Highly-charged analysis of spay-neuter bill is attacked

July 15th, 2009, 3:00 am · 15 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

Cookies is available for adoption at the Orange County animal shelter

The California Department of Finance released a highly controversial - and perhaps not fully impartial - analysis of the Snip-the-Roamers bill (SB 250) last week, saying:

“This bill would result in a substantial increase to the General Fund cost of the Animal Adoption mandate. The Animal Adoption mandate currently costs more than $24 million annually to reimburse local government shelters’ cost to care for impounded animals. Given the current economic climate, requiring the owners of dogs and cats to pay for sterilization procedures would result in more animals being abandoned or surrendered because of the owners’ inability to finance the sterilization procedure and pay additional fines.”

The Department of Finance then wades into deep waters, stating that “Mandatory spay and neuter provisions have failed throughout California at the local government level. According to the National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA), Los Angeles City experienced a 20 percent increase in shelter impounds and a 30 percent increase in shelter euthanasias after passage of a mandatory spay and neuter ordinance. NAIA also indicates that in Santa Cruz County, animal control costs doubled after mandatory spay and neuter ordinances were passed.”

We’ll note here that the NAIA is not quite a neutral party in the debate: Rather, it is “a front group and industry funded lobbying organization for animal commerce and agribusiness based in Portland, Oregon,” says SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy. ”The National Animal Interest Alliance was founded in 1991 by Dalmatian breeder and American Kennel Club (AKC) board member, Patti Strand and Adrian Morrison, DVM, PhD; a biomedical researcher.”

Breeders form the core of opposition to the spay-neuter bill, and are applauding the analysis. But supporters are appalled, saying it is loaded, misleading and just plain wrong.

“The conclusion drawn by the analysis is not only incorrect in its facts, moreover, it is faulty in its assumptions - reflecting the fact that it’s data was apparently drawn only from a special interest lobbyist organization, rather than from direct research and independent analysis,” says a letter from Santa Cruz to the state Finance Department. “To rely on this organization for data and conclusions about spay-neuter laws is comparable to relying on the tobacco industry for information about the effects of second-hand smoke and resulting health issues.”

Consider this from the highly charged analysis:

“Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick’s 2008 audit on the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services found that the Department was ‘ill-prepared to implement or enforce mandatory spay and neuter law and that very few veterinarian providers are responding to the City’s call for bids for services.’ The audit also found that, ‘though Animal Services is charged with enforcing the mandatory spay and neuter law, it does not intend to do so…..the Department, as it does with leash law and dog licensing, will rely on voluntary compliance.” Expanding local animal control efforts would likely increase local agencies’ budget demands; however, there is no conclusive evidence that these efforts would result in additional revenue to the state or counteract animal overpopulation.”

Essentially, the analysis is howling “The water’s not boiling!” before the fire is lit beneath the kettle, LA says.

“The bill analysis claims a ‘20 percent increase in shelter impounds and a 30 percent increase in shelter euthanasias[sic] after passage of a mandatory spay and neuter ordinance,’ says a letter from Los Angeles Animal Services to the Department of Finance. “The mandatory spay/neuter ordinance in the City of Los Angeles was passed in February 2008, became law in April after posting requirements were met, but was not enforced until a grace period that expired in October 2008…. statistically no conclusions can be reached on intake or euthanasia trends in the short time of the local ordinance’s implementation.”

The city opened five “dramatic, attractive new facilities in highly visible commercial locations” between mid 2007 and spring of 2008, and, as predicted, “this directly led to increase in intakes and adoptions, and by consequence of increased intake, increased euthanasia,” LA says. “The increases were fed also by the growing foreclosure crisis in Southern California and other economic distress in Fall 2008 that has been clearly documented nation-wide as a cause of increased pet intake.

“…The impact of the spay/neuter ordinance is yet to be seen. Based on a 37-year trend analysis of intake, however, the precedent in the City of Los Angeles is that aggressive spay/neuter legislation triggers visible declines of the pet population in the 2-5 year window after passage.”

