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Californian law change means pet shops can sell only rescued animals
California is set to become the first state in the US to ban the sale of non-rescue animals in pet shops.
The new law, known as AB 485, takes effect on 1 January. Any businesses violating it face a $500 (£400) fine.
The change means cats, dogs and rabbits sold by retailers cannot be sourced from breeders, only from animal shelters.
Animal rights groups have heralded it as a step forward against so-called "kitten factories" and "puppy mills".
Previously: California Commercial Pet Breeding Law Passed, Signed
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Californian Law Change Means Pet Shops Can Sell Only Rescued Animals
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sulla on Monday December 31 2018, @07:44AM (18 children)
Recently my wife and I were looking to get a dog for the kids to grow up with. I checked out all the pounds/adoption places in town and there were no dogs that were not a mix of either pit or ankle biter. I don't have any interest in either. Ended up finding an akc breeder outside of town with purebread collies for a reasonable price.
There are too many pit and pit mixes and you should not have a pit/pit mix and kids. People will go adopt one of the dogs available (put or chichuaha) and then abandon them when they realise they don't like agressive dogs or loud rats.
Cali should just ban pets fully, thats their longterm goal anyways.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday December 31 2018, @08:39AM (3 children)
In Aussie slang, the most common meaning for "ankle biter" is toddler.
Yes, I know, context...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday December 31 2018, @09:23AM
The US, where you can lock the ankle-biters in the yard all night..
Australia, where thongs are worn on the feet [thongsaustralia.com].
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 31 2018, @12:06PM (1 child)
I'm 'Murican, and "ankle biter" means toddler to me as well.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 01 2019, @02:31AM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 31 2018, @02:10PM (2 children)
I'm not in favor of a pet ban, but I will mention that the oyster beds of Sarasota bay used to be edible until the population around the bay exploded. By the 1970s, human waste was controlled and treated to a point that the remaining pollution in Sarasota bay came more from pet waste runoff than human sewage. The oysters are of course, to this day, still inedible.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 01 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
Or agricultural runoff and lawn chemicals (pet poo is not the only lawn chemical, let us note!).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 01 2019, @03:38AM
Oh, don't get me started on the tomato farmers of Sarasota County...
or beachfront property owners who fertilize their lawns.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Revek on Monday December 31 2018, @03:09PM (9 children)
Pits are fine with children. Never owned one but had a friend who took in a female pit. It was great with their three kids. The most gentle dog you could ever own. Dog are a reflection of their owner.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 31 2018, @04:12PM (5 children)
The plural of anecdote is not data.
One of my friends in high school had a male pit. He was "gentle" with the family but would stare down and growl at anyone who came over to the house. The family would yell at him to stop, but he would be right back at it in no time. I never witnessed him attack, but I kept my visits infrequent after they got their dog.
In a city nearby my home, there was a dog mauling a couple years ago. You guessed it, pitbulls. The woman had complained to the city and animal control, but was told nothing could be done. The dogs finally caught and killed her.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 31 2018, @04:39PM (4 children)
True. If you look at the actual data, you'll notice that the vast majority of pit bulls never cause problems. If you look at the issue even more closely, you'll realize that it's difficult to even properly identify pit bulls in the first place, so many of the (already very small number of) bites blamed on pit bulls might not have even been done by pit bulls. Pit bulls also just happen to be the latest breed of dog that the media is fearmongering about; this isn't the first time this has happened.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 31 2018, @08:24PM (1 child)
I've heard the same thing about doberman, if you don't raise them to be mean, they're actually quite nice to have as pets. So much of the trouble here isn't the animals, but the people who care for them.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday December 31 2018, @11:09PM
Doberman's make up 1.4% of fatal attacks over the past decade compared to pitts 65.5%. Lot more shitty pitt owners out there.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 01 2019, @03:37AM (1 child)
There has always been some "scary breed" of dog. Before Pitbulls it was Dobermans. Before Dobermans it was German Shepherds. Before German Shepherds, it was -- are you ready for this? Collies. And before that, it was what we now know as the English Mastiff.
Mastiffs descend from dogs of war.
Collies were bootleggers' preferred guard dog, because they bark at everything (including the cops), and old-line collies were fairly aggressive toward intruders.
Dobermans and German Shepherds were both developed primarily as man-killers for the German army.
Pitbulls were developed from a mix of bulldog (bred to catch and hold bulls) and terrier (bred to kill small vermin) ... to fight other pitbulls. They were NOT developed to go after humans (indeed, a pit-fighting dog that bit its handler would catch a bullet).
Now, tell me which one you think most likely to default to "dangerous to humans".
Where pitbulls have been banned, the number of serious bites has not decreased. Why? Because the same idiots who want a "scary" dog find some other scary dog. And increasingly, because 'rescue' dogs of iffy provenance and uncertain temperament are being foisted on unsuspecting pet owners. Per CDC numbers, 'rescue' dogs are about 18% of the pet population, but commit 50% of the serious bites (with two cases that I know of where a 'rescue' dog killed its new owner within 24 hours of being adopted). How does that jive with the idea that pet stores, where the least-experienced people shop for a pet, should only sell 'rescues' ?? Cue the liability lawsuits.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 01 2019, @07:55AM
I'm not sure I believe your assertion and the more important statistic is the number of deaths anyway.
