Chewy

[Editor’s note: The Mandatory Spay/Neuter and Pet Shop ordinances were originally scheduled to go up for vote tomorrow, March 3. The vote has since been postponed to March 10. This article has been updated to reflect the change. Additionally, an earlier version of this article listed the wrong districts for Councilmembers Lowenthal, Price, and Mungo. The error has been corrected below.]

On Tuesday, March 10, the Mandatory Spay/Neuter and Pet Shop ordinances will go up for a city council vote (read a previous article about the ordinances and the comments following it here). The meeting starts at 6PM at the council chambers at the Long Beach Civic Center, 333 Ocean Blvd. The entire ordinance can be accessed here.

The ordinances are the result of an effort by humane educator Judy Crumpton, who had worked for over a year with Long Beach’s shelter and District 2 councilmember Suja Lowenthal to get on board with the concept and author the propositions. They were ultimately drafted by Councilmembers Suja Lowenthal (District 2), Suzie Price (District 3) and Stacy Mungo (District 5) for the purpose of curbing shelter overpopulation and educating the public about its importance. Both were introduced to the council and general public on Nov. 19, 2014; after a vote for review, they were transferred the Long Beach City Attorney’s office . They were ultimately produced as an amendment to Long Beach Municipal Code 6.16.085, which prohibits ownership of any unaltered cat over 4 months old without a certificate from the pet’s veterinarian that cites health issues. The new ordinance will now extend to dogs, with the following exclusions: the aforementioned health and medical issues; an animal incapable of breeding; dogs used by law enforcement and search-and-rescue as well as service, guide or other licensed therapy animals; and animals who satisfy the breeding permit laws as described in the Long Beach Municipal Code Subsection 6.16.085.B.3.

The Pet Shop Ordinance forbids the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in any pet shop, retail business or other commercial establishment. There is an exemption for pets that were obtained from animal shelters and rescues and are up for adoption in store environments with an atmosphere that may be more friendly to some potential pet adopters. Such places are nonprofits like Adopt and Shop in the Lakewood Center Mall, which also sells pet supplies and toys and is staffed by volunteers, and the Paw Shoppe Pet Center on Spring Street in Long Beach, which is a pet-supply business but pulls shelter and rescue animals for adoption. The exemption also extends to animals bred on the premises of licensed breeders with a valid breeding permit.

Now that you’ve got the details, this is a good place to issue the disclaimer of my support of these ordinances, and for the people who have criticized me for not being an objective journalist, yes. I write a pet column and I get to state my opinion just as you get to state yours in the comments. The Pet Shop Ordinance I can get out of the way real quickly because to me and a lot of other people, this one’s a no-brainer. The animals in commercial pet stores are born of overbred mothers both from California and out of state and transported by truck like cargo to the sales outlets. Most if not all haven’t been fixed, and there’s no provision for that. They are sold at outlandish prices and are referred to as purebreds, but try showing one at an American Kennel Club (AKC) show and you’re in for a surprise. There used to be one of these places in Naples that’s thankfully gone. I went in once on the pretext of buying a dog, and the proprietor said with one of those smiles that you see on someone selling watches on the street that he wouldn’t show me the papers unless I bought a dog. If you think I’m exaggerating, go ask Oprah.

The mandatory spay/neuter law has met up with more controversy, but it’s needed for the same reason that we need stop signs and child-protection laws. No one has the “right” to breed animals any more than they have the “right” to bear children. People are right now free to do both, but it’s the children who have the right to grow up in a loving, safe, caring home, and animals have the right to live out their own lives without being bred to death, hit by a car, or euthanized in a shelter. I see my friends who are involved in rescue wearing themselves out physically, emotionally and mentally as they try to trap hordes of cats hanging around a neighborhood or bottle-feeding litters of kittens that were dumped in garbage cans, bringing in abandoned and sometimes mutilated dogs from the street and rehabilitating them, saving wandering puppies from stepping off a curb into traffic, and setting up rabbit rescues to care for rabbits who got dumped in parks and campuses because they grew too big to fit in the Easter basket. And every time an animal is saved, it seems as if two more replace them. The animal advocates I know would love to quit, but only if there’s no longer a need for them. And we’re hoping that these ordinances help.

And the bunch of us are not, as some have said, trying to extinguish the household pet population. First, it doesn’t make sense, considering that every rescuer I know has one or more pets whom they dearly love. The rescuers and shelter volunteers present potential pet parents with a list of questions that would shame a human-baby adoption agency, and some insist on home visits.

