Elephant finesse

Time to catch up a bit. I’ve been so busy that I’ve been reduced to only writing here about once a week. I got to see The Haunting in Connecticut. Good movie! I thought it had a good plot quite apart from the scary movie -- I enjoyed the son fighting cancer and his family supporting him. I thought it was very compelling. But it was also essential to the frightening part of the movie because it put him close to death and created a connection between him and the “otherworldly” things in the house. Very nice. It did bog down a little at times with a couple of weepy scenes, but they didn’t last too long. There were some really good frightening parts of the movie. All in all, I thought it was very good.

It does raise a question: if you take a house with a "creepy past" don't you have an obligation to at least discuss it with your spouse, if not the kids? If my spouse rented/bought a house where bad things had happened, I would really need to know that before moving in. Otherwise we would be adding another bad thing to the house's résumé in the form of a spousal homicide.

As far as our dog legislation, the state Senate committee was much friendlier to us than the House committee had been. They listened to our testimony and asked good questions. They’ll vote next week. We’re hoping to kill the bill in the Senate. We still have to deal with the bill in the House where it goes to the full Judiciary committee next. Maybe the full committee will be a little kinder to us than the subcommittee was. They were downright hostile.

In case you’re wondering, these are the so-called “Commercial Breeder” bills -- the same as have been put forward in nearly 30 states this year. Of course no one likes substandard kennels or bad care for cats and dogs. It’s ludicrous to think so. But we already have laws against cruelty and neglect. We already have a law that requires anyone selling 25 puppies or more to be licensed. You’re already supposed to be collecting sales tax when you sell puppies/kittens, dogs/cats in the state. Commercial breeders who sell to retail sources are already inspected by the USDA. So these bills are not necessary. They would only be used to create a new and expensive bureaucratic infrastructure in the state and set number limits on how many dogs breeders could keep. As anyone knows, number limits mean nothing when it comes to the care of dogs. There are people who can’t manage to properly care for one dog. Other people have good help and can care for many more dogs. Besides, once you start setting a number limit, it’s easy to lower that number every year until it affects ALL breeders. Virtually all breeders of cats and dogs, as well as agricultural people and other animal owners in the state are opposed to these bills. It’s only a radical fringe that supports them but they have been visiting with lawmakers and trying to convince them that the state needs these new laws.

I’ve been working on these particular bills since at least December. Actually, I’ve been watching since last year or before and trying to get people to become aware of them. In the last few days we’ve had another group become involved and it’s a been a little jarring. They’re doing a great job but they have come on the scene with all of the finesse of an elephant. We do see eye to eye about the legislation and the need to fight it. However, I had a few problems with some demands from the other group. For one, they wanted a list of all of the e-mail addresses of members of our Yahoo group. I had to tell them a couple of times that I didn’t have the right to give out that kind of information. When people join an e-mail list I think they have a right to expect their personal information to be kept private. If they want to join an organization they are free to do so but I can’t hand over their e-mail addresses so they can be automatically added.

Then, too, I freely shared the information I had about the bills and what was going on. On the other hand, when I talked to the other group they didn’t share information with me. They would tell me something, I would ask a question and the response would be, “Well, I can’t tell you that.” It’s hard to work with people who keep you in the dark.

I sent them the latest information about the bills but they appeared not to read what I sent them. They continued to refer to the original version of the bill and provisions in it, even in the subcommittee hearing. That doesn’t help us. Take the time to stay up-to-date on the bills.

Even if I had something in writing they would argue and disagree with me. They would call people to get an answer, duplicating our efforts. For instance, I had it in writing that the AKC OPPOSED the commercial breeder bills. They insisted that the AKC couldn’t come out and say that they were opposed to the bills. We had it in WRITING. I sent it all over the Internet and they still wanted to argue about it.

Really, the final straw was getting a call and being “asked” to write up material for the other organization. No idea what it was for, who would be reading it. But I was told to send it to them and they would give me notes about it so I could make changes. I wrote up the bill information and got back a message telling me it wasn’t what they were looking for. I replied that they would have to tailor their own message and that I couldn’t write what they wanted. They wanted an explanation. I basically told them that I wasn’t one of their volunteers and I don’t like to take orders from people.

I’m not a flunky and I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been writing about what’s wrong with animal rights and about dog legislation for over ten years. They can write their own damn press and web site material.

I believe this group has had problems working with other organizations in the past. They complain that other groups are “territorial.” Perhaps other groups simply don’t like being bulldozed or attempts to make them subordinates?

I’ll be happy to work with them to fight this legislation. They are a great group as far as fighting legislation goes. I just don’t want to be under their command.

(Of course it didn’t help any that they thought I was 12 years older than I actually am. Nobody likes that. If you want to work with people, don’t go around offending them.)