And the bill analysis does not cover the contents of the controller’s audit, but only selectively quotes from the Controller’s cover letter, LA says. “Not mentioned in the bill analysis’ use of the letter however, is the opening line of the cover letter which states, ‘Spaying and neutering of our pet population will significantly reduce unwanted puppies and kittens that are too often euthanized.’”

There’s more fire from Santa Cruz, which has essentially seen its kill rate plummet under the mandatory spay-neuter law, and no longer euthanizes animals to clear up space in its shelters, officials say. We’ll get to the specifics of that in another post. Opponents say that Santa Cruz’s kill rate hasn’t dropped as much as surrounding counties that don’t have mandatory spay-neuter laws; we are still looking for numbers on that.

A critical hearing before the Assembly Appropriations Committee, originally slated for today, is now scheduled for August due to the state’s budget paralysis. If approved next month, it goes on to the full state Assembly for a vote - and then to the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For more about the frenzied push by activists on both sides to sway legislators, see our story here later today. You’ll find the phone numbers of Assembly Appropriations Committee members there as well, so you can register your views.

More Watchdog:

Share this post:

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

JAL says:

July 16, 2009 at 8:07 am

Santa Cruz has a 74% higher spending per capita for AC services than the average for California, and Santa Cruz has been outperformed by it’s neighboring counties in terms of reductions in euthanasia and impounds for the entire ten years of it MSN enactment.

Go and read the ASPCA position statement on MSN. There is no conclusive proof it has ever “worked” as advertised. Bekeley on the other hand has seen a dramatic decline in intake and euthanasia in just the past 5 years due to an aggressive VOLUNTARY s/n program and community out reach and partnering with groups like BAD RAP.

Look into San Mateo, the FIRST County to adopt MSN in California. Ask yourselves why San Mateo has not been leading the charge for MSN. Answer? It does not/did not work, destroys the publics trust in animal services providers, increases impounds at first then SLOWS the decline of shelter numbers. OH, and causes a dramatic decrease in licensing compliance as people bow out of voluntary compliance to escape what is perceived as a police state.

Low cost, high volume s/n and education saves lives and money.

MSN COSTS, FAILS, KILLS

Post Reply

Laura Sanborn says:

July 16, 2009 at 9:08 am

There are numerous factual errors in this article. I’ll start with just a few of them.

Animal Rights extremists and in particular a writer for the terrorist Animal Liberation Front wrote most of that article in “Source Watch” about NAIA. I don’t look to Osama bin Laden for information about America, and I likewise don’t look to the ALF for information about the NAIA.

The NAIA is an animal welfare organization with a long history of being meticulous about getting the facts right. The baseless ad hominem attack against NAIA above is sloppy journalism at best.

Based on the data that Santa Cruz County submitted to the California Department of Public Heath, available in public records, Santa Cruz County is still killing 37% of the dogs and cats that enter their public shelters. It is simply not true that Santa Cruz County “no longer euthanizes animals to clear up space in its shelters” as claimed above. In public shelters across America where they no longer euthanize for space, fewer than 10% of the animals in open admission public shelters are euthanized. The Santa Cruz County statistics are on the CDPH website. This is based on 2007 data, because Santa Cruz County still hasn’t complied with state law and reported their 2008 statistics to the CDPH. If you are having trouble finding these data on the CDPH website, email me and I will tell you were they are.

Santa Cruz County has had a mandatory spay/neuter law since 1995. Santa Cruz County’s shelter intake and kill rates were plummeting BEFORE their mandatory spay/neuter law went into effect. Their rate of improvement actually slowed down significantly after their MSN law went into effect. Furthermore, shelter intake and kill rates have plummeted all across California over the same span of years. We need to look shelter data in context.