Neither do these laws mandate legitimate breeders with the proper documentation to fix their animals, so we’ll still have dogs running around, leashed, it is hoped. I’ve heard of some flap from the AKC, but Long Beach Kennel Club president Jack Smith said that his organization was instrumental in working out details of the original breeding ordinance in 2005 and has welcomed Long Beach Animal Care Services (ACS) at their events.

“The American Kennel Club and the Long Beach Kennel Club both support responsible dog ownership,” Smith said. “I think that both organizations would agree that a big part of responsible dog ownership is working together to create a positive environment for our citizens as well as the dog fancy. We all need to be held accountable for keeping our agreements and following the law once laws are negotiated and passed by our governance.”

Legitimate breeders aren’t the ones who fill the shelters anyway. Visit ACS, and you might see a few dogs who are described as breeds, but there aren’t any papers on file, I’ll wager. What you’ll mostly find is a large percentage of Chihuahuas, Chi mixes and pit bull types. And cats. You’ll see cats and rabbits, too.

Mandatory spay/neuter is law of the land in Rhode Island, and other areas have adopted it, including Los Angeles County. I know that there’s no guarantee that it will work—some fear that people will try to conceal their pets and not bring them for their vaccinations, and there’s also a worry that the ordinances may be unenforceable. That concerns me, too, even with the provision or enforcement written in to the ordinances. On the other hand, if the law isn’t on the books, we’ll never know whether enforcement is possible. Nothing’s perfect—people still run stop signs, but they’ve saved a number of lives as well.

The enforcement provision is part of what’s referred to as a “three-pronged plan” that also includes education and financial assistance. Educating the public is necessary to explain the reasons for fixing pets. Friends of Long Beach Animals (FOLBA) sponsors free presentations for classrooms that have been approved by the Long Beach Board of Education, and there are adult presentations available as well.

Outreach is well and good, but there’s the question of affordability of the procedures, and that’s one of the reasons stated for mandatory spay/neuter not working—the lack of low-cost spay/neuter programs for those who have trouble paying for it. But there’s certainly no want of this in Long Beach—affordable as well as free spay/neuter is here for the asking. SNIP-LA in San Pedro offers procedures and pain meds starting at $35 for qualifying households, and ACS and FOLBA also have vouchers available at the shelter for participating veterinarians, which brings the cost way down. A low-cost clinic sponsored by FOLBA is set to open in a couple of months.

And grassroots organization Fix Long Beach offers free spay/neuter to Long Beach residents who have an income below $30,000. I linked Fix’s Facebook page instead of the website because the photos and stories will communicate its dynamics (in every sense of the word) better than I ever could. According to ACS manager Ted Stevens, Fix Long Beach’s work has been instrumental in effecting the steady decrease in shelter euthanasia over the past few years.

In the comment section of the Nov. 17 Scratching Post, one commenter referred to low-cost spay/neuter and the propositions as “elitist” because it proposes to focus on low-income residents. Well, yeah, of course it does. Most of the people who can afford to fix their pets have done so or plan to, and those who can’t get a little help from my friends. In more than the year and a half since Fix Long Beach was organized, many of the grateful human families of nearly 2,500 pets have voiced their thanks and a few wept for the help they got with no-cost spay neuter for their cats and dogs, pit bulls and Chis included, which they otherwise couldn’t have afforded to do. And they pass it forward by spreading the word and volunteering themselves.

Nothing is a complete fix—pun intended—and trumpets aren’t going to blow. Are there risks involved in the procedures? Yes, any medical procedure has some risk, but there’s more of a risk of testicular and mammarian cancer, pyometria and other diseases that unfixed animals can get. Click here for a rundown of the pros and cons. Will this put an end to the need for rescue? I’d say probably not, but it’s a good first step, so let’s see if it works. Do all of us in the animal community agree with all the details of the ordinance? No—some of us have a real problem with a recent rewording that has raised the age for spay/neuter from 4 months to 8 months for cats and 6 months to 8 months for dogs. Whatever the reason for this, it puts a spanner in the works. According to Dr. Carl Palazzolo DVM, of Long Beach Animal Hospital (LBAH), cats and dogs can get pregnant at 6 months. On his dog and cat pages of LBAH’s website, Dr. Palazzolo recommends spaying at 6 months for both species.

