Minnesota Prepared to Enact New Dangerous Dog Act

On January 14th of the current year, District 66A Representative John Lesch ( rep.john.lesch@house.mn ) and Representative of District 64B Michael Paymar ( rep.michael.paymar@house.mn ) introduced a bill that would require owners or those individuals identified as owners of 'dangerous or potentially dangerous dogs" to participate in responsible dog ownership classes. Additional information on this bill indicates that yet again the government is insinuating itself into the affairs of the people without truly addressing the needs of the community at large.

Read more here: https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0115.0.html&session=ls86

You may have to copy and paste the above link.

I have taken the liberty of posting the whole sordid mess here:

H.F. No. 115, as introduced - 86th Legislative Session (2009-2010) Posted on Jan 14, 2009

1.1A bill for an act
1.2relating to dogs; requiring certain dog owners to take responsible dog owner
1.3classes and pass certain tests; requiring maintenance of a database; proposing
1.4coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 347.
1.5BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

1.6 Section 1. [347.57] DEFINITIONS.
1.7 Subdivision 1. Applicability. The definitions in this section apply to sections
1.8347.57 to 347.67.
1.9 Subd. 2. Animal control authority. "Animal control authority" means an agency of
1.10the state, county, municipality, or other governmental subdivision of the state which is
1.11responsible for animal control operations in its jurisdiction.
1.12 Subd. 3. Class training manual. "Class training manual" means the materials used
1.13to train the facilitator and the materials used by facilitators to train the dog owner.
1.14 Subd. 4. Dog owner. "Dog owner" means the owner of a dog that has been declared
1.15dangerous or potentially dangerous.
1.16 Subd. 5. Facilitator. "Facilitator" means a person who teaches the responsible dog
1.17owner class and administers the test to the dog owner.
1.18 Subd. 6. Program manager. "Program manager" means the person who oversees
1.19and coordinates the responsible dog owner class, trains the facilitators, and handles
1.20recordkeeping of the classes.
1.21 Subd. 7. Responsible dog owner class. "Responsible dog owner class" means a
1.22class for owners of dogs that have been declared dangerous or potentially dangerous
1.23under section 347.50.

2.1 Sec. 2. [347.58] RESPONSIBLE DOG OWNER CLASS.
2.2(a) The owner of a dog that has been declared dangerous or potentially dangerous
2.3under section 347.50 must take and pass the responsible dog owner class lasting
2.4approximately four hours. A photo identification of the dog owner is required at the time
2.5of the class to confirm ownership of the dog. The dog owner must enroll in a class within
2.630 days of the dog being declared potentially dangerous or dangerous. The dog owner
2.7must attend the class at the next scheduled class date. The class is for the owner of the
2.8dog only; dogs are not allowed in the class.
2.9(b) Dog owners who own dogs that were previously declared dangerous must
2.10take the responsible dog owner class. The dog owner must attend the class at the next
2.11scheduled class date after the effective date of this section.
2.12(c) The Department of Public Safety must charge the dog owner a reasonable fee for
2.13attending the class.

2.14 Sec. 3. [347.59] PROGRAM MANAGER.
2.15(a) The program manager must be:
2.16(1) a veterinarian in good standing in Minnesota with a minimum of three years
2.17experience; or
2.18(2) a person with a minimum of five years experience working in an animal-related
2.19field, including knowledge and training of dog behavior and education of the public on
2.20dog behavior.
2.21(b) A background check must be performed on a person applying to be a program
2.22manager. The applicant must pass the background check without any violations prior to
2.23being appointed. No person who has been convicted of animal cruelty under Minnesota
2.24law or any other state law may be a program manager.
2.25(c) The Department of Public Safety shall employ the program manager and
2.26determine how much the program manager shall be paid for providing program manager
2.27services.

2.28 Sec. 4. [347.60] FACILITATOR.
2.29A facilitator must have a minimum of five years experience in dog training or in
2.30educating the public on dog behavior. A background check must be performed on a
2.31facilitator and a facilitator must pass the background check without any violations prior to
2.32that person being appointed and trained. No person who has been convicted of animal
2.33cruelty under Minnesota law or any other state law may be a facilitator. A facilitator must
2.34receive retraining by the program manager every three years to remain a facilitator.

3.1 Sec. 5. [347.61] TRAINING.
3.2Ongoing training must be provided by the program manager to facilitators, including
3.3updating the class training manual and teaching facilitators current information.