The ASPCA says that “nationwide per capita shelter intake and euthanasia generally are in decline due to voluntary spaying and neutering, it is impossible to determine the effect of an MSN law without comparing a community’s trends in shelter intake and euthanasia for several years before and after the law was enacted to trends in adjacent, similar communities without MSN legislation.”

So we did exactly what ASPCA advised, and compared Santa Cruz County to “adjacent, similar communities without MSN”. The facts show that on a per capita basis:
Santa Cruz County kills 22% more dogs and cats than Santa Clara County
Santa Cruz County kills 35% more dogs and cats than Contra Costa County
Santa Cruz County kills 50% more dogs and cats than Marin County
Santa Cruz County kills 56% more dogs and cats than Alameda County

More than 10 years after passing MSN, Santa Cruz County is killing many more dogs and cats per capita than are “adjacent, similar communities without MSN legislation.” As the ASPCA says “the ASPCA is not aware of any credible evidence demonstrating a statistically significant enhancement in the reduction of shelter intake or euthanasia as a result of the implementation of a mandatory spay/neuter law.”

The county in California with the highest per capita kill rate in its public shelters is Lake County. They are also one of the few counties with a mandatory spay/neuter law. Per capita, Lake County kills more than 4 times the number of dogs and cats as the statewide average. Again, the facts are in the CDPH reports on the CDPH website.

Mandatory spay/neuter laws divide communities, drive a wedge among animal lovers, and therefore undermine the life-saving progressive programs that actually save the lives of dogs and cats.

July 16, 2009 at 10:06 am

With regards to Los Angeles, their MSN ordinance was patterned after AB 1634 which failed in the state legislature. Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Ed Boks had lobbied for AB 1634 in Sacramento. During an AB 1634 hearing in 2008 of the Senate Local Government Committee, the following exchange occurred:

Senator Cox: “Mr. Boks, this bill doesn’t even pretend to be about saving animals, does it?”

Ed Boks: “No Senator, this is not about saving dogs and cats.”

No, MSN is not about saving dogs and cats. It’s about an animal control director wanting to build a bigger empire. That’s what top bureaucrats do.

The nation’s leader in progressive life-saving animal sheltering programs, Nathan Winograd, reported:

“Not content to wait for the state (which did not pass the measure [AB 1634]), Boks convinced the City of Los Angeles to pass its own version. He also demanded more officers to enforce it. The end result was predictable. Almost immediately, LAAS officers threatened poor people with citations if they did not turn over the pets to be killed at LAAS, and that is exactly what occurred. For the first time in a decade, impounds and killing increased—dog deaths increased 24%, while cat deaths increased 35%. ”
http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=885

Los Angeles doesn’t deny that they saw a huge increase in killing in 2008, which reversed many years of improving statistics. The statistics are on the LAAS website, in a report entitled “Los Angeles Animal Services - 2008 Statistical Report”. But no reasonable person should believe that opening MORE shelters could increase the total euthanasias in LAAS animal shelters. More shelters means the ability to increase shelter hold times and more public access for adoptions, which translates to more adoptions and owner returns, which means fewer euthanasias. That’s the rationale LAAS used to justify building more animal shelters, so they cannot now blame more shelters for the increase in LAAS shelter killing in 2008.

LAAS also blames the deteriorating economy for their huge increase in shelter killing in 2008. The problem with that argument is, communities across California where the economy deteriorated as bad or worse than in Los Angeles experienced nothing like the spike in killing that LAAS experienced. For example, the change in dog euthanasias from 2007 to 2008 as found in public documents was:

Los Angeles: +24%
Fresno County: +5%
San Joaquin County: -3%
Riverside County: +3%
San Bernardino County: +6%
San Diego County: -6%
Kern County: +6%
Merced County” +8%
Lake County: +2%

Again, this compares the observed trend in a community that implemented MSN — Los Angeles — to a number of communities that did not have MSN in 2007 - 2008.

The deteriorating economy explains only a small part of the increased shelter killing in Los Angeles in 2008. Their pet-killing mandatory spay/neuter law explains most of it.

