Planet of the Apes may not be too far off!

glennmac · Aug 16, 2001

This seems to be the website of the "They Are Not Our Property, We Are Not Their Owners" campaign:

http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/property/updates.html

The Rhode Island legislation was apparently conceived, drafted and proposed by a group of high school students who were working on a dog therapy project. The testimony provided by the students themselves was so "compelling" that the state legislature passed the bill "easily." Similar laws have apparently passed in Berkeley, West Hollywood and Boulder. The site has a link to the actual text of the RI legislation, which is lengthy. I'll read it later and tell you what is says.

GlueGuy · Aug 16, 2001

Isn't it bad enough that it is a felony (in CA) to kick your neighbor's cat

You sure about that Patrick? I live there, & I've never heard such a thing. In fact, I know someone who refers to a "certain person" as "the cat kicker" because she saw him do it. He never even got a ticket, let alone arrested. This sounds like an urban legend.

The GlueGuy

glennmac · Aug 16, 2001

The legislation passed in Rhode Island and a the three cities does nothing and changes nothing legally. All it does is define a new term, "animal guardian", as interchangeable with the term "animal owner". It changes none of the rights of an animal owner. It is just a symbolic change made at the request of animal lovers, intended to suggest that our relationship with animals is special. It's what you might call terminological PR and PC. A good analogy is a law that substitutes the term "Afro-American person" for the term "Black person". No one's rights change, but certain people feel the term is more appropriate.

Here is an article from JAVMA that discusses the animal guardian laws. I agree with the quote from the Rutgers law professor near the end.

Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association April 15, 2001

Owners or guardians?

Cities change identity of pet owners, hoping to promote welfare

In less than a year, three city councils have approved replacing "pet owner" with "pet guardian" in their municipal codes. The distinction is meant to codify the special relationship people share with their animals, while also encouraging them to think of their pets not as property but as sentient beings.

This past July, Boulder, Colo, became the first city in the country to replace all references to "pet owner" with "pet guardian." A few months later, two California cities followed suit. West Hollywood approved the word change on Feb 20, as did another California city, Berkeley, a week later. Berkeley chose not to omit "owner" entirely, however, but substituted "pet owner/guardians" instead.

That same month, a bill (HB 6119) was introduced in the Rhode Island General Assembly that would create a definition for "guardian" in the state animal cruelty law and use the word interchangeably with "owner."

The bill and revised municipal codes all make clear that the rights, responsibilities, and liabilities are the same for the guardian as they were for the owner, and that pets are still personal property. But supporters of the word change suggest it will engender better treatment of animals by reshaping how owners see themselves in relation to their pets.

"The significance is essentially symbolic," said Jim Hynes, assistant to Berkeley's city manager. "[The measure is] trying to change the way people think about animals, less as property, more as living creatures."

As was the case in Boulder and West Hollywood, the guardian ordinance passed the Berkeley City Council with relative ease. One reason is that its proponents say it promotes personal responsibility rather than granting animals any special rights or social role. Since the word replacement was a low-cost, symbolic gesture requiring no changes to enforcement programs, there was little reason for the city manager or the city attorney to object, Hynes explained.

Reaction from the veterinary community over the alternative wording is mixed, and it's still too soon to tell what effect it will have, if any.

There would have been more public resistance had the "guardian" term not expressed what many city residents believe to be true about their role as pet owners, observed Dr. Gary Patronek, director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine.

"The reason [the ordinance passed] is it's not a contentious issue," Dr. Patronek said. He predicts a relatively small number of city councils will make similar ordinance changes but, overall, there won't be a groundswell of popular support because it doesn't solve a particular problem.

On the other hand, Dr. John Hamil, former president of the California VMA and once vice-chairman of the AVMA Animal Welfare Committee, worries about the unintended legal implications of pet owners being identified as guardians. Lawyers may not share the public's view about what pet guardianship entails. "We could find ourselves as a profession, or as animal owners, caught in obligations that we had no understanding of, and certainly no intention of," he said.

Dr. James M. Harris, vice chairman of the AVMA Committee on the Human-Animal Bond, sees the issue as potentially exposing practitioners to a flurry of malpractice suits for allegedly failing to deliver the appropriate medical care necessitated by an animal's social value. In this scenario, practitioners would have to raise their rates to compensate for skyrocketing liability coverage; some clients would then be unable to afford even basic veterinary care for their pets.

"Words have power, words have meaning, and they are not to be taken lightly," Dr. Hamil warned, adding that it will be the courts that have the final say. "Be assured, somebody's going to try this on for size before long."