3.4 Sec. 6. [347.62] ANIMAL CONTROL AUTHORITY DUTIES.
3.5The animal control authority that declares a dog dangerous or potentially dangerous
3.6must provide the following information to the program manager and the Department of
3.7Public Safety:
3.8(1) name, address, and telephone number of the dog owner;
3.9(2) description of the dog;
3.10(3) a tracking number to identify the case; and
3.11(4) any other pertinent information.

3.12 Sec. 7. [347.63] NOTIFICATION.
3.13The program manager must send a written notification to the owners of dogs
3.14declared dangerous or potentially dangerous that they must register for a class within 30
3.15days, how to register for the class, and any other pertinent information.

3.16 Sec. 8. [347.64] CLASS TRAINING MANUAL; FORMS; CURRICULUM; TEST.
3.17(a) The class training manual and curriculum must address the basic needs of the
3.18dog, both behavioral and physical, and include education on dog care and dog behavior.
3.19The class training manual, forms, test, and curriculum must be prepared in consultation
3.20with a study commission and printed by the Department of Public Safety.
3.21(b) Upon completion of the responsible dog owner class, a facilitator must administer
3.22a multiple choice test to the dog owner and grade the test. A dog owner who fails the
3.23test must retake the test within two weeks.
3.24(c) If the owner of a dog declared dangerous fails the test twice, the animal control
3.25authority must seize the animal and provide for disposition of the animal pursuant to
3.26sections 347.54 and 347.541.
3.27(d) If the owner of a dog declared potentially dangerous fails the test twice, the
3.28animal control authority must make the determination as to disposition of the dog.
3.29(e) If a dog owner fails to register for a responsible dog owner class or fails to appear
3.30for the class and take the test, the dog owner must be considered as having failed the test.
3.31(f) A facilitator must provide a certificate of class completion to a dog owner upon
3.32successfully passing the test. A facilitator must forward a verification of completion or
3.33non-completion form and the tests to the program manager. The program manager must
4.1verify the information and forward it to the animal control authority and the Department
4.2of Public Safety.

4.3 Sec. 9. [347.65] LOCATION OF CLASS.
4.4Responsible dog owner classes must be offered to dog owners at locations
4.5determined by the program manager on a quarterly basis, as needed.

4.6 Sec. 10. [347.66] TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP.
4.7If ownership of a dangerous or potentially dangerous dog is transferred to another
4.8person, the new owner must take a responsible dog owner class and pass the test.

4.9 Sec. 11. [347.67] STATEWIDE RECORDS; REPORTING; DATABASE.
4.10A database must be maintained by the Department of Public Safety containing
4.11records of all dogs in Minnesota declared potentially dangerous or dangerous, and
4.12owner information, including any convictions for violations of section 347.51; 347.515;
4.13347.56; 609.205, subdivision 4; or 609.226, subdivision 1 or 2; and any dogs owned
4.14by that person that have been ordered destroyed under section 347.56, as well as other
4.15information pertinent to enforcement of sections 347.50 to 347.565. The database must
4.16also contain information regarding the test results of the responsible dog owner class.
4.17The commissioner of public safety, in consultation with animal control professionals,
4.18must determine what information will be kept in this database. This database must be
4.19accessible, only for purposes of law enforcement, to all police and sheriff departments
4.20and other local government departments responsible for conducting or overseeing animal
4.21control operations in their jurisdictions, with the exception that private animal control
4.22authorities contracted to local government agencies may only access these records
4.23through, and with the permission of, those local government agencies. All Minnesota law
4.24enforcement agencies and animal control authorities must report in a timely manner to the
4.25Department of Public Safety any information required under this section.

4.26 Sec. 12. EFFECTIVE DATE.
4.27Sections 1, 3 to 6, 9, and 11 are effective the day following final enactment. Sections
4.282, 7, 8, and 10 are effective six months after that day.


*AUTHOR'S NOTE*

This bill was introduced one week prior to the State of New York bill that I had addressed last week.

It would seem to me that the lawmakers might want to consider enforcing their existing laws as opposed to this dreck which has absolutely no provisions for what constitutes responsible ownership, who makes that determination and who is responsible for the selection criterion for "Program Managers", "Facilitators" or what constitutes appropriate curricula?

A state pronouncement does not extol one with the necessary virtues of either the actual training of a dog, nor the skills necessary for the instruction of a dog's training.

What are these people smoking?

Newkirk, after a lobotomy.....

Greetings,
Please read the following article, perhaps copy it and give it to your attending Veterinarian:
"Early Spay-Neuter Considerations for the Canine Athlete" @ www.caninesports.com/SpayNeuter.html

Now, I know the following is long but I believe that is well worth the time and effort it takes to read it. I recently received this article and I'm sending it to you all in full. In these days when politics are being discussed in even the most casual circumstances, this is an issue that can be "quite stimulating" to say the least!