July 16, 2009 at 3:18 pm

I would like to point out that the official Assembly Appropriations committee bill analysis erroneously cites New Hampshires spay neuter programs as support for SB250 and other MSN legislation.

New Hampshire’s statewide spay neuter program is a voluntary, state funded, low cost high volume financial assistance program directed at low income residents and those who adopt from shelters. It IS very successful, it is exactly the sort of program that opponents of AB1634 SB250 have been suggesting for three years, it is NOT MSN and in fact just the opposite. It HELPS people to obtain services, MSN PUNISHES.

Stop MSN, it COSTS, FAILS, KILLS.

1ocvoter says:

July 20, 2009 at 10:48 am

It appears that all articles by Teri Sforza are biased in favor of mandatory spay neutering laws. It would be nice if we could read some unbiased reporting on this subject in the register and NO I AM NOT a breeder but I do own a dog. Perhaps the editor could assign this to one of his people who reports on real political goings on at the capital besides giving it to a young person with no real life experiences who is obviously someone with a sheltered urban background.

July 20, 2009 at 9:07 pm

Teri, I appreciate being quoted in the print edition of this article, but you falsely identified me as a breeder. Had you contacted me as I offered I would have been happy to tell you I am a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler. My dog and I respond to missing person searches across the state of California.

Contrary to the spin coming from Judie Mancuso, there are a lot more people who oppose SB 250 than just breeders.

SB 250 threatens to severely damage California’s ability to produce police dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, border patrol dogs, guide dogs for the blind, service dogs for the disabled, ranch and farm dogs, agricultural pest detection dogs, and all other working dogs.

In truth it is not possible to put exemptions in a mandatory spay/neuter law that will adequately protect working dogs. Legislators who have made such attempts have only demonstrated their profound ignorance of the issue they are trying to regulate.

Protecting today’s working police dogs or search-and-rescue dogs from forced sterilization does not protect the breeding populations that we must maintain in order to produce tomorrow’s working dogs. The breeding populations are for the most part not working dogs themselves, and are not legally distinguishable from pet dogs. Exemptions don’t work.

The North American Police Work Dog Association, one of the nation’s leading organizations of law enforcement officers who train and work police dogs, wrote in their opposition letter to mandatory spay/neuter:

“There’s really no way to create a mandatory spay/neuter law that would not do serious harm to law enforcement in the state of California.”

To protect California’s public safety and emergency response, to protect California’s blind and disabled citizens, and to protect California agriculture, I urge Californians to contact their Assemblymember and ask them to oppose SB 250.

ocgirl says:

July 22, 2009 at 12:23 am

I doubt that any of these anti SB250 comments have been made by people who operate rescues, which deal with homeless animals everyday. The majority of the proponents of SB250 are animal welfare organizations and NOT animal rights extremists.
.

Jean Bland says:

July 22, 2009 at 12:19 pm

Another great job of detective work by Teri Sforza! If the only problem that surfaces with the current spay and neuter bill is the price of spay and neuter there are plenty of ways for cities and citizens to work with Veterinarians to either temporarily or permanently get low cost spay and neuter going in their city. This is completely doable. As this Quote from a prior story by Teri Sforza says at Santa Cruz, which has essentially seen its kill rate plummet under the mandatory spay-neuter law,
We asked Lisa Carter, executive director of the Santa Cruz Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to provide statistics on that county’s experience with mandatory-spay neuter. The answer to “Does it work?” seems to be an unqualified “yes.”

“In Santa Cruz County,” she writes, “we no longer euthanize for space.”

Be still my beating heart. That’s astounding, at a time when our cash-starved state plans to halve the number of days stray pets are held at shelters before being euthanized (from six days to three, to save $25 million

July 22, 2009 at 2:47 pm

Like every county in California, Santa Cruz County is required under state law to report their public animal shelter statistics to the California Department of Health Services every year. These statistics are on the CDPH website in the form of “local rabies” reports for each year for the past 10 years. These are public records, available for anyone to see.