The California-based In Defense of Animals, an animal rights group that advocates abolishment of the buying and selling of pets, has been involved directly or indirectly in all three cities adopting the alternative language. Four years ago IDA began a campaign-"They Are Not Our Property, We Are Not Their Owners"-to elevate the social and moral status of animals from that of property to creatures with their own needs and interests. The group hopes to achieve this by changing the words society uses to talk about animals.

IDA made headlines in September 1999 when an animal advisory commission to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved replacing "pet owner" with "pet guardian." Although the board did not adopt the recommendation, the guardian message struck a chord in other cities.

"Now there's thousands of people in this country who are officially recognized as guardians, no longer as owners," said IDA founder, Dr. Elliot Katz, about the city councils that approved the alternative wording. Initiatives are already under way in other cities, he said.

But according to Gary Francione, professor of law at Rutgers University School of Law in New Jersey, the pet guardian initiative is "windowdressing" that lacks any legal bearing.

"Either the dog that lives with me is my property or she isn't," said Francione, who's specialized in animal law for more than a decade. "If she is, you can call me a guardian, you can call me whatever you want to call me. The bottom line, she only has the value that I give her because that's what property means."

A self-professed animal rights advocate, Francione believes society should be discussing the issue of animals as property, but that symbolic statements accomplish nothing. For the same reasons cited by Dr. Harris, he is concerned about what he sees as a growing number of veterinary malpractice suits he thinks are counterproductive to animal welfare. Francione, however, does not see the change as having substantial legal implications at this point.

"If you have a companion animal, nobody needs to tell you that you're a guardian because you already think that way anyway," he said. "But the other people who place a low value on their animals, you can talk about guardianship all you want, and it won't make any difference."

I'd be interested to know how Western Horseman magazine characterized the law.

glennmac · Aug 16, 2001

Probably not a good idea to kick cats in California, or even to go fishing:

CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE
PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF
§ 597. Cruelty to animals

(a) Except as provided in subdivision (c) of this section or Section 599c, every person who maliciously and intentionally maims, mutilates, tortures, or wounds a living animal, or maliciously and intentionally kills an animal, is guilty of an offense punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, or by a fine of not more than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment, or, alternatively, by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year, or by a fine of not more than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.

(b) Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (a) or (c), every person who overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, drink, or shelter, cruelly beats, mutilates, or cruelly kills any animal, or causes or procures any animal to be so overdriven, overloaded, driven when overloaded, overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of necessary sustenance, drink, shelter, or to be cruelly beaten, mutilated, or cruelly killed; and whoever, having the charge or custody of any animal, either as owner or otherwise, subjects any animal to needless suffering, or inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon the animal, or in any manner abuses any animal, or fails to provide the animal with proper food, drink, or shelter or protection from the weather, or who drives, rides, or otherwise uses the animal when unfit for labor, is, for every such offense, guilty of a crime punishable as a misdemeanor or as a felony or alternatively punishable as a misdemeanor or a felony and by a fine of not more than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000).

(c) Every person who maliciously and intentionally maims, mutilates, or tortures any mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish as described in subdivision (d), is guilty of an offense punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, or by a fine of not more than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment, or, alternatively, by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year, by a fine of not more than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.

(d) Subdivision (c) applies to any mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish which is a creature described as follows:

(1) Endangered species or threatened species as described in Chapter 1.5 (commencing with Section 2050) of Division 3 of the Fish and Game Code.

(2) Fully protected birds described in Section 3511 of the Fish and Game Code.

(3) Fully protected mammals described in Chapter 8 (commencing with Section 4700) of Part 3 of Division 4 of the Fish and Game Code.

(4) Fully protected reptiles and amphibians described in Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 5050) of Division 5 of the Fish and Game Code.

(5) Fully protected fish as described in Section 5515 of the Fish and Game Code.

This subdivision does not supersede or affect any provisions of law relating to taking of the described species, including, but not limited to, Section 12008 of the Fish and Game Code.

(e) For the purposes of subdivision (c), each act of malicious and intentional maiming, mutilating, or torturing a separate specimen of a creature described in subdivision (d) is a separate offense. If any person is charged with a violation of subdivision (c), the proceedings shall be subject to Section 12157 of the Fish and Game Code.

(f) Upon the conviction of a person charged with a violation of this section by causing or permitting an act of cruelty, as defined in Section 599b, all animals lawfully seized and impounded with respect to the violation by a peace officer, officer of a humane society, or officer of a pound or animal regulation department of a public agency shall be adjudged by the court to be forfeited and shall thereupon be awarded to the impounding officer for proper disposition. A person convicted of a violation of this section by causing or permitting an act of cruelty, as defined in Section 599b, shall be liable to the impounding officer for all costs of impoundment from the time of seizure to the time of proper disposition.