Do you know the real PETA and Humane Society of the United States ( HSUS)
An editorial by Alice Fix

This is a statement made by Ingrid Newkirk, the President of PETA: " I don't use the word 'pet'. I think it's speciesist language. I prefer 'companion animal' For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus cats and dogs ( artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship - enjoyment at a distance." The Harper's Forum Book Jack Hitt,ed.,7/6/89, p.223

It is interesting that Ms. Newkirk used the word "speciesist" Allwords.com defines that word as follows: 1. The discrimination against, and exploitation of, animals by humans in the belief that humans are superior to all other species of animals and can therefore justify putting them to their own use. One of the animal rights mantras is that all animals are created to be equal to all humans, and should have the same rights as humans. Just in case it still isn't clear what their agenda is, here are a few more quotes from Ingrid Newkirk:

"One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. (Dogs) would pursue their natural lives in the wild... they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV." - The Chicago Herald, 3/1/05
" In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether." Newsday, 2/21/07

Ms. Newkirk has very close ties with several groups identified by the FBI as known terrorist groups, such as Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The animal rights group are very well organized, and when you check closely, you will see many of the same names sitting on the boards of these radical groups. They are intertwined and closely linked through their finances, and the work that they do.

PETA operates on an annual budget of $29,000,000 Most of this is through donations made by ordinary citizens that don't know the real work of PETA. Many people think that they are out to save the lives of animals after seeing all of their ads on TV and the newspapers. That is why millions are donated to them each year.

In Virginia, the home state of PETA, in 2004, PETA adopted out 361 animals and euthanized 2,278, according to their records ( www.nokillnow.comPetaDVACreporting.pdf)

Those figures aren't good. That means that they euthanize 86.3% of their animals and only adopt out 13.7%. These figures come directly from PETA's Annual Report and from their 2004 Tax Return.It doesn't seem that they used that $29 million for the betterment of the majority of the animals that they came in contact with.So where is the money going? It is being spent for publicity to raise more money for one thing. It is also being used for legislative purposes. They have placed key people in city governments all over the country to try to influence legislation to take your pet ownership away. And they are having a lot of success with it.

You need to understand the basic difference between the "animal welfare" groups and the "animal rights" groups. Although the names might sound like they have the same objectives, there is a big difference.Animal welfare groups are working to see that all animals are treated humanely. Animal rights groups are working to see that all ownership of animals comes to an end.

As I said, PETA has close ties with many other organizations. One of these organizations is the Humane Society of the United States. (HSUS) People donate millions to the HSUS each year, thinking that their money is going to save the lives of millions of animals. Nothing could be further from the truth.The HSUS does not own a single animal shelter anywhere in the country. Although many shelters have the word Humane Society in their names, they are not associated in any way with HSUS. The HSUS does not sponsor any spay or neuter clinic anywhere in the country. They do donate a very small percent of their annual budget to a few local humane societies, around$2 million annually, which just happens to be less than the amount that they spend in travel each year. Their major money is spent on fund raising and legislative activity. In 2005, they spent $28 million for public mailings, $6 million in vegan education, $10 million in legislative campaigns and litigation. Their income for that year was close to $125 million.

The HSUS was founded in 1954 as an animal welfare organization.By the early 1980's, just about the same time as PETA was founded, they began to change into an animal rights organization. In the 1990's, the personnel began to change to better fit with their new purpose, and today many of the personnel have ties to PETA, including the current President, Wayne Pacelle.
This is an interesting quote from Wayne Pacelle: "we have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock through selective breeding... One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding." Animal People News 5/1/03

When you combine other statements that he has made, with the above statement, in my opinion the meaning of this statement is that if we could spay and neuter all animals, we could eliminate pet ownership within one generation. "One generation and out" would mean to me that they are gone and are eliminated in only one generation.

Quietly sitting back and maybe not being aware, we are now allowing the HSUS to make presentations at our local schools, with the definite purpose to educate our children about how bad pet ownership is, to indoctrinate children to the thought that animals should be free and not kept as pets. They are doing this in the same way that they have infiltrated city councils and local governments all across the county, quietly and matter-of-factly.

Shortly after taking office, Pacelle announced a merger with the FUND For Animals which have assets of over $20 million, and the Doris Day Animal League. The combined group estimated its 2005 budget at "over $95 million" and also announced the formation of a new "political organization" which will "allow for a more substantial investment of resources in political and lobbying activities. ( www.activistcash.com/organization-overview.cfm/oid/136)

So that is where we find ourselves today. With HSUS and PETA combines annual budgets of over &124 million for political and lobbying efforts to take away our rights to own animals. And that figure does not include the many splinter organization that have been formed from those two major organizations. We are in an uphill battle now, and it will be the fight of our lives to keep our rights to own pets.

