Three recent Pennsylvania stories are worthy of responses from animal advocates:
The Thursday, March 8, Philadelphia Daily News, has a lovely piece by Stu Bykofsky about the new CEO of the Pennsylvania SPCA's attempts to make Philadelphia a no-kill city.
The Wednesday, March 7 Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette both included articles about breeder protests against laws designed to crack down on puppy mills.
All of the articles offer great opportunities for letters on the importance spay-neuter and the joys of adoption. Please choose send a quick note to at least one. Always include you full name, address and phone number.
The Philadelphia Daily News takes letters at http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/contact_us/feedback_np2/
The Philadelphia Inquirer takes letters at Inquirer.Letters@phillynews.com
And the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette http://www.post-gazette.com/contact/comments_form.asp?ID=40
Here are the articles:
Philadelphia Daily News
March 8, 2007 Thursday
Stu Bykofsky | New PSPCA head pledges 'no-kill' city
LOCAL; Pg. 09
AFTER A nine-year absence, Howard Nelson has returned to Philly with a new job - and a mission to make life better for Philadelphia's homeless animals.
In fact, it should make life possible for more of them.
In his first local interview, the new CEO of the Pennsylvania SPCA gave me his vision of what he hopes to achieve, and how. He had left his job as executive director of the Washington (D.C.) Humane Society just 48 hours earlier.
He "absolutely" believes that in five years Philadelphia can become a "no-kill" city, meaning every adoptable animal gets a home. That is already the stated goal of the Philadelphia Animal Care and Control Agency (PACCA).
"If PACCA and PSPCA team up, we absolutely can do that, and dogs will be there sooner than cats," says Nelson. It's going to take money and "comprehensive, large-scale, low-cost spay and neuter" programs, something he was building at Washington Humane.
Through a program called the Good Home Guarantee, last May WHS met its goal of finding homes for every adoptable dog. Homeless cats will take a few years longer because they are so numerous, accounting for three-quarters of animals in shelters.
Nelson showed himself to be a great listener, good at building coalitions and adept at dealing with the "dynamics... in a large city with lots of players," says Becky Robinson, national director of Alley Cat Allies, with whom he cooperated.
That experience should serve him well in Philly, where dealing with dueling bureaucrats is like herding cats.
Nelson's No. 1 priority is the pet overpopulation that fills animal shelters and creates "heartache in this industry" when pets are put to death because there are more animals than homes.
To find homes for Philadelphia's homeless animals, Nelson pledges to work closely with PACCA, and with people involved in pet-rescue groups. "We will partner with all the other organizations doing great work in the city... so Philadelphia can be a flagship humane city," he says.
Nelson also expects SPCA to be a leader, including the current battle to close our state's despicable upstate puppy mills.
"We are going to step up to the plate," he says, and yearns for the day "when somebody writes an article and says Pennsylvania's not the 'Puppy Mill Capital of the East.' We clearly don't want that title," he says.
During our interview Nelson was "homesick" for his adopted girls - Emmy, 7, a 60-pound black lab, and Cali, 2, a 40-pound husky/shepherd mix. "I fostered [Cali] and rehabbed her back to health, and, of course I fell in love with her," says Nelson. His partner of 22 years, Marc Nasberg, who's in sales, was driving the dogs from their D.C. home to Philly that afternoon. The dogs will come to work with Nelson at the SPCA as they had in D.C.
A native of upstate New York, Nelson, 43, first came to Philly in 1985 to take a job with an accounting firm. He earned a master's degree in finance from Temple at night and then joined the Fannie Mae financial-services company. He was transferred to Washington in 1998.
While there, "I volunteered for several animal organizations, most importantly Labrador Retriever Rescue of Virginia," where "we did everything we could to get them adopted," he says. "It's always been a passion of mine. I even rescued baby raccoons when I was growing up," in Penn Yan, N.Y.
In July 2003, Nelson learned he had cancer of the abdomen and fought the disease, taking time off from work in 2004 to recover fully. In 2005, his lifelong love of animals became his career when he was hired to run Washington Humane.
Last year, when longtime Pennsylvania SPCA Executive Director Erik Hendricks decided to retire, the board reviewed dozens of resumés. Nelson was selected, according to board chair Mary Aull, because of his financial and administrative skills, and because he "had done phenomenal things at Washington Humane in a very short time."
His biggest accomplishment, says WHS interim Executive Director Ilene Steiman, was the Good Home Guarantee. "It's so great to be able to say to people we don't euthanize adoptable dogs," she says, adding that Nelson was a great boss who encouraged and challenged staff at the same time.
When our interview ended, Nelson and I visited the SPCA adoption center.
Cats and bunnies and hamsters were in cages, snakes in tanks.
Dogs of all sizes and shapes and makes were in clean pens.
Some cowered, abandoned house pets wondering what they had done to be so cruelly discarded. Others, tails wagging furiously and standing on hind legs, were dying for a pat on the head.
These are the innocent victims of pet overpopulation, human cruelty and human stupidity.
Nelson wants to do in Pennsylvania what he was doing in D.C. - guarantee homes for each of them. They deserve to live and Philly deserves to become a flagship humane city.
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/byko.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer
March 7, 2007 Wednesday
Dog-law plan raises hackles
Amy Worden, Inquirer Staff Writer
PHILADELPHIA; Pg. B05
Animal-welfare advocates and dog breeders clashed yesterday at a legislative hearing on regulatory proposals aimed at cracking down on inhumane conditions in large commercial kennels.
Breeder-group representatives and some lawmakers argued that additions to the state's dog law proposed by the Rendell administration were arbitrary and would impose costly burdens on the state's 2,400 licensed kennels.
