Joey Kennedy: Senate to consider dog chaining bill this week, but don’t hold your breath
Animal issues don’t get much attention from the Alabama Legislature. There are wonderful legislators who believe in and sponsor good legislation, but the legislative leadership just doesn’t put much effort behind those bills. Whether it’s protecting nonprofit spay/neuter clinics or regulating puppy mills, our lawmakers turn their heads and close their eyes. Shame on them. This week, a Senate committee will consider SB 468, also known as the Alabama Dog Tethering and Outdoor Shelter Act. Alabama Today has a good overview of this bill and its chances of passing. Just like Apryl Marie Fogel at Alabama Today, we’re animal protection advocates at Animal Advocates of Alabama. We’re not nuts who believe animals should have the right to vote or that hunting for food is evil or that everybody has to be a vegan. But, like Alabama Today, we believe in the humane treatment of all animals. Chaining or tethering a dog in a desolate backyard, with little food, water or shelter, is inhumane. The Alabama Dog Tethering and Outdoor Shelter Act will put some reasonable regulations on how dogs are kept outdoors. We’ve seen dogs chained in backyards that are flooding in a heavy rain. We’ve had people tell us about dogs frozen to fences in the winter because they could not escape their chains. We know of cases where dogs chained outside in an Alabama summer have died of heat stroke. That unregulated chaining is allowed in today’s Alabama is indefensible. It’s wrong and it’s cruel. So, as Alabama Voters for Responsible Animal Legislation suggests, get in touch with your senator and tell him or her to support SB 468. Lawmakers have done precious little to help animals this legislative session. SB 468 is one of the last chances to do something positive for chained dogs this session. For more information on this topic, see Alabama Chained Dogs on Facebook. This column was republished with permission from Animal Advocates of Alabama, a site created by Joey and his wife Veronica to increase awareness for animal based issues throughout the state. Please visit ALAnimals.com to learn more.
Alabama animal rights groups ready for Senate decision on dog chaining
Animal welfare activists are preparing for a critical decision from the Senate this week in the push for stronger animal rights legislation in Alabama. In a Facebook message this week, Alabama Voters for Responsible Animal Legislation (AVRAL) called on its 7,000 members to reach out to lawmakers in support of Senate Bill 468, also known as the Alabama Dog Tethering and Outdoor Shelter Act. The bill would make it illegal for dog owners to tie their pets to stationary objects and says that any pet kept outside must have adequate food, water, and shelter. An owner who violates the statute could be charged with a Class B misdemeanor and face up to six months in jail, according to the Alabama criminal code. The Senate Judiciary committee is scheduled to vote on Senate Bill 468 this Wednesday. With the 2015 legislative session drawing to a close, the dog chaining bill could be the last of four closely-watched protections against animal cruelty before lawmakers this year: Earlier this month, a measure to set care, confinement, and breeding restrictions on Alabama puppy mills failed in the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee when chairman Rep. David Sessions refused to put the bill on the agenda. Rep. Paul Beckman sponsored House Bill 548 and told AL.com that the chairman thought it was a “’bad bill’ that makes criminals out of dog breeders.” Legislation filed by Rep. Patricia Todd and Rep. Howard Sanderford would ensure that only veterinarians can make surgical or medical decisions for animal treatment and allow veterinarians to work at nonprofit spay/neuter facilities. House Bill 563 is Rep. Todd’s third attempt at strengthening regulations on Alabama spay and neuter clinics. A House committee gave the bill a favorable report last week, but with so few days left in the session, Rep. Todd told AL.com the bill may not get much further. She indicated that she may try the legislation again next year. President of Animal Advocates of Alabama Joey Kennedy said, however, that another bill may not be necessary. In a statement on the organization’s website, Kennedy said: “The nonprofit spay/neuter clinics are operating now and can provide more services than would be allowed even under Todd’s bill. Plus, there is more scrutiny of the state Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, which has spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to shut down the clinics.” That scrutiny, Kennedy said, might be enough to protect the clinics. The fourth bill, Senate Bill 51, would force shelter operators to publish monthly census reports, detailing how animals enter the facility, the number of adoptions or transfers, and reasons the animals were euthanized. The companion bill was voted down in the House in March. AL.com reported concerns from members that the bill would encourage lawsuits from animal activists and that moving from yearly to monthly reports would add to shelter workloads. Senate Bill 51 has passed the Senate and is now pending in the House committee on public safety and homeland security. The bill is not on the committee’s agenda for the coming week.