“You want to spay them before heat,” he said. “If you do it after they go into heat, the risk for breast cancer increases, mostly in dogs.” Neutering is less complicated; information about this procedure can be accessed on the Diseases drop-down by clicking on the appropriate graphic.

The public will be invited for comment during discussion; if you wish to comment but cannot attend, there is an eComment function on the right of the council meeting line here.

You can also call or e-mail the mayor and the council regarding your opinion of both the ordinances and the new wording regarding the age limits for spay/neuter. Contact information is as follows:

 

If it were up to me, anyone wanting to breed should have to spend a month volunteering at animal control for a month in the euthanasia part.
~ Local animal community volunteer Pam Rainsdon

Virtually Pets

The following pets are presently enjoying the relative comfort of a boutique, but they would so much prefer a forever home where they can romp. Both the venues where they wait have been described in the article as alternatives to the shelter environment, and all of them have been pulled from shelters.

abby

sweetpea

Abby and Sweetpea, The Paw Shoppe, 6416 E. Spring St., Long Beach

Abby is a 6-month-old white female bunny and Sweet Pea is a 1-year-old black-and-white male. Both have been fixed, so their math skills no longer include multiplication, but they sure can add lots of love to your life!

Mirabel Lakewood

Chewy

Mirabel and Chewy, Adopt and Shop, 353 Lakewood Center Mall, Lakewood

Chewy is a black-and-tan male Chi, about old. His rescuers say that he’s called Chewy because he loves his chew toys and will sink his teeth into anything he’s given. Not you, though—he’s playful and fun.

Mirabel is a young tortie-tabby is called “the best of both worlds”—she loves to play with her cat wand but also gets in the mood for a good, quiet snuggle!

Pet Projects

Friends of Long Beach Animals Humane Education Program, Free, Ongoing

Friends of Long Beach Animals (FOLBA) stands by its word when it says it actively supports teaching children kindness to and respect for animals. FOLBA has provided several copies of humane books to all of the libraries in the Long Beach Unified School District, all the Public Libraries in Long Beach and Signal Hill, as well as to Raising-a-Reader and to Mary Bethune Transitional Center (assisting homeless children who need reading improvement so they can attend regular LBUSD classes). This interactive humane education program is free to all schools in the Long Beach Unified School District, Girl and Boy Scout Troops, Long Beach Parks and Libraries and Community Groups. Basic elements of the program are as follows:

  • Humane treatment of all living creatures
  • Basic pet care
  • Proper behavior around animals
  • Responsibilities and rewards of pet ownership
  • Handouts and study materials
  • Follow-up activities

For information, contact: FRIENDS’ Office 562-988-7647 or Deborah Turner 562-985-3459

Monthly Mutt Mingles, Pussy & Pooch Pethouse and PawBar, 4818 E. 2nd Street, Long Beach, third Wednesday of every month; and 222 E. Broadway, third Thursday of every month, 6–8PM

Join P&P for their monthly mixer, and enjoy special treats, toasts, and plenty of in-store tail-wagging. Mutt Mingles are a great way for your dog to learn valuable social skills. It’s a chance for them to experience and interact in a social setting with food, drink and plenty of other distractions! It’s important for your dog to learn how to behave around other dogs and people so that they’ll be the stars of the dog park and the dog beach. The indoor facility provides for a very comfortable setting and fun atmosphere. Dogs may be off-leash if supervised closely by their owners. For their protection, we lock the front door so dogs are safe from the street traffic.

Low-Cost Pet Vaccination Clinics, March 7, 10–11:30PM, Signal HIll Park, 2175 Cherry Ave., Signal Hill; 1:30–3PM, Recreation Park, 4900 E. Seventh St., Long Beach

Pet owners must be 18 years or older. All pets must be on leashes or in carriers. Only healthy and non-pregnant animals will be vaccinated. If you have a prior rabies vaccine certificate, license tag or license renewal notice for your pet, please bring it with you to the clinic. Vaccination and microchip services are provided for pets residing in any city. Licensing service is provided for residents within our jurisdiction: Long Beach, Signal Hill, Cerritos, Los Alamitos and Seal Beach. For more service information and pricing please visit Southern California Veterinary Vaccine Clinics.

spcaLA Foster Class, Saturday, March 14, spcaLA P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village, 7700 E. Spring St., Long Beach, 10AM–noon

We can’t do it without you! spcaLA needs foster parents for pets of all ages and needs. We provide the supplies, and you provide the love. Submit an application and attend a foster class by applying here.