The CDPH records prove that Santa Cruz County is still killing 37% of the dogs and cats that enter their public shelters. That is WAY in excess of the less than 10% of dogs and cats that need to be humanely euthanized in open-admission public animal shelters that save all treatable and non-vicious dogs and cats.

Like Santa Cruz County , there are many jurisdictions that claim they are saving all adoptable dogs and cats, but play a game by declaring any dog or cat with a treatable health problem as non-adoptable, or non-vicious dogs with behavioral issues that simply require training as non-adoptable, or a host of other inexcusable reasons to mask the fact that they are killing adoptable dogs and cats.

The numbers don’t lie. The numbers that Santa Cruz County provided to CDPH prove that they are killing many adoptable dogs and cats.

BTW, the Santa Cruz SPCA that Jean spoke with does not run the public shelters in Santa Cruz County. They did at one time, but the Santa Cruz SPCA had their contract revoked by the county due to malfeasance. Search the archives of Santa Cruz Sentinel, the facts are all there.

MikeL says:

August 5, 2009 at 10:23 am

Laura, your argument is disingenuous at best. A quick Google search makes it quite clear that you favor breeder’s rights over the welfare of California’s animals. I invite you to volunteer at any one of SoCal’s high-kill shelters for a few months. I’m sure you’ll find it to be an eye-opening experience.

Post Reply

Patti says:

July 29, 2009 at 5:09 pm

I went to a shelter in 2005 got a 3 month old mixed breed. They told me he was a stray running the streets. Why did this happen? Because his mother/father had unwanted puppies after running loose. Fact he was a unwanted puppy either dumped/or put out when he was about 3 months old to wander the streets in a bad area. The shelter had so many of these puppies they were not given names only numbers and although mine found a good home I walked the cages and I saw the problem this high kill shelter faced. No it was not a small city shelter in San Clemente with a steady influx of high income familes with big yards living in Talaga, it had streets you woulldn’t want to park on with houses that had bars on the windows and people walking around looking like they couldn’t feed their families much less a new puppy. What is the answer? Maybe give this people a good reason not to let their dogs run loose and produce puppies. One pet breeder blog I told my story to told me the answer is to tell the shelter’s directors to send the puppies to other areas. Well that is a good idea but I really don’t think it is going to happen at a high kill shelter in a bad area of LA that has no money and few options. Sorry but I am going to take my hard earned cash and go to Sacramento in Aug. when this bill is voted on for funding (why do you think the bill is 2 steps away from passing). I want to be sure responsible people know that this bill is geared for the average mixed breed puppy who ends up in the shelter with little to no chance of a good life because of irresponsible owners who let their dogs run and breed puppies. Yes the breeders are not for the bill. Yes the feral cat feeders are against the bill. Too bad for them.I am 110% for the bill because when go to Yes on SB250 and the lady starts talking about the puppies coming in and being euthanized because no one wants them I can really relate, I saw the problem in 2005 and all the people I have talked to at the dog adoption events in LA tell me
“if you thought it was bad then you should see it now” sad.

WTF says:

August 9, 2009 at 12:35 pm

I see the Whinonettes are in full force here. NAIA supports breeding, breeding, and more breeding when shelters are reporting 30-40% of their population are purebreds. And Winograd is the apple of their eyes. Winograd lends credibility to the breeding industry with his insistance that there is no pet overpopulation. Yet his own program and hand picked director destroyed the shelter in Philly and locally, Rancho Cucamonga. According to a report, the Rancho shelter is letting cats and dogs die in their cages so as to protect their numbers. Even Reno voted against becoming “no kill”, and Winograd still insists they are the “cat’s meow”, staying true to his deception. Don’t look at the “live release rates”, look at the died in kennels. Look too at the return rate on the two fer one sales. Look at places such as Lied, NV where animals were being allowed to die slowly of disease. To continue to listen to this false prophet only means a return to the dark ages, unnecessary suffering and sacrificing animals for the “numbers”.