Whichever the case, this is why I earlier suggested that owners be held criminally liable for the actions of their dogs. You want a big scary dog that bites? Better make damn sure he stays under your control at all times and never escapes. Otherwise, you send someone to the hospital and it's a charge of felony battery. Maul a kid to death? That's first degree manslaughter. If cops have to come out more than once to corral your dog, you lose your rights to be a pet owner just like felons lose their right to firearms. Cops make a visit for aggressive behavior and you have no license, shot records, or liability insurance? You lose your rights to be a pet owner. Motorists lose their rights to drive if they fail to have liability insurance and face jail time if they drive with no license. We make gun owners lock up their guns for safety sake. We make swimming pool owners install fencing and locked gates. Why not sensible rules for aggressive dog owners? Can't afford a homeowner's policy that covers pit bulls? You can't afford to have one then.
If people are the problem, punish the people. Misdemeanor charges and chalking it up injury to force majeure is what gets people mauled to death.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday December 31 2018, @09:48PM (2 children)
Incorrect. Dogs are a reflection of their breeding and environment. You cannot discount genetics, or what has happened to some breeds of dogs as specific strains. The problem with pit bulls is their heritage. There are many super aggressive pits that exist as 10th+ generations bred for animal fighting and "thug life" accessories.
Rottweillers are no different. When my family sought them out, we bought them from a farm that had been breeding them from different traits, and had done so for 10+ generations. That's a multi-generational farm (human terms) that had been breeding for traits like gentleness. I would happily take a pit from a professional breeder that had been breeding for positive traits for many generations, but would eschew a puppy that for all I know was from a mom who as abused and a 20th gen attack dog used in dog fighting.
Animals are animals. It took awhile, but even Siegfried and Roy figured that out.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Revek on Wednesday January 02 2019, @04:08PM (1 child)
You agreed with my statement in you're answer. Sure breeding counts for something. But how many generations does it take to make a inherently mean dog. That environment you talk about. Thats the owner and how they are treated. So we are back to Dogs are a reflection of their owner. You can make most any animal mean but that doesn't make all of their offspring mean. Quite frankly its nonsense to think that you can make them killers or gentle by breeding alone. How many pits have you been around regularly?
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday January 03 2019, @07:16PM
I did not agree with your statement. You've discounted breeding as insignificant, when it's really quite significant. I've seen dogs broken down to nothing and helped them back, and there is a difference between trauma (a very fearful dog), and one that responds with more violence out of instinct because of pain.
How many generations to see changes in traits? Less than 10 most likely. You've got a big tendency to anthropomorphize these dogs, when the reality is just instinctual behavior dictated by breeding. You can have a very sweet dog, just the sweetest, and you accidentally cause it pain it will react by its instinct (different per breed). In the case of Rotts bred to be family guard dogs, that might be a serious bite, where they are otherwise extremely gentle.
Come on, that statement itself is nonsense. Of course you can breed those two traits. You're not saying that this type of genetic modification via selection doesn't work are you? You take a Jack Russel Terrier for instance. Those suckers are killers, died in the wool, killers. At least for rats, the human population of ankles seems to be safe. That's a trait you can select against, and remember, the Jack Russel Terrier didn't exist 50,000 years ago. They're descendants of the undomesticated dog and were created from another breed with emphasis on courage and going after the foxes in their dens. That would seem to be a killer trait. Then you can take gentleness, and this has been a trait widely selected for.
You seem to think I'm against pits, which isn't true. As I wrote, it would depend on the heritage and breeding. I wouldn't accept one from the streets, and you can feel that is discriminatory, but I still would prefer one from a professional breeder. A professional breeder may be breed once or twice a year per female dog, and they arrange which dogs they breed with through other breeders. In a few decades, that is quite a bit of selection going on, and yes you can see differences in 20 generations. Constantly selecting for the pit that has desirable traits isn't Alchemy as you seem to suggest, but SOP.
Pits and Rotts especially have an offshoot of the breed that is descended from street fighting dogs, and dogs put through underground dog fights. Sad as it sounds, those dogs were selected for undesirable traits to us. Whether you can process or it not, not all Pits are the same. With every dog you need to look at its breeding, and not attribute Disney-like wishes as to its character. It's NOT 100% environment. We can argue about what it is, but the genetics plays a bigger role than you say it does.
To answer your final question, about once per week late at night. Janitorial staff has a pit bull for safety. Huge, and the sweetest and most gentle dog I've ever met. Total goofball.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 01 2019, @01:07AM
I used to volunteer at a no kill* shelter.
There is some truth to this. There are a lot of pit mixes in the pound / shelters. A large part of the problem is that folks get pits when they are puppies. Then, when the puppy grows up, these folks realize they are not capable of keeping the pit in a manner that is both safe and healthy for the animal, and safe for their family and neighbors. The other issue is that as puppies get big, people's hearts grow small-- a problem that affects more than just pits.
But, the pound/shelter "inventory" does get added to pretty regularly, so just keep visiting over about a month, and you will probably find a pup you will fall in love with (best thing ever was meeting pups out with their new families [in the park, walking, etc.], and seeing the joy on both pup and people's faces).
But, I agree that I wouldn't want a pit (or rottie) in my home, since both breeds have an issue with "snapping" and, while rare, the bloodbath that results is nothing I want my family involved in.
But, some folks want pits, and as you point out, a lot of people want to get rid of their pits. So, we did the best thing we could come up with, and made sure all the animals from the shelter were spayed/neutered, so we would not be making the unwanted pit problem any worse (or unwanted pup problem, in general, any worse).
Disclaimer: Californian that supports this law. And, if eventually we need to import pound pups from out of state (preventing those pups in out-of-state kill shelters from unnecessarily dying), then that is a great problem to have.
* Ours was a real no kill shelter. Sadly, many so called no kill shelters kill *a lot* of pups, cats, and other animals. The small print they use to justify this, states that they can euthanize unadoptable or sick animals. Of course, unadoptable, is conveniently defined as the animals that they kill.