide funding for free or low-cost spay and neuter surgeries across California and do not go to PETA or HSUS. They also help to raise awareness about the importance of spaying and neutering.”

“I want to emphasize that the sponsor of this program is the California Veterinary Medical Board. Yes, HSUS is listed as one of the “supporters” but there are many other supporters...None of these supporters receive financial benefit from this license plate program. Proceeds from the plate would provide funding for free or low-cost spay & neuter surgeries across California. They will also help to raise awareness about the importance of spaying and neutering. So, its up to you to decide whether you want to show an “ugly” and distinct license plate in support of what I think is a worthwhile endeavor … And you can get it now for free!”

Uh, OK. Where do we begin to address what is “wrong” here?

First off, if Brosnan and Heigl were really interested in spay and neuter as a presumed cure for the imaginary problem of pet overpopulation, their money would be much better spent in directly providing for free spay and neuter clinics. But no, their main interest is advocacy for the cause of animal rights; the elimination of pet breeding and strictly limiting pet ownership. Brosnan is also seeking the ego boost of seeing his great art masterpiece plastered about the state.

Secondly, there is no guarantee that any funds beyond the cost of production will go to any spay-neuter program. ZIP. ZILCH. NADA.

IF there are profits from the license plate program, the sponsoring agencies collect the money in a License Plate Fund. Per the text of the agreement “ the sponsoring agency shall expend all funds received under this section exclusively for projects and programs that promote the agency's official policy, mission, or work.” And, "to allow the Veterinary Medical Board to support the critically important efforts of city and county animal shelters to address serious animal care and control problems facing the state."

You may have noticed that the words “spay-neuter program” are nowhere to be found. Imagine that!

The VMB may collect the profits and use them as they see fit. Why, they could even decide to funnel that money to [wink wink] Mancuso's “Social Compassion” group.

Funny thing about "Social Compassion" is that those who work for them are unpaid “volunteers”. Volunteers who have endless resources and time to travel thousands of miles back and forth across the state of California, to produce multiple propaganda websites, to lobby incessantly in Sacramento and at the local levels. Mancuso owns a lovely house near the ocean in Laguna Beach. How does she pay her mortgage? How does she support her lobbying lifestyle? Perhaps now that she is on the CVMB, Mancuso does actually receive some sort of salary, but where has her support come from in the past? It can only be from animal rights groups such as HSUS and PETA. They are paying her for her tireless work toward the extinction of pet ownership and breeding.

It is disgusting that an unscrupulous lobbyist like Mancuso has wormed her way into an influential position in state government. It's galling and appalling that this woman, a vegan animal rights fanatic, has weaseled her way onto the California Veterinary Medical Board.

The admitted goal of animal rights groups behind these initiatives is NO BREEDING. They prefer to force us to import mutts from other countries, especially from nearby Mexico, but also from as far away as Taiwan, the Caribbean and Europe. These dogs are often street dogs who bring with them other special bonuses like parvo and rabies. So you can forget about finding an intentionally-bred healthy puppy, a purebred dog, or a “designer” dog bred on purpose, if the animal rights groups have their way. Breeding laws here in the US are now so restrictive that it is difficult to find a puppy of any sort....purebred or street-bred. And in an animal shelter? No puppies. When they occasionally enter they are stolen by staff, snapped up by “rescues” and sometimes even raffled to the highest bidder.

Despite being touted by animal rights groups as being “healthy”, sterilization surgery, especially when performed while the dog or cat is immature, is ironically responsible for many health problems..... everything from spay incontinence, to a depressed immune system, hypothyroidism, and orthopedic disorders as a result of abnormal bone development. This is just the tip of the iceberg; we have detailed many of those problems here in the past, check our tags “spay/neuter” and "rethinking spay neuter".

These license plate proclaim "Spay-Neuter Saves Lives"? There is absolutely NO data to support such a ridiculous claim. Spay-neuter is certainly not a "PRO LIFE" agenda. It is ANTI BIRTH. And it is certainly not "PRO CHOICE." The extremists want to take the CHOICE of spay-neuter away from the person who owns the animal.

Considering the adverse health effects of spay-neuter, we should use the existing excellent tools readily available for doggie birth control. They are called DOORS and LEASHES. These amazing tools are very reasonably priced. Even low-income individuals have access to them. As an added benefit, these great tools are highly effective in preventing death from a car or a coyote. They also work perfectly to prevent your dog from chasing the neighbor's cat or using the neighbor's lawn for a toilet.

Where is the license plate educating about the need to confine your pet? I sincerely doubt that Judie Mancuso, Pierce Brosnan, Katherine Heigl or anyone at PETA or HSUS give a flying fig about your dog being hit by a car.

And then there is the obvious disingenous nature of this offer. If these celebrities and PETA people really do want to subsidize spay and neuter clinics, why don't they just open some up themselves? Or donate directly to those already in existence? We all know the real agenda here. Propaganda regarding spay and neuter is the priority. Control the public psyche and you win the debate. The public must fervently and earnestly believe in “pet overpopulation” in order for the animal rights groups to pass more laws regulating pet ownership and breeding rights. If state-sponsored license plates urge us to support spay-neuter, it reinforces the public perception that more laws are necessary to address a “problem”.

And if you believe in the notion of supposed “overpopulation”, then do I have a bridge to sell you.

Check our posts on this blog for articles that blast the notion of “pet overpopulation” right out of the water.