August 9, 2009 at 8:33 pm

SB 250 is now on step 9 of a 12-step process to become law.
This is posted on Yes For SB 250 Pet Responsiblity Act
one of 3 bills for animal rights
1 Spay/Neuter
2 Puppy Mills
3. Dogfighting
These are all supported by Best Friends Animal Society in Kanup Utah
the people who put on Dogtown show on National Geographic Channel

August 11, 2009 at 2:14 pm

This is for TrueAgendas
Dr. Jeff Grognet a vet in Canada who also teaches online vet assistant classes and has been a practing vet for over 20 years writes in his online vet classes this info. regarding unaltered dogs
“Diseases Suffered by Non-spayed and non-neutered pets.
Female dogs left intact have about a 50% chance of developing mammary tumors. The hormanal fluctions during estrus prompts the development of the mammary glands and this makes them susceptible to the development of growths. About 40% of thse breast growths are malignant, meaning they an spread to other areas of the body. By spaying dogs before their first heat, the chance of tumors drops to a negligible level.
Intact males have their own health problems. Many develop prostate infections that can be ver difficult to treat. About 50% of intact males form tumors in their testicles. Though few of thee are malignant the treatment is still castration. Some owners feel their senior dogs are too old for neutering. I assure them that there is no age limit for this procedure as long as the dog is otherwise healthy.
Sterlization is the answer to stopping unwanted pregnancies and curtailing these medical ailments.
Males can be neutered or castrated and the latter term applies to the male only. Castrated males cannot get females pregnant, they do not wander in search of females in heat, and they do not fight with other males. I recomment preforming these surgeries when my pattients are six months of age when the adult teeth have erupted. This is before the females come into heat and before the males develop annoying behaviors.” Pg 4 Chapter 4 Online Vet Assistant Lesson Course Content 1997-21009 by Jeff Grognet

August 11, 2009 at 2:34 pm

This is for TrueAgendas stating unaltered dogs have no health problems

Dr. Jeff Grognet a vet in Canada who also teaches online vet assistant classes and has been a practing vet for over 20 years writes in his online vet classes this info. regarding unaltered dogs
“Diseases Suffered by Non-spayed and non-neutered pets.
Female dogs left intact have about a 50% chance of developing mammary tumors. The hormanal fluctions during estrus prompts the development of the mammary glands and this makes them susceptible to the development of growths. About 40% of thse breast growths are malignant, meaning they an spread to other areas of the body. By spaying dogs before their first heat, the chance of tumors drops to a negligible level.
Intact males have their own health problems. Many develop prostate infections that can be very difficult to treat. About 50% of intact males form tumors in their testicles. Though few of thee are malignant the treatment is still castration. Some owners feel their senior dogs are too old for neutering. I assure them that there is no age limit for this procedure as long as the dog is otherwise healty.
Sterlization is the answer to stopping unwanted pregnancies and curtailing these medical ailments.
Males can be neutered or castrated and the latter term applies to the male only. Castrated males cannot get females pregnant, they do not wander in search of females in heat, and they do not fight with other males. I recommend preforming these surgeries when my pattients are six months of age when the adult teeth have erupted. This is before the females come into heat and before the males develop annoying behaviors.” Pg 4 Chapter 4 Online Vet Assistant Lesson Course Content 1997-21009 by Jeff Grognet

Orange County Register

Highly-charged analysis of spay-neuter bill is attacked

July 15th, 2009, 3:00 am · 15 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

15 Comments

Leave a Reply

Hey! You! Get O.C. politics & watchdog alerts!

Contact the bloggers

Sound off! in our latest poll

Recent Posts

Follow this blog:

Categories

Total Buzz: Orange County political blog

More from OC Watchdog reports

Recent Comments

Archives

ADVERTISE OPTIONS

CONTACT OCREGISTER

OCR SERVICES

NEWS YOUR WAY

ADVERTISING

PARTNERS