Mandatory seizure or impoundment shall not apply to animals in properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations performed under the authority of the faculty of a regularly incorporated medical college or university of this state.

cowboydoc · Aug 17, 2001

Glenn,
They have a section called political watch that summarizes everything that is happening in the country with relation to animals. It said pretty much the same as what the article that you had except they pointed out that guardian was just the first step towards giving animals full rights by the animal rights activists. What their goal is, and this was not western horseman but right from them, is to slowly change the laws so we don't realize they're being changed until one day animals do have full rights. The article you cited mentioned this as well.

glennmac · Aug 17, 2001

Richard,

In that clumsy post of mine I was sort of tweaking you for citing a horse magazine as authority for legal developments in Rhode Island. What I mean is, I read a lot of magazines, too, and there is always a common trend. The magazine has a specific audience--say, horsemen like you, or kayakers like me. The magazine will be very good at reporting on technical stuff about horses and kayaking. But when there is a political development that could threaten the ecomomic or cultural life of the magazine's audience, they tend, editorially, to go into a sky-is-falling mentality. The kayaking magazine, for example, will tend to characterize a federal project to patch a hole in Hoover Dam as a conspiracy to dam up all of America's free flowing rivers (to exaggerate the point). Actually, I believe that that is a proper role for such magazines, for they are the spokesman for their audience's values.

It may be that the animal activists want more legal rights for animals--whatever that means. But this particular legislation isn't it. The horrible fact is that there is a lot of animal abuse in this country--and spouse and child abuse as well--but as little as I think of politicians, I dont believe any legislature would ever give "human" rights to animals. After all, those rights aren't even given to fetuses--but even I won't go there, here.

By the way, my wife who is a vegetarian and animal rights sympathizer, takes the hormone. She was unaware of the PMU controversy, so that thread is affecting realtime health decisions in my family right now. Sort of a more significant decision than choosing a blue or green tractor.

ddl · Aug 17, 2001

PETA does that sand for People eating tastey aminals???

dmccarty · Aug 17, 2001

CowBoyDoc,

My interpretation of the posted information as well as the WSJ article years ago is the same. This is just the first step towards giving animal's rights. And the full aim of these people is to make vegitarians out of everyone. I know that sounds extreme but that is their aim. If an animal is not "owned" then how can I sell the animal? How can it be bought and slaughtered for food? How would this effect milk or egg production?

The WSJ article was very specific about this being a long process and the first step was the simple name change of ownership to guaridian....

Kinda on the same subject but not as extreme. Well maybe it is depending on ones point of view.... NPR had a show on yesterday afternoon that I think was about the rising cost/capability in pet care. I missed the first part of the show but this was what they were talking about when I started listening.

One of the vets on the show had a case of a sick dog. The owners or should I say Guardians, /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif, brought in the dog. But it was not just the husband and wife that brought in the dog, all the kids came but one, who we will get to in a minute, aunts and uncles showed up as well grandparents. They were all concerned about the dog. The vet made the comment that he had never seen so many people come in with a pet like this. One of the parents said he did not know the half of it. The missing son had previously broken an arm which had been set in a cast but it was time for the doctor to check the arm. They sent the son to the doctor by himself while the rest of the family brought in the dog! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Later....
Dan McCarty

StoneHeartFarm · Aug 17, 2001

ErnieB

The problem with all of these laws is that they are not being enforced. Because they are not enforced, people are unaware of them. There is no consequence to passing the law, adding just one more piece of paper to the pile. When there IS enforcement, it is spotty, hit or miss, a "we don't like you so this is illegal for you" basis. Therefore, people figure that if the existing laws aren't enough, we need more new ones so we can make everyone live the way we think they should.

My hunch is sooner or later, ALL of these laws will be enforced. Right now, they are just piling up and waiting for the right "officials" to come along. When enough of these laws have been passed, a series of lawsuits against local Governments to get them enforced will put the snowball in motion. If your cat gets a mouse they could nail YOU, the guardian for cruelty.

SHF

Anonymous Poster · Aug 17, 2001

I can't read "Brave New World", as reported recently its been banned in many high schools and removed from many public library shelves.

BTW, a local man goes to trial next week for kicking a puppy (who later died) for repeatedly crapping in his yard while his owner watched and mocked the old man. I don't condone his action but he faces up to 2 years in prison which is more than we do to child molesters and rapists.

PitbullMidwest

PETA=People Eating Tasty Animals