They are going at it from many different angles.One way is to get Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) passed. The banning of Pit-Bulls all 0ver the country is a good example. That has caught on like wild fire. The animal rights groups have said that if they can just get one breed banned, then it will be easy to add others to it at a later date, until eventually all breeds are banned.

Another way that they are going about is to have mandatory spay and neuter laws in place.

Just think about it: if all animals are spayed and neutered, when they die,there will be no more domestic animals.Those same words have been said by Wayne Pacelle, the President of HSUS. They have a very well thought out and planned agenda, and they are counting on the ignorance of the American people to get their agenda accomplished. Well guess what: Ignorance can be overcome by education.,The American people may be ignorant about the facts, but they are not stupid.

They can be educated.

We were ignorant before 9-11, and look what effect that had. It caused all Americans to become educated and unite and fight to prevent that from happening again.The difference here is that we are being attacked from within our own country. We are under strong attack by animal rights groups, and I hope that we don't just stand by and allow it to happen.

The animal rights groups are publicly stating that we need to get laws passed so that they can close down all the puppy mills and commercial breeding facilities that have their animals living in inhumane conditions. Just about everyone would agree with the idea that animals should be treated humanely. But that is just the vehicle that they are using to try to do away with all animal ownership, period.

And that is not a statement that they are being all that public about.

You can become active in this fight by telling your friends and neighbors what is going on. You can be an instrument of education. You can also fight this kind of legislation when it is presented in your area. Go to the City Council meetings and make your voice heard. Write letters to the state and federal government officials to offer your services to be on any animal related committee. In short, get the word out to any and all of your friends that own pets. Let them know what is going on. If enough people stop funding the animal rights organizations, we can put them out of business. There is not much that they can do without operating funds.
The next time you think about making a donation to any of these organizations, you better think long and hard about whether you really want your money being spent to take away your rights.

PETA
Humane Society Of The United States
Farm Sanctuary
Fund For Animals
Doris Day Animal League
Earth Save
Green Peace
Physicians For Responsible Medicine
Animal Liberation Front (ALF)
Friends Of Animals
In Defense of Animals
PAWS

Right now the HSUS has started their "First Strike Campaign".

I find that an interesting choice of names.

At www.visualthesaurus.com they define first strike as follows:

First Stike: An attack that is intended to seize or inflict damage on or destroy an objective.

Most people think that "an attack" is on inhumane treatment of animals. They still don't know it is an attack to take your animals away from you.

Last year over 10 million people donated money to the HSUS because of their massive spending on advertising. Most of those 10 million people had no idea what their money was actually going to support.

Better places to donate your money that will fight for your rights to own animals are listed below. These groups are working hard to protect you right to own animals, and to expose the true agenda to much of the animal legislation going on all over the country.

National Animal Interest Alliance
http://www.naiaonline.org/
Sportsmen's And Animal Owners' Voting Alliance
http://www.saova.org/
American Dog Owners Association
http://www.adoa.org/index.cfm
U S Sportsman Alliance
http://www.ussportsmen.org/

You can either make your donations work for you or against you. That decision is yours to make.

This article first appeared in the March, 2007 issue ( Volume V Issue 2) of the Rocky Mountain Wrinkle, the newsletter of the Centennial Shar-Pei Club, Inc.

Any reference to this article must give full credit to the Rocky Mountain Wrinkle, and the Centennial Chinese Shar-Pei Club, Inc,

This appears with permission to cross post as written by the original author.

Riddle me THIS, Batman!

At one end of the leash, a dog; the other end, a VOTER. It is my constitutional right to own a gun, but some freak without a clue wants to legislate the breed of dog I own? Indeed.

What is it with people who think they can legislate common sense or heaven forbid, MORALITY! Each of us is endowed with the lessons of our ancestors, but there comes a time when we are assumed responsible for our actions. Michael Vick although a product of an environment very dissimilar to my own, engenders what people of his socio-economic background view as hope for themselves, for their futures. He chose to exploit his celebrity in ways profoundly opposed to those ideals set forth by polite society. In so doing, he further augments the deliberate attempts of a few individuals to extinguish a breed of dog by virtue of it's bad press. Remember the dogs who died because they WOULD NOT FIGHT. In horrible ways.

What he did was indeed wrong, under any measure, by any 'polite society'.

How does this matter to you?

We will develop this topic further as time and interest allows with the requisite links and content that is in direct relation to the dwindling of rights in this country and abroad.