CALIFORNIA BREEDERS IN CRISIS, THEN

AKC GOES NEUTRAL ON AB 1634

Dateline August 14, 2008 extracted excerpts from Ken & Patti Burton and other sources...

The American Kennel Club set precedent by campaigning with Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) the sponsor (with Dick Durbin) of PAWS, the Pet Animal Welfare Statute.  For Instant Information, see AKC's Vigorous Support For PAWS Legislation: ii Instant Information

It was a potentially deadly blow for all legislative groups but dog fanciers and the Cat Fanciers Assoc. (registry) fought back.

AKC's website's latest update on AB 1634 is titled "CA AB 1634 Officially Amended" and as of 8/14 (8:26 AM Pacific Time) at: http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=3562 and the latest AKC Alert on AB 1634 is still ==> [Wednesday, August 06, 2008]

That was for the previous version (8/5/08) of AB1634!

• All the Senators (as of 8/14) seem to believe AKC has NO objection to AB 1634, as indicated by Senator Lowenthal's conversation with his constituents last Friday, and now by the staff of another Senator yesterday.

 

• AKC has been silent on the latest amendment to AB 1634 which is said to:

turn ALL dog and cat owners into second-class citizens, required to carry proof of licenses and sterilizations, and be forced to submit to electronic tracking that allows AR extremists to know exactly where we live so they can target us. These are only a couple of the serious problems with AB1634.

AB 1634 is capricious, expensive and unnecessary. It will financially crippled most California pet owners. It will also force more people to surrender their pets, hence increasing shelter kills.

As the Senate is poised to vote on this horrific bill at any time ... It is grossly inadequate at this point for AKC staff to simply verbally assure frantic fanciers that it still opposes AB 1634. The reality is - all the SENATORS believe OTHERWISE, and (as of 8/14) AKC has not taken any observable action to correct that impression, which suggests tacit AKC agreement.

AKC needs to clearly demonstrate to purebred dog owners that it STRONGLY Opposes this odious legislation. Lip service at this critical time is grossly inadequate. Is AKC with us in this life or death struggle? If so, we desperately need to see substantive ACTION. We are running out of time!!!!

---- Ken & Patti Burton - Kifka Borzoi, Kifka@Kifka.com

Update From Bill Ward:

I’m sure you are all aware that this afternoon, just as we were expecting a Senate vote on AB 1634, AKC published a formal statement announcing that they had worked privately with the authors of AB 1634 to rewrite parts of the bill the result of which is the current version, announced yesterday morning. As a result of these changes AKC withdrew its opposition to AB 1634 and officially adopted a position of “neutral” on the bill.

You can read the actual AKC statement on their web site: http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=3566