At a hearing yesterday, the Los Angeles Board of Animal Commissioners was asked to reconsider a city pound policy where “dogs in late-term pregnancy are spayed and their puppies are put to death.” According to the head of Los Angeles Animal Services, “The spaying of late-term pregnant dogs results in puppies being born by the equivalent of a C-section. They are able to survive on their own, but these puppies are immediately put to death…
And dog “aggression” may be no exception. With the City of Austin’s municipal animal control shelter killing only 1/20th of 1% of dogs out of over 8,000 for perceived “aggression,” we know the number of dogs who are deemed by pounds as “aggressive” should be rare. We also know that even if we concede particular dogs are exhibiting “aggression,” roughly 90% need nothing more than getting out of the shelter and into a foster…
New York City’s Health Department signed a 34-year contract with its own subsidiary, Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC). The contract was pushed through with minimal input from the public, and was signed despite the fact that it will affect hundreds of thousands of animals, the Department is paying itself $1.4 billion of the public’s money, and serious animal care deficits at the pound, including vivisection-like abuse activists have dubbed “spay, neuter, kill.” On average,…
On Dec. 20, PETA filed a motion in California state court to require Nathan Winograd to reveal the identities of his confidential sources who worked at PETA and disclosed information about PETA’s practices. Last week, he filed an opposition invoking his rights under the California Constitution’s shield law & the #FirstAmendment reporter’s privilege, which apply to those engaged in acts of journalism — gathering information from confidential sources with the intent to publish it. Read…
Animals in “shelters” and pounds have no voice of their own and need others to speak for them. In a victory for free speech — and a victory for anyone who has spoken out on behalf of animals mistreated, abused, and killed in city pounds — a Federal Court of Appeal ruled for the first time yesterday that public officials cannot censor comments or block individuals on their official social media pages for criticizing…
Yesterday I did a radio interview to share all the successes we had as a movement in 2018 and to discuss what the future holds for 2019 and beyond. Although the interview was 45 minutes long, I did not get to cover all the things I wanted to talk about. So here is my list (in no particular order): We made it illegal to eat dogs and cats by banning it in the 44 states…
As many of you may know, PETA has demanded that I reveal the names of individuals who have worked at PETA and spoke to me on condition of anonymity about PETA’s killing. The information they provided was used to corroborate newspaper articles, on the record sources, government documents received under the Public Records Act, testimony and information from civil and criminal cases against PETA, photographs, videotape evidence, and admissions by PETA officials. Their testimony was…
The new year will bring three much-needed new laws (and bring us one year closer to two others) that further protect and promote the rights of animals in California. Starting tomorrow: Dogs, cats, and other animal companions will be treated like family, rather than property in divorce cases. California courts will now consider the best interest of those animals in awarding custody. “As more divorcing couples fight over who gets to keep their pets, a…
Part III of a series of 2018 animal news in review. McDonald’s McVegan made a European debut to rave reviews. Early in the new year, I’ll be doing a radio interview highlighting the biggest animal stories and trends of 2018 and what the future holds for 2019. Although I’ll be primarily speaking about all the ways we got closer to winning the war against shelter killing (and we are more than 90% of the way…
Part II of a series of 2018 animal news in review. Early in the new year, I’ll be doing a radio interview highlighting the biggest shelter animal stories and trends of 2018 and what the future holds for 2019. I’ll be talking about community cat programs and pitty parties, and a whole lot more. Details coming soon: Earlier, I posted that 2018 marked a tipping point when it comes to dogs we classify as “pit…