"Social Compassion", PETA, and the great California license plate scam

The term Social refers to the characteristic of living organisms to interact with other organisms and to their collective co-existence. The word compassion, derived from Latin, means to suffer together with. Together they make up a nice touchy-feely phrase, "Social Compassion", selected as an oxymoronic title  for a group that promotes spay-neuter.

Does the concept of "Social Compassion" really jive with spay-neuter? We've seen plenty of documentation lately that spay and neuter causes some pretty nasty health problems. And, in all areas where mandatory sterilization has been enacted, shelter intakes and deaths inevitably increase. So indeed, perhaps there actually is a whole lotta suffering....er, compassion....going on. And it's epidemic. It's suffering caused by our society. You might even call it a case of Social Compassion.

Take, for instance, the figures from the City of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control. It has now been three years since mandatory spay and neuter became the law in the City of Los Angeles. Shelter numbers exploded with the passage of this ordinance in early 2008, and continue to steadily rise.

Here are the figures from the LAAS website, just plucked them from there this morning:

Intakes from 2007-45,461

Intakes from 2010-55,780

An increase of 23%

Euthanasia in 2007-15,091

Euthanasia in 2010-20,856

An increase of 38% in shelter killing!!

When will they ever learn? This is the quintessential example of what happens when Big Brother tries to bully John Q. Public into having unnecessary sterilization surgery performed on his pet.

SPAY-NEUTER LAWS KILL PETS. 

Killing pets is certainly a far cry from the concept of "compassion". Plus, there won't be any collective co-existence (The "social" part of the equation) if pets are sterilized to extinction.

If there is widespread sterilization, along with bans of pet store sales and onerous breeding restrictions, then pets will necessarily be supplied from other countries, where such draconian regulations are nonexistent. How is that better than having healthy, intact pets that are bred here by known entities?

Why are pets in shelters? Certainly not due to any supposed "overpopulation". The top reasons given for pet relinquishment are moving, landlord issues, behavior problems etc. And more than half the animals in shelters did not have owners in the first place; feral cats, for instance.

However, shelter numbers have plummeted dramatically since the 1970s because we have been using methods that WORK....public education related to responsible ownership, low-cost voluntary spay/neuter clinics, and support for rescues and adoption events. Shelter numbers have plummeted in California by 86%....These programs have worked very very well. So well, that we currently have a less than 1% euthanasia rate per human population in the state of California. 

We have attained a no kill success! The vast majority of pets..... 75% of all owned dogs and 86% of all owned cats... are ALREADY spayed or neutered. The only way to reduce shelter numbers further is to outlaw pet ownership completely. And BINGO, that's exactly what the animal rights kooks have planned for us next. They will pass laws making pet ownership so expensive that ownership of a pet will just become just an unattainable dream for most people.

But animal rights groups have been conspiring for decades to push their agenda of a petless society. "Social Compassion", a California "non-profit" group, was recently founded by Judy Mancuso, her husband Rolf Wicklund, Jane Garrison and her husband Mark. News flash, these people are PETA operatives. Jane Garrison, who was employed by PETA for at least six years, believes that animal use equates to abuse. PETA, under the auspices of their central headquarters in Virginia, has a pet "rescue" for their area that kills upwards of 90% of the animals that they take in each and every year. Who are these PETAns to lecture the rest of us on "compassion"? How dare they! 

Social Compassion happily accepted PETA's sponsorship and money to push its mandatory spay-neuter bill in California, CA AB 1634. And, why shouldn't they? Spay-neuter laws kill pets, just like PETA does. Thankfully, that bill and it's succesor CA SB 250, both died their well-deserved death.

 But now, "Social Compassion" has it's next project in progress in the relentless propaganda campaign for pet sterilization; a license plate program they are promoting here in the state.

Here's the update on the latest promotions of this license plate propaganda scheme from "Social Compassion":

When we hit 7,500 pre-orders to make the plate official, the organization with the most plate orders to its credit will receive a $7,500 donation courtesy of our friends at Found Animals Foundation! 2nd place will receive $5,000 and 3rd place will receive $2,500.

 Every new plate buyer is automatically entered into a drawing. For every 100 new orders received after March 1st, 2011 one person will be selected to have a $300 donation made in their name to the shelter or animal non-profit of their choice. So, shelters and non-profits have another way to earn! The process is easy and fun, and we'll provide all the materials you need.

Actually providing cash prizes to promote fraud, lies, and deaths in shelters! Please, buy our license plate and send us money so we can campaign hard for programs that cause MORE DOGS TO DIE! Thankfully, this license plate project is far short of the implementation goal of 7500 orders needed by July. Let's hope these license plates will never be seen on the back end of any car in California!

Get some REAL "social compassion"....contrary to the stated goal of the "Social Compassion" group, it is virtually impossible to "reduce the number of abandoned and euthanized animals through spay and neuter programs"...particularly when such programs are mandated by law. In fact, requiring spay-neuter makes shelter situations worse.

But then, it's not about the animals, is it? Ed Boks testified to that fact in state hearings.

Mandatory sterilization is not about pets, it is about total government intrusion and control of every aspect of our lives!

Here's a more truthful license plate slogan:

SPAY/NEUTER KILLS

Perhaps that's the reason that most people in Europe do not sterilize their pets. In Norway, it is actually ILLEGAL to spay or neuter your pet unless it is a medical necessity.

Do "U" love pets?

Guard them under your tender, loving care....and keep them INTACT if you so choose!