What is this I'm hearing that Ryan Clinton of Fix Austin and Ellen Jefferson of Austin Pet's Alive are trying to get Eddie Rodriguez to file bill to get a state law passed allowing city and county shelters to send out animals to rescue groups that arrive at the shelter with no tags and no microchip with only a 24 hour hold instead of the normal 72 hours?
Is there a shortage of dogs for Austin Pets Alive to pull? Do they now need to steal family pets through legal maneuvering? Austin Animal Center is about 50 large dogs over capacity on any one day. Go pull those dogs instead of trying to legally "steal" some one's family pet.
Add to it these private rescue groups have little to no oversight regarding conditions at their facilities; at least not to the same extent as our municipal shelters . No Kill seems to have no compassion and all under the pretense of saving tax dollars. If they were really worried about tax dollars they would pass a state wide requirement to spay and neuter most owned cats and dogs and start doing something to reduce intake at our City shelters instead of turning them into high volume holding and adoption centers at the expense of the tax payer.
And who says there's no money in rescue? Austin Pets Alive has certainly figured out how to do it. Just take out the compassion component.
Makes sense when you consider the constant problem Austin has with overcrowding and now a cut in the budget to boot. Why don't they realize that No Kill is already dead in Austin, just roll over and get it done with. This was the state of Austin just 4 days ago and you can see where this selfish, ego driven legislation is coming from. Clinton is trying to save face and he can't do anything on a local level now, it is out of hand. So he is resorting to the State.
From: carrie.wells@austintexas.gov
Reply-to: ProjectStarfish-owner@
To: ProjectStarfish@yahoogroups.
Sent: 3/10/2013 11:43:58 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: [ProjectStarfish] HELP! AAC is -47 dog kennels today!
Reply-to: ProjectStarfish-owner@
To: ProjectStarfish@yahoogroups.
Sent: 3/10/2013 11:43:58 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: [ProjectStarfish] HELP! AAC is -47 dog kennels today!
AND ALL THAT YOU ARE DOING IS PUTTING OFF THE INEVITABLE. You can fill every household in Austin with fosters, that will not solve the problem.
Fosters,
Our medium-large dog kennel count this morning was -47. Yikes! Holding is full, the truckport is full, animals are in rolling cages, but we have NO place to put them!
So, how can you help? Consider taking one of the animals that we have already posted, OR visit the shelter, look around, and speak to the staff in the lobby about any medium-large dogs that you think you might be interested in fostering. They will let you know if the dog is available for foster or not, as well as provide you with any behavior/medical information that we may have. The initial criteria for being available for foster is the dog cannot already have a customer interest hold on it, and it can't still be within its stray hold period.
To help you in marketing a dog from your home, we can offer tips on writing an effective post that will get noticed, and our weekly adoption events are always available to you as well to help the dog find a permanent home. We can't do it without your help! And as always, THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO!
Delwin Goss, the only rational mind in Austin on this issue, puts it in sane terms.
Our old shelter is still open and over flowing. Our new shelter is over flowing. All the rescue groups and foster families are maxed out. And puppy and kitten season is just around the corner. We've lowered the standards for adoption at the animal center to the point where homeless people and people convicted of animal abuse can walk in the door and walk out with an older cat or dog for free. Michael Vick could walk into our shelter and if no one recognized him; he could walk out with a cat or dog. Our animal services department has had an increase in budget of over 60% over the last four years. Animal Services director asked for an additional $1,300,000.00 but saner voices at the City prevailed and that request was cut to $300,000.00.
As it's been, all the other city departments saw budget reductions. Those reductions impacted things like housing the homeless, public safety, parks and trails, programs for our seniors and our children.
Every large senior animal organization in Austin has passed a resolution asking our City to pass a spay/neuter ordinance. Even the Austin Neighborhoods Council and some of the political clubs have also passed resolutions asking for a spay/neuter ordinance. Over 15,000 mostly East Austin residents have signed a pen on paper informal petition asking The City to pass a spay/neuter ordinance .
All that support yet our City seems to listen to one voice and one voice only. Recently City staff and the animal advisory commission started work on a Differential Licensing ordinance and once again that same voice scuttled the work. And the reason this time? Concerns over privacy. Really? Privacy over a pet owners registration records? Who the heck cares about those records? I certainly don't. Just how weak is that?