Joey Kennedy: Rep. David Sessions flat-out wrong to not hear puppy mill bill in committee
While it’s true that HB 548, a bill to encourage responsible breeding of dogs in Alabama, never really had a chance of passing this legislative session, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have a chance to be discussed. But denying discussion is exactly what Grand Bay Republican state Rep. David Sessions, chairman of the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee, is doing. Sessions is refusing to put the bill on his committee’s agenda because of opposition from the American Kennel Club. “Sorry no one on committee is in favor of this bill it needs a lot of work. The sponsor needs to work with breeders to get something that works for everyone concerned.” That’s an email from Sessions concerning the bill. Even that statement is shaky, because one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Montgomery Republican Rep. Reed Ingram is on the Agriculture and Forestry Committee. If there are real concerns that the bill overreaches, discussion and compromise are the paths to making it better. But Sessions is keeping even discussion from taking place. That is wrong. There is no such thing as a perfect bill, and Sessions knows that. The hard work of passing responsible legislation is, well, hard work. Sessions is avoiding the work by telling the bill’s sponsor, Prattville Republican state Rep. Paul Beckman to get all objections worked out before considering the bill. That’s an impossible task. Of course, there are going to be objections, to almost any bill and certainly one that would regulate puppy mills. Alabama is known as a state where puppy mills can operate virtually without limit. HB 548 would put some responsible limits on backyard breeders and puppy mills. Those requirements include treating dogs humanely, making sure they’re fed, making sure they get exercise and are taken to veterinarians when they’re injured or sick. Sessions doesn’t even want that discussion to start until he has, apparently, a “perfect” bill, which he knows, as a legislator, is impossible. “Responsible dog owners and breeders are extremely concerned that many provisions of HB 548 are not in the best interest of dogs,” wrote AKC government relations director Sheila Goffe in a letter to Beckman. Actually, the bill isn’t in the best interest of puppy mill breeders; it’s definitely in the best interest of dogs. And while there may need to be modifications to the bill, that can’t happen until the bill is discussed. Sessions isn’t allowing that by keeping it off Agriculture and Forestry’s agenda. “He’s (Sessions) killing it before it even goes anywhere,” said Angie Ingram, a Birmingham lawyer who helped get HB 548 introduced. Ingram was a leader of a group that rescued a number of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels from an Alabama breeder who put them up for auction in Missouri last year. “It’s one thing to drag something out, but just to refuse to put it on the agenda?” That’s wrong; Sessions should not keep his committee from even discussing the bill just because the AKC opposes it. It’s not like Alabama is the first state proposing to regulate backyard breeders. Other states have already passed similar legislation. So now, Ingram said, her group will be ready for a harder fight next session. The focus needs to be on the dogs, not the breeders. If a breeder is responsible, there’s nothing to worry about. But if breeders are not responsible — and many are not — they should have something to worry about. Joey Kennedy is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of Alabama’s strongest animal advocates. In addition to his storied journalism career, in December he received the Abe Krawchak Award from the Greater Birmingham Humane Society Auxiliary for his efforts to improve the lives of Alabama’s animals. This column was republished with permission from Animal Advocates of Alabama, a site created by Joey and his wife Veronica to increase awareness for animal based issues throughout the state. Please visit ALAnimals.com to learn more.
Pulitzer winner Joey Kennedy, wife launch animal advocacy website
A new website focusing on animal rights launched this week, though the man behind will be familiar to most Alabama advocates and lawmakers. Pulitzer Prize winner Joey Kennedy and his wife Veronica, a freelance editor and former social media marketer, have launched ALAnimals.com to spotlight animal welfare and protection issues across the state. Kennedy spent more than 33 years as at the Birmingham News and was on its editorial board from 1989 until early this year. In a conversation with ALToday.com, Kennedy said the site will be a clearinghouse of information for animal owners and advocates. “Right now there are dozens of great resources out there, but you’ve got to go to each one,” Kennedy said. “We want to bring that all together so a person can go to our site and get what they need.” One of the site’s major functions will be to spotlight state laws and municipal ordinances concerning treatment of animals and to advocate for stronger protections. “In Alabama, we don’t have a lot of laws that govern animal abuse,” he said. “We finally got a pretty strong abuse law, though it isn’t aggressively enforced.” Among the legislation the group will watch at the state level are Rep. Paul Beckman’s House Bill 548 to place restrictions on puppy mills and Rep. Patricia Todd’s House Bill 563 to treat spay and neuter clinics as veterinary facilities. Kennedy said both proposals sound promising, but may have come too late in the season to be passed this year. “It sounds like it’s on the right track. It’s a baby step, but it’s a good thing. Sometimes you have to go (through the legislative process) three or four times before it finally clicks. What you have to do is introduce it and start walking it through.” In his first post for ALAnimals.com, he called the website a continuation of the animal issues journalism he and his wife have both done over the years. “We have so far to go as a state, on many issues,” Joey Kennedy said. “Animal welfare and protection is among those issues. While we do not have felony laws against animal abuse, many law enforcement officers and prosecutors are slow to make cases, even when the evidence is clear.” While still writing for the Birmingham News and AL.Com Joey Kennedy frequently used his voice and platform as a strong advocate for animals. He was a constant voice in support of legislation to protect nonprofit spay/neuter clinics. Photo credit: By Pugman at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
