Proposed Pet Increase Now at Planning Cmmision

The proposal to increase the companion animal limit is now in the

Hands of the City Planning Department!

Please call and especially e-mail the below ASAP and let them know that you support the proposal 10-0982 to increase companion animal limits in Los Angeles, and also tell Tom Rothmann that increasing the pet limits for fosters and companion guardians from 3 to 5 will NOT negatively impact the environment!

Tom Rothmann, City Planning

Tom.Rothmann@lacity.org

            213 978-1370      

Please Cc: the head of City Planning

Michael Logrande

michael.logrande@lacity.org

 

Tom Rothmann is doing research right now to determine things like, will more doggy pee-pee get in the ocean and negatively impact the environment if Angelino's are allowed to care for two more companion animals! 

So the information to send should be more along the lines of these facts:

 

1. The ocean has an island of plastic bottles bigger than the size of the state of Massachusetts. Human-animals negatively impact the environment much more than non-human animals, who have NOT negatively impacted the environment for millions of years. 
2. Hundred of thousands of baby diapers and plastic pampers filled with urine and shit are thrown out car windows and/or left laying on our beaches. Certainly babies, kids and adults negatively impact the environment much more so than two more companion animals per household! And when our companion animals poop, we pick it up in a recyclable baggy and dispose of it properly!
3. The ordinance requires people to keep cats indoors if they decide to get more than 3 so that could actually serve to take cats out of the environment. 
4. The ordinance restricts the number of guard dogs on a property to two dogs and no non guard dogs are allowed on that property that that actually takes dogs out of the environment. 
5. The AVMA says that the average family has 1.86 pets so there is no evidence to show that the community would suddenly go crazy adopting animals.
6. There is an existing leash law to contain dogs and a requirement to pick up poop when you are out with your dog. 
7. Apartments, condos and gated communities with homeowners associations are exempt and set their own rules. 
8. The small number of good citizens who already have more than 3 dogs that are not a problem would be able to license the additional dog producing revenue for the city. 
9. People would be able to provide temporary foster care for shelter animals reducing the number of animals killed and disposed of which would offer some environmental relief. 
10. There's no limit on the number of children a person can have and some people have none and some have two and some have more. The point being that people don't just have kids because there are no imposed limits.

Little Dustin Died Last Night of Multiple Illnesses

Dear little Dustin died last night of kidney failure after a nearly four year struggle with cancer (small cell lymphoma), irritable bowel syndrome, and stomatitis. He had most of his remaining teeth removed 2 months ago because he was not eating. His oncologist was at VCA West LA and suggested an internist there, Dr. Bruyette, to determine why Dustin was not eating.

Dustin's kidney functions were just about normal with a slight elevation in his BUN, which Bruyette discounted as reflecting kidney disease, because his other and related blood values were normal. So he recommended a third dental examination, cleaning and extraction to better manage his stomatitis, which began about 14 months ago.

Well, it wasn't stomatitis that was bringing him down, but kidney failure, which Alan Chinn, a psychic, had diagnosed two months ago.

While I was away in Pheonix for 15 days, Dustin deteriorated. When I returned I took him into the West LA VCA to Bruyette to find out the source of Dustin's severe weight loss. Dustin had gone from 7 lbs 4 ounces in late November, to 5 lbs., 3 ounces when I returned.

I had noticed Dustin was drinking more water even before I left for Phoenix, but his blood values had been near normal just 3 weeks before.

Dustin was hospitalized for 4 days at West LA and put on an IV. His BUN was 147 on entry (hign normal is 28), and his creatinine was 9.1, with anything over 2.1 an elevation.

This was an enormous and sudden decompensation.

Anyway, the 4 days of hospitalization cost over $2,800, which followed almost $1,000 for an unnecessary dental just 2 months before.

I also want to point out I never saw a doctor at West LA VCA. I could not get an appointment and had to drop him off. I talked to Bruyette for 5 minutes on Friday (Dustin was hospitalized on Thursday afternoon), and I talked to another internist on Sunday for 15 minutes. 

Nor did anyone from VCA West LA call to find out how Dustin was doing after he returned home. 

Avoid VCA West LA, they have gone totally over to the Darkside of rapacious and unrepentant Capitalism, as did the human medical model years before. What is worse, VCA now owns Antech Diagnostics, which is one of the leading veterinary labs, and which has drastically raised its fees for tests submitted by independent vets----because they can. They selectively charge higher rates to small practices with low volumes, and much lower fees to large practices or VCA clinics.