One of the things that leaves me most perplexed is that voice doesn't work with animals. No hands on rescue, no hands on cat work, no hands on dog work. Absolutely no first hand experience. Just an unending litany of "those ordnances don't work". "The ordinance will lead to more animals entering our shelters." The same statements as the breeders, the same claims as R.P.O.A. and the same dogma as the Endangered Breeds group ( basically Pit Bull Breeders and Fighters)
That's the same thing opponents of a State wide mandatory rabies vaccination said way back when. That's the same thing opponents of laws mandating that animal owners provide food , water and minimal shelter claimed . It's the same thing that opponents of Austin of Austin's anti tethering ordinance said and it's the same thing opponents of Austin's pet sellers ordinance said. Strange thing; it never happened.
It's just depressing to me to learn some of our City's leaders and some City staff hear voices but not the voices of the people, the voices of those of us who work with animals each and every day and/or the voice of sanity.
Keep Austin Weird!
Thanks Delwin for being a true animal/people advocate, not the fake ones such as Clinton. Hang in there, it will end. If nothing else, there will be a show down with Clinton and Winograd that will end all of this. Clinton is now on his "divine" trip and he wants to take over.
16 comments:
So Clinton and Jefferson are advocating stealing people's dogs?
And then sending them to die in hellholes like Spindletop like they were doing before?
Is this Rodrigues a complete crook?
That one voice shutting down spay neuter programs and differential license is Nathan Winograd (with the AKC) working hard on behalf of puppy mills and dog fighters!
Has the city council read the New York Times article on AKC and their puppy mill business?
The AKC is a bunch of crooks and they are costing the taxpayers millions.
Excellent summary of where Austin is! Both facilities stuffed full and not even into spring! A couple of additional factoids. Lets not forget APA is still on probation from the State for substandard conditions at their facility. I also find it curious that No Kill screams like hell if they can't get "numbers" from a municiple facility. Has any one ever seen any numbers from APA? Of course not. Looking at some of the no kill shelters locally I can see the new game emerging! It's called transfer out/rescue! A small local shelter here maintains no kill by transferring to kill shelters. Of course that is always shown as a save! Of course Austin wants to go to a 24 hour hold. Then just get them out of the city limits and off the books. Fate unknown! Man this is a lot of work to solve a problem that does not exist because we all know there is no pet over population. Geeez.
For what it is worth at least in Texas the 72 hour hold is customary and a long standing practice BUT is not required by any sort of "law". Austin could move to a 24 hour hold anytime they want but of course then they would have to justify it. If it becomes law they simply point at the law as their excuse and play dumb. Too sad.
One has to realize as many are beginning to see is that it never was and never will be about the animals as far as Mr. Clinton and Mr. Winograd are concerned. It is all about stopping any sort of spay neuter efforts and continuing the illusion of no pet over population so the breeders can run free!
I find it curious that Mr. Clinton feels the need legislate (let's use mandate no kill loves that as its better for the ego) that shelters offer their animals to recuses. Have I missed something here? Is there a great conspiracy here that I am unaware of that prevents rescues from taking animals? Lets take Austin for instance Mr. Clinton's home town. There is no prohibition there that prevents rescues from taking animals from the shelter. Yet the shelter is stuffed to the gills! Could it be there are too many animals and not enough rescues and fosters! Oh I forgot. There is no pet over populatin. Silly me never mind.
Looks like the 24 hour provision is on its way to being eliminated from the bill. Focus seems to be on 8 week old kittens (unweaned). They want rescues to be able to take them. Like they can't already?
Did they stop the practice of bringing in adoptable puppies from outside the city to artificially inflate the adoption numbers?
It seems crazy that taxpayers would be paying for animal control to take animal from other cities, and take homes away from Austin pets.
They just experienced Spindletop in Texas, where dogs pulled from animal control were sent to a "sanctuary" and ended up abused and dead.
This went on for years.
They know that dogs getting pulled from animal control are ending up in the hands of hoarders and killers.
And now Ryan Clinton wants to force animal shelters to hand dogs over to more Spindletops to kill?
My understanding is that yes the City finally put a halt to the transfer in of animals. Austin Pets Alive was gettin paid to take those animals in and by their own admission were taking the "fuzzy wuzzies" to spike the adoption numbers. I believe the term they used was "to increase traffic in the shelter so more of the less desireable dogs would be adopted". The City finally figured out they were being taken for a ride and halted the process. Duh!
Mr. Clinton is a lawyer by trade so the only way he knows how to address anything is via lawsuit or legislation. He has "zero" experience in any shelter environment. But he does own a dog, lol. It is curious considering his prolific legislating that he has never authored any legislation concerning breeders or spay and neuter and he never will. His focus is to keep the "spotlight" on those nasty shelters and avoid any blame on the breeders.
