Sometimes, laws that have their hearts in the right place can't claim the same about their effects. Laws intended to create healthy, quality homes for animals can sometimes leave caring owners and breeders unknowingly in violation of the law. Some laws even try to prevent individuals from responsible care of feral cat colonies (spay/neuter, food and medical care). Often poorly thought out laws are completely unfunded, making them unenforceable; others unfairly target particular breeds or species without cause and end up costing cities and counties thousands in litigation.

A special place is reserved for those activists who believe it is appropriate to halt any breeding program of any domestic animal. These are individuals who several years ago felt that a cat was better off dead than in a breeding program, or even in a cage in a benching area - they walked through cat show halls dropping poison into water dishes. This kind of sick, twisted logic should horrify anyone who truly cares about animals. Think very seriously and do research before you write a check, sign a petition, or participate in demonstrations for fringe activists - you may be supporting something you don't know about, or would be ashamed of.

In case you didn't know it...included in the mission statement of major "animal rights" groups like PeTA is that someday, there will be NO pets. That no person could ever "imprison" any animal, domesticated or not, in their home. HSUS' new director wants to ban ALL hunting. Make no mistake - these are not people who are running a network of no-kill shelters. These are hard-core, billion dollar lobbying groups. That, and nothing else, is their primary purpose. You send them $30, they do not use it on a bag of cat food, they use it to influence a Senator. Some of these groups are classified as terrorist organizations by the FBI. Please look into organizations that look good on the surface - sometimes they get ugly underneath.

Some folks don't know that HSUS doesn't run a single shelter. They do have this in their "small print" on the official website. Their 2006 financial statement notes that with almost $200 billion in assets, they spent only $6.6 million on shelters - and in a large city, a shelter can cost upwards of half a million each year. They spent three times that on legislation, and twice that on "strategic communication" - in other words, lobbying (see their IRS filing here.). They are under investigation for the $35 million they collected in the name of Hurricane Katrina animal victims - money which never made it to Louisiana - and are now under investigation for collecting millions more promising to use it to care for the seized fighting dogs of Falcons quarterback Michael Vick (in which they had no involvement). Fishy finances and actual shelter funds one of the smallest budgetary items are the hallmark of HSUS. Please - donate instead to your local humane society (who despite the name has NO affiliation with HSUS) and actually help animals.

Most people also don't know that PeTA has a higher than 80% kill rate for every animal they bring into their shelter. Last year two PeTA employees were on trial for a number of charges after lying to NC vets, taking socialized and fully adoptable animals with a promise of finding them loving homes, euthanizing them in a parking lot in the back of a van and dumping their bodies in a grocery store dumpster. You call that ethical treatment of animals? Two other PeTA employees were arrested for stealing a hunting dog and deliberately removing and disposing of its radio collar to prevent the owner from recovering it. Still think these people are on the same page as you are? It takes a little effort but please, before you write that check - know what it's going to be used for. Purebred rescue, often run by breeders out of their homes and on a less-than-shoestring budget, are a much more effective way to use your money to actually save animals.

A new movement, proposed by the above mentioned Animal Rights extremists (who are more accurately called the Anti-Pet Lobby) is to change all laws that call people "owners" of animals to become "guardians" of animals. The thought here is to confer more rights on the animal - think more like a minor child. The reality is, animals are not people. We treat them like family and they are far more than pieces of furniture to decorate the house, by all means. But, they will never reach the legal capacity that say, a maturing child would. We have domesticated animals to the point where they would not be able to successfully survive in the wild - a wild which, we have complicated through the addition of automobiles, pesticides, and pollutants. The movement to the word "guardian" will place all feral caretakers at risk, which in turn will end participation in trap/neuter/release programs - incidentally, T/N/R is the ONLY method proven, in conjunction with local low cost spay/neuter program, to reduce euthanasia rates in shelters. Calling the caretakers "guardians" will put them at legal risk for any number of actions - nuisance, biting, rabies, spaying, and more - that will discourage healthy care of these animals, and creating a larger problem than was started with.

Every state has an animal cruelty law that applies to owners and non-owners of animals. They at a minimum protect animals from torture, killing, and intentional injury, abandonment, and neglect. Breeding an animal is not cruelty, and should not be treated as neglect. States and local municipalities should be encouraged to enforce the laws already on their books - instead, they are being influenced by multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns to impose new and more restrictive laws defining breeding as "cruelty."

These laws target any breeder without regard to the quality of their program. They require fees, either per unaltered animal or breed, often renewed annually. They attempt to regulate breeding by charging exorbitant fees for intact animals in breeding programs - unreasonable amounts for the non-profitable business of breeding. The only purpose of requiring these costly and hard to obtain permits - which often require unannounced visits to your cattery or kennel, which nine times out of ten is a breeder's *home* - are sufficient in themselves to put breeders out of business. Losing legitimate hobby breeders hurts local economies - they put more money into veterinary care and pet store supplies than anyone else - as well as pay sales tax and other taxes, including if appropriate state or federal licensing fees. Adding additional fees may cause them to either stop breeding or leave the state, costing the state and its businesses all that money. It will discourage the holding of pedigreed animal shows, again affecting the local economy negatively. It puts a serious crimp on the ability to obtain and train search and rescue and K9 animals. And it will stop your family from being able to choose the pet that is right for them, when the time comes.

Some cities impose restrictions on the number of pets a person can keep, rather than instead enforcing more reasonable nuisance, noise, health and sanitation laws already on their books. Again, enforcement of these laws is often haphazard and without notice - leaving the breeder open to having their personal residence available at any time of the day or night to searches and potential seizures, if the water dishes aren't full. Sounds like an exaggeration - but I know personally of too many stories to pretend it doesn't happen.

Most states require rabies vaccination to be current, with proof offered on demand. Some laws are outdated, and require annual vaccinations despite the common use of a three year vaccine. Additionally, a valid question exists as to the cause of vaccine related sarcomas, meaning some vets recommend limited or no vaccination for indoor only cats. And according to the CDC, most states have no reported cases of rabies, and haven't for years.

When properly written, these laws ensure that no one's pet cat can interfere with another person's enjoyment of property, such as odor or howling. When written in a vague manner, they will allow unscrupulous neighbors to haul others into court for imagined, unproveable, or nonexistent nuisances. One person's barking three times at a person on the street is another person's nuisance, that will put a dog's life at risk.

Some municipalities require that cats be kept indoors or be on leashes when outside. These laws can unfortunately cast caretakers who responsibly manage feral colonies as their owners - subjecting them to violations of law for each cat in the colony. Such laws misdirect their penalty on those who would reduce the number of stray animals through responsible management - and discourage people from taking steps to reduce strays and help them improve the quality of their lives for fear of liability.

Based on dog licensing, these ordinances are used to generate revenue. Generally, they are impossible or nearly impossible to administer and enforce, and because of liberal wording regarding "ownership" discourage trap-neuter-return programs that offer to care for and reduce the number of stray or feral cats.

It is reasonable to require that a breeder live up to contract terms, including those regarding replacement of an animal with significant illness or premature death. However, while many municipalities seek to protect the consumer through law and enforcement of contracts, they simultaneously refuse to enforce contracts in the breeder's favor (reclamation of ill-treated animal, injunction against declawing operation). This is an unfair application of law against those who have the animal's best interest in mind.