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Why AKC's Support of PAWS is So Wrong (and What to do About It) by Cindy Cooke They Can't Enforce PAWS, so Why Do You Care? by Genny Wall Getting Your Club on SAOVA's Official List of PAWS Opposition
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Please Support Pet Owners on the Firing Line! A
group led by Diane Amble paid the expenses for Lassie, 'Timmy' (Jon
Provost) and Rudd Weatherwax, Lassie's trainer, to come to or send a PayPal donation |
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Grooming Aprons and Towels embroidered with 'Fight Anti-Pet Legislation. It Affects Us All" |
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Better: The 35-Minute Package PAWS is in the Senate Agriculture Committee now. We need to get in touch with the members of this committee and let them know the bill is poison! This will take a little more time, because most are accessible only through their own websites' webforms, and there are 20 of them. But we're going to make it as easy as possible. It took me 35 minutes with a dial-up connection to go through this exercise and you might be faster than that. Some of the links below will open an email addressed to the senator. Others open the senator's contact page with an email form for you to complete. Start by clicking on Senator Richard Lugar. (You wrote Senator Chambliss before, right?) Senator Lugar's link opens a blank email. Compose a brief letter opposing PAWS. Here's an outline, but use your own words. If you need to, go to Reasons Pet Fanciers Oppose PAWS and use some of the points there. -- Begin by stating what you want him to do: "Please oppose S 1139, the Pet Animal Wefare Statute." -- Now state who you are and why this matters to you. "I am a Flat Island Zorcher breeder in Bugville. I care deeply about animal welfare, but this bill will do nothing to help pets. On the contrary, it does not even address the problems it promises to solve, and will make the home breeding of quality animals nearly impossible within a few years. Although I am a supporter of the American Kennel Club under most circumstances, it does not represent my views on this bill." -- New paragraph: Give the main reason you oppose PAWS. "The federal government has no legitimate role in regulating small and medium-scale pet breeders. We already have cruelty and neglect laws at the state and local levels to protect these animals. If there are problems, it is the job of local animal control to intervene." -- If you want, add a few more brief comments. "PAWS makes fundamental changes in the Animal Welfare Act. The AWA was intended originally to protect lab animals and was expanded to cover the commercial breeding of dogs. By opening the door to federal regulation of retail breeders, this bill is the first step in a slippery slope to an animal rights agenda." -- Repeat your request as a last paragraph. "Please help us protect home breeding by opposing S 1139." -- Close and sign. You must put your name, street address, city, state, zip, phone number, and email address in your signature. Anonymous notes are discarded without counting. -- Don't get hung up trying to make the letter perfect. Just say what you have to say and keep going. Though someone will read the letter, its greatest value is in being counted in the opposition column. ("Senator, we received a total of five letters in favor of PAWS today and 27 opposed.") Once your letter is drafted, nearly all the work is done. Save the letter to a word processing or email file. Now highlight your entire letter except for the greeting ("Dear Senator Lugar") and press <CTRL C> to copy it to your clipboard. Click on send and go to the next senator. That's Thad Cochran of Mississippi. His link opens a contact page with an email form. Place your cursor on the form and press <CTRL V>. This will paste your letter to Senator Lugar into the form. Add "Dear Senator Cochran at the top, go back and fill in your personal information, and click submit. Go straight through the list following the same procedure. If you lose the letter at some point, go to the saved one, highlight and copy it to the clipboard. You may want to adjust your note a bit when you get to Senator Santorum, sponsor of PAWS, but be polite. This whole process takes about 25 minutes if you don't spin your wheels over the letter for too long!. Congratulations!
You just took a major step in the battle against PAWS. |