I understand that there is a fairly large population of breeders in the Austin area that are illegally not paying taxes.
Some of them lie and call themselves hobby breeders but they are actually businesses, some are running puppy mills or related businesses.
They aren't helping to support the animal control shelter which THEY are partially responsible for filling up.
People should be collecting lists of breeders and finding out about their licensing/zoning/tax status.
Also checking online, classifieds, puppy sale sites, kennel clubs
Offenders can be reported anonymously to the state department of taxation and federal department of taxation
There also should be breeder licensing fees
These breeders lobby against laws because they want to keep up the tax cheating which is hurting everyone.
They collect information on shelters and rescues, and have lobbyists stalk animal groups for their nefarious purposes, so it is time to get real about researching and analyzing them
Ryan Clinton wants more budget. The BREEDERS aren't paying their share into the tax and ac system and are screwing him over while they get him to dance to their tunes.
You would think a lawyer would be able to figure that out, but the quality of lawyers must be at an all time low.
Does this guy really have a practice, or is he just a storefront type ambulance chaser, if that? Or is he getting lobbying money from breeders filtered through his business entity or nonprofit?
My guess is Mr. Clinton is getting lobbying money from the breeders. Mr. Clinton is associated with "No Kill" and Mr. Winograd. Mr. Winograd posted adds for the "Center For Consumer Freedom" on his FB page. The "Center For Consumer Fredom" is a fairly infamous group that poses as an independant non profit in order to lobby for various groups with out the group having their finger prints on it. Kind of odd that Mr. Winograd would just happen to be supportive of that group since they having nothing in common at least on the surface. Or maybe they do, like "No Kill" is a lobby for the breeders? Explains a lot when you consider their stance on no over population, shelters and rescues always at fault,attack HSUS and PETA (both anti breeder) oppose spay and nueter and liscensing requirements. A breeders dream! The HSUS web site has an interesting article written in 2009 explaining their thoughts on the matter. By the way Mr. Winograd kind of a bad move to post that on your FB page. We might still be guessing if you hadn't!
Anon:48, which facebook page are you talking about? We don't do facebook here so you've lost me.
Winograd was also working for Petpac in California and going with that creep AKC breeder to lots of AKC shows/events.
Then there's NAIA
http://www.
sourcewatch
.org/index.php?title=
American_Kennel_
Club#AKC.2C_NAIA_.26_state_breeders_associations who is connected to Center for Consumer Fredom and gets money from them, and all those AKC breeders that run NAIA blew their cover and admitted they were working with Winograd.
Winograd got confronted about it and he got really nervous and tried to deny it nut too late.
Winograd is puppy mill and dog fighter period.
No ethical person connects to Winograd.
Well it should be an interesting spring in Austin. For the first time the City stood fast and did not allow double didget budget increases. They also stood fast and did not pay Austin Pets Alive additional funds. Also, Austin Pets Alive is now proibited from bringing in animals from outside of the jurisdiction to get more revenue but at the expense of saturating Austin's market and in direct competion with the shelter. Couple that with the need of Austin Pets Alive to raise funds to make their current facilty pass State inspection in the fall of this year and it is going to be a challange. That does not even mention the fact Austin Pets Alive's lease on the old animal shelter (Town Lake) only goes through 2015 and low and behold they don't have funds to build a new facility since both their facility and the new Austin shelter are full. Ok so much for no pet over poulation and you can go no kill over night and it costs nothing! Interesting article in the Huffington Post from an attendee at the Austin Pets Alive Conference (tickets paid for by Austin Pets Alive). The published slide show provided by Austin Pets Alive on "How to Help Rescue Pets" is interesting not so much for what it has in it but for what it does not. Actually some pretty good advice in it but only one minor mention of the "No Kill Advocacy Center" at the end. No mention of Winograd or Clinton. No mention of the no kill equation, nothing. Hmmm, could it be that APA is trying to distance themselves from No Kill and will eventually like so many other rescues have move away from supporting the shelter and leave Austin Animal Services holding the bag so to speak? Then of course they just become limited admission, never report numbers since they are private and then blame Austin for failing? Maybe APA sees the handwritting on the wall? Like I say interesting spring. For the animals sake I hope I am wrong.
An interesting side note. Once each year most of the mayors of cities in Texas meet in Austin for a conference. While I would guess Animals Services is not on the top of their discussion list I would love to be a fly on the wall to hear Austin's feedback to them about No Kill. Reduced killing is possible just not with the no kill equation as it stands.
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