In any event, Dustin did not eat after he got home even though his creatinine had dropped to 3.9, and BUN to 71. So we force fed Dustin with a syringe for alomost 2 weeks, up to 130 cc a day of Science Diet AD, as SD KD cannot be syringe fed. He even gained weight. I took him to his usual vet, Adler, now also VCA, and his weight had increased to 6 lbs. 2 ounces. However, blood tests taken 3 days ago there showed creatinine had gone back up higher than even when he went into hospitalization at VCA, West LA. His creatinine was now 10.1, and BUN 156.

Last night (Jan 30) I went to get him for his 6 pm feeding, but he was under the bed and I could not get him. Two hours later Kerima and I got him out, and found he was already in a borderline in a coma despite doing well the previous days except for not eating.

My nickname for Dustin is my tumor, as whenever I lay down, within minutes he'd be on my chest, looking into my eyes or sleeping.

So I put Dustin on my chest. He was ever so quiet and his eyes were open. Then he seemed to revive a little and began looking at me. He laid there for about an hour, and I picked him up and carried him to Kerima in another room, and put Dustin in her lap. He was there for about 20 minutes then began a series of coughs, about 15 or 20, that gradually got weaker, then he died with her holding him.

All of our other cats were very disturbed. They knew something was happening, but not what. Dustin is now lying in an open box for them to see and say goodbye however cats do during this night. Sometime today, Cal Pet will pick up his body and cremate it, just as they have done with 8 other cats over the past 21 years.

Kerima was heart broken, holding tightly onto Dustin and crying profusely. I tried to tell her to let go and be more peaceful for Dustin's sake, as when most of us feel really sick or are dying, we like to be left alone.  But she got lost in her emotions and wanted me to sympathize with her holding on and crying, but I could not. I wanted Dustin to feel peace while passing, not us holding onto to him.

Daisy, Dustin's sister, had died 1.5 years before of kidney failure at home also after 4 days of hospitalization at Adler's Vet Clinic, which at that time belonged to a different corporation. That hospitalization, with the same treatment mostly, for the same diagnosis, cost $720, of 1/4th of Dustin's hospitalization at VCA West LA. She died peacefully at home also. This shows you the moral corruption and greed VCA-Antech has brought to the entire veterinary industry who are following VCA's  pricing practices.

I will tell you more later, but there is a crying need for quality veterinary care, such as we received at Adler VCA in Reseda, even after they had sold themselves to a large corporation, versus the 4 times as expensive VCA West LA just 1.5 years later.

In fact, this will be a mission of our Ashram: to establish a low cost, non profit, veterinary clinic charging less than half VCA rates. This would be a not for profit vet clinic. We are beginning exploration of this concept at this time.

There is no way an 80 year old on social security can afford the usurious rates charged by current vet practices. Something must be done to help pets of rescuers with dozens or hundreds of animals, as well as the animals of the elderly and poor who are now going without care. More about this later.

The Real Michael Vick Rehabilitation Story

Michael Vick & the Value Proposition

NOVEMBER 18, 2010 - BY FRANCIS BATTISTA - ( VIEW COMMENTS )

LA Times sports reporter Bill Plaschke wrote a compelling piece for yesterday’s paper on the resurgence of Michael Vick as an NFL quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. Plaschke interviewed the caregiver of Mel, a pit bull and former resident of Best Friends Animal Society—and one of Vick’s former canine victims. Powerful stuff. Plaschke’s article boils down to is this question:

“Essentially, an ex-convict is dominating America’s most popular sport while victims of his previous crime continue to live with the brutality of that crime, and has that ever happened before?

Do you cheer the player and boo the man? Can you cheer the comeback while loathing the actions that necessitated the comeback? And how can you do any of this while not knowing if Vick has truly discovered morality or simply rediscovered the pocket?”

From what we at Best Friends know of the way Michael Vick has related to the animals he abused, the answer is clearly that he has “simply rediscovered the pocket.” Best Friends took 22 of Vick’s 48 seized dogs and the only contact we’ve received from Vick or his representatives was by way of some overtures from his agent, one of his attorneys and a PR firm specializing in reputation rehabilitation. They were interested in some public glad handing that would put Vick in a favorable light with the NFL, which at the time was still considering whether or not to reinstate him. We declined.