But an ASPCA attorney testified that current standards, which allow breeding dogs to spend their lives jammed in tiny cages with no exercise, were inhumane and must be changed.
The proposed regulations "are vital if Pennsylvania is to improve conditions for dogs kept in commercial kennels and end the state's reputation as the 'puppy mill capital of the East,' " Cori A. Menkin of the animal-welfare group told the House Agriculture Committee and about 100 spectators, many of them Amish and Mennonite.
Angered over poor treatment in kennels that has gone unchecked for decades, Gov. Rendell fired the state dog law advisory board last spring and hired more staff. He announced the proposed regulations in the fall.
The growing number of commercial kennels, primarily in Lancaster County, produce purebred and "designer" mix-breed puppies that are sold to pet stores in the Northeast and through the Internet or classified ads.
In the worst cases, puppies with infectious diseases and genetic problems that can be costly to treat, or even fatal, are sold to unwitting consumers.
Among the most controversial proposals are ones that would double cage sizes and require operators to exercise dogs for 20 minutes each day.
Jessie Smith, deputy secretary of the Bureau of Dog Law, said the changes would prevent undesirable behavior, such as spinning in circles, that occurs when a dog spends all of its time in a small enclosure. Other proposals would require more record keeping and stricter cleanliness standards.
Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Hanna (D., Clinton) said in a statement that he favored the changes. But some members called them "overkill" and "politically motivated."
"Some animal-rights activists don't believe in dog ownership," said Rep. Gordon Denlinger (R., Lancaster). "We need a middle-ground approach."
Smith said it was not the department's intent to harm small breeders who raise a few litters of puppies by their bedside each year. In an interview earlier this week, she said she was willing to seek compromises to assuage their concerns.
Julian Prager, legislative chairman of the Pennsylvania Federation of Dog Clubs, said the regulations requiring kennel modifications would have "significant cost implications" that would lead to higher boarding fees and costlier puppies.
But Bill Smith, founder of Main Line Animal Rescue in Chester Springs, who attended the hearing but did not testify, said he saves 100 dogs each year from Lancaster County puppy mills that arrive with mange, eye ulcers, and badly splayed feet from living in cages with wire mesh bottoms.
Rescuing the victims of puppy mills is also costly, Bill Smith said, and requires extensive behavioral therapy for them to be adopted.
The public comment period on the proposals ends March 16. Before becoming official, the rules changes must still go through a review process that could last 18 months or more.
Contact staff writer Amy Worden at 717-783-2584 or aworden@phillynews.com.
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
March 7, 2007 Wednesday
REGION EDITION
DOG BREEDERS YELPING AT LEGISLATIVE HEARING, THEY SAY PROPOSED CHANGES TO STATE LAWS WOULD BE BURDENSOME AND COSTLY
Tracie Mauriello Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
LOCAL; Pg. B-1
HARRISBURG -- Proposed changes to state dog laws are overreaching, costly and burdensome, breeders and kennel owners told the House Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee at a hearing yesterday.
The proposal specifies everything from kennel temperature to the diameter of drainage holes.
The changes were first discussed a year ago by an ad hoc committee convened by Gov. Ed Rendell, who wants Pennsylvania to shed its reputation as the puppy-mill capital of the east.
As part of that effort, Mr. Rendell last year fired the state Dog Law Advisory Board, appointed new members and created six new jobs to help enforce regulations.
The proposed regulatory changes go too far, breeders testified yesterday.
Some said Mr. Rendell's efforts are fueled by animal rights groups who want to eliminate all commercial dog breeding, not just so-called puppy mills, which are large facilities known for poor conditions.
"These are regulations designed to trip us up and then once you trip up, you're out," said Robert Yarnall, of the Pennsylvania Professional Pet Breeders Association.
"The regulations do not reflect a reasonable, rational or even a practical approach to the proper and humane treatment of dogs," he said.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals testified that increased regulation is necessary to prevent inhumane conditions at large commercial facilities.
"Under the current regulations, it is absolutely legal to confine a Golden Retriever to a [52-inch-by-52-inch] cage for every minute of its entire life, and that is, in fact, what many large breeding kennels do," testified Cori Menkin, the ASPCA's senior director and program counsel for public policy and government affairs.
The proposed changes would double minimum cage sizes and require animals to have 20 minutes of exercise every day. They also would require cages to be sanitized daily, exercise areas to be free of grass and weeds, lids to be kept on food storage containers and bedding to be clean and dry. The changes would add requirements for lighting, fencing, ventilation, record keeping, shade, nonporous flooring and more.
Some said the proposed regulations don't consider requirements of different breeds of dogs and different kinds and sizes of kennels.
They "treat all establishments with the same rigidity, regardless of their purpose, size or type of facility," said Julian Prager, legislative chairman for the Pennsylvania Federation of Dog Clubs. "There is a difference between the high-volume production of dogs for commercial sale to the public and the breeding and raising of dogs by the small craftsmen whose breeding is aimed at producing the best specimens of their breed for competition."
Structural changes mandated by the regulations would cost most kennels $5,000 to $20,000 to implement, agriculture officials said yesterday. Mr. Yarnall said some large-scale breeders might have to spend as much as $500,000.
Freshman lawmaker Jim Cox, R-Berks, said the proposal needs a hard second look. "I'm wondering if we're throwing a pound of cure at an ounce of problem," he said. "Finding the means to enforce existing [regulations] seems to me like a more rational approach."
The Department of Agriculture expects to revise the proposed regulatory changes based on yesterday's testimony and more than 12,000 written public comments.
To take effect, the regulations must be approved by the House, the Senate and the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission.
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(END of PA newspaper pieces)
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Date: Thu Mar 8 18:07:34 2007
