ANIMAL CONTROL & RESCUE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:

“While it is argued by the Estate
that Howard Brand intended to prevent
future cruelty to his horses by ordering their
death,” Vermont probate judge S u s a n
Fowler ruled on March 16, “it would seem
to this court that a death sentence imposed
upon healthy, if aging, animals might be
considered cruel in its own right.” Fowler
thus overturned Brand’s will, allowing the
two horses to go to sanctuary. Brand, of
Essex Junction, Vermont, died on January 2
at age 88, soon after amending his will to
provide that the horses should be killed.
Fowler’s reasoning followed that of the
California state legislature when in 1979, at
request of the San Francisco SPCA, it overturned
a will which required the death of a
dog named Sido. The SF/SPCA placed Sido
in a new home, where he lived five more
years. Richard Avanzino, then president of
the SF/SPCA and now heading Maddie’s
Fund (see pages 12-13), credits response to
the Sido case with awakening his awareness
that the public would far more generously
support efforts to save animals’ lives than it
supports traditional animal control service.

The League In Support of
A n i m a l s, goading Louisiana pounds into
making improvements since 1988, in early
March reported that both the Ouachita
Humane Society shelter in Monroe and the
city pound in Jonesville are unsanitary and
routinely violate a Louisiana law which
requires that animals may only be adopted
out through an enforceable contract, assuring
they they will be fixed within 30 days.
The American Kennel Club o n
February 5 barred dog breeders Henry and
Linda Brinkley of Flagler County, Florida,
from registering dogs for 10 years, and fined
them each $500. Convicted of cruelty in
November 1998 and assessed $51,000 for
allegedly neglecting 386 dogs who were
seized by local authorities in 1997, the
Brinkleys––acting as their own attorneys––in
March 1999 sued judge Kim Hammond,
sheriff Robert McCarthy, the F l a g l e r
County Humane Society, and numerous
news media, among others, for purportedly
conspiring to put them out of business.
The Indianapolis-based Foundation
Against Companion-animal Euthanasia
on March 8 opened a higb-volume, lowcost
neutering clinic, modeled after the
Animal Foundation clinic in Las Vegas,
which when up to speed expects to perform
more than 10,000 neutering operations per
year. Costing $400,000 to set up, in a newly
renovated building, FACE expects to save
the city of Indianapolis about $300,000 a year
in animal control expense, said physician
Scott Robinson, who founded FACE and
whose wife Ellen Robinson is the clinic
manager. Approximately 20,000 animals per
year are killed in shelters in Indianapolis and
Marion County suburbs, but Robinson
believes FACE can quickly cut that figure by
enough to make no-kill animal control a realistic
city and county goal.
The 100% privately funded
Animal Advocates low-cost neutering clinic
in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on
February 24 celebrated performing its 10,000
surgery since opening in September 1995.
The Massachusetts SPCA, by contrast,
operating eight shelters and three animal hospitals,
with an annual budget of $27 million
and $65 million in cash and securities, boasts
on its web site that it and the Massachusetts
Veterinary Medical Association h a v e
between them distributed just 15,000 certificates
redeemable for half-price or free neutering
since 1991. Massachusetts has been
within about 10,000 more litters prevented of
being a no-kill state for at least five years.
Hoping to boost owner reclaims
of dogs caught running at large, New
York City Center for Animal Care and
C o n t r o l executive director M a r i l y n
H a g g e r t y – B l o h m is reportedly seeking a
bylaw which would allow her agency to do
the neutering while charging owners only the
normal impound fee, averaging about $40.
Haggerty-Blohm argues that this would fight
pet overpopulation in two ways: by removing
a disincentive to reclaims, in that the current
fine for allowing an unaltered dog to run
at large is $300, and by placing neutered animals
back in homes which otherwise would
probably just acquire another unaltered dog.