Best Friends has never heard from Michael Vick or any of his representatives inquiring after the health or well being of any of the 22 dogs that we received from his fighting ring.

According to the law, Michael Vick has paid his debt to society. Many would argue though that being free to get on with his life is one thing. Being welcomed into the highly privileged ranks of the NFL is quite another and warrants a much higher threshold of qualification. Plaschke again:

“…a large percentage of the population will still think Michael Vick is a sociopath. Many people will never get over Vick’s own admissions of unthinkable cruelty to his pit bulls — the strangling, the drowning, the electrocutions, the removal of all the teeth of female dogs who would fight back during mating.”

Obviously not a sufficiently large enough percentage of the population feels that way to deter the NFL from allowing someone on the field who many do believe is a sociopath ex-convict as long as he can fill the seats. They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t know they could get away with it.

Despite the fact that America is routinely described as a nation of animal lovers, concern for the lives and well being of those animals doesn’t yet compete with the desire to be entertained. That’s a problem.

It’s a problem because the same imbalance of public opinion that tolerates Michael Vick as a celebrated athlete also tolerates puppy mills, pet stores and shelter killings…each a cause of suffering many magnitudes the scale of Michael Vicks crimes and in some cases the same order of depravity.

Ending the societal abuse of homeless pets that results in the death of 4 – 5 million animals annually in our shelter system will require more than the heroic efforts of rescuers, it will require recruiting a larger percentage of this nation of animal lovers to a value proposition that places the lives and well being of our animal companions above personal entertainment, the allure of designer breeds and pets as fashion statements. The Michael Vick story is, for me at least, a marker along the way pointing us to the tasks ahead on the road to No More Homeless Pets.

Francis Battista

The Real Michael Vick Rehabilitation

Michael Vick & the Value Proposition from Best Friends

http://blogs.bestfriends.org/index.php/2010/11/18/michael-vick-the-value-proposition/

"From what we at Best Friends know of the way Michael Vick has related to the animals he abused, the answer is clearly that he has “simply rediscovered the pocket.” Best Friends took 22 of Vick’s 48 seized dogs and the only contact we’ve received from Vick or his representatives was by way of some overtures from his agent, one of his attorneys and a PR firm specializing in reputation rehabilitation. They were interested in some public glad handing that would put Vick in a favorable light with the NFL, which at the time was still considering whether or not to reinstate him. We declined.
Best Friends has never heard from Michael Vick or any of his representatives inquiring after the health or well being of any of the 22 dogs that we received from his fighting ring."

ADL Sues UCLA

Animal Rights Activists Sue UCLA Police: Claim Campus Cops Target, Harrass and Crush Free Speech Over Monkey Love

By Chris Vogel, Tue., Jan. 25 2011 @ 10:13AM

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Categories: Health, crime

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​It's no secret that animal rights activists aren't too fond of the medical experiments being done at UCLA.

Faculty members and researchers have been on the scary end of bombs, letters filled with razor blades, vandalism and verbal threats.

In response, UCLA admits that it has taken steps to keep its researchers safe, including monitoring protests and protesters.

But a small handful of animal rights activists say the school has gone way too far and are suing the UCLA police department in federal court, claiming that school officers are harassing and intimidating them and denying them the right to free speech.

According to the lawsuit, filed by Laura Ashmore, Pamelyn Ferdin, Carol Glasser and Nicoal Sheen, the four women began marching in front of the homes of several researchers in 2006 as part of a peaceful "education campaign." For four years, they, along with others, protested twice a month on the sidewalks, maintaining, they say, a legally required 100-foot buffer from the private residences.

The animal rights activists claim that UCLA researchers are experimenting on monkeys, placing them in restraints and injecting them with "large doses" of illegal drugs, such as PCP and crystal meth. The alleged purpose is to replicate and learn about addiction. Once the tests are over, the activists claim, the monkeys are killed and tossed into the garbage.

According to the lawsuit, UCLA police have been monitoring the activists' activities, sitting in unmarked cars and taking their pictures with "high powered cameras" before scheduled protests, as well as following them to dinner and threatening them with arrest in order to scare them.

On May 15, the activists claim, they were protesting outside of a UCLA researcher's off-campus home when a dozen UCLA police officers surrounded them and ordered them to drop their protest signs and sit on the ground with their hands behind their backs.

All of the plaintiffs, except Ferdin, were arrested for allegedly violating the city law that says protesters must keep 100 feet from a private residence. In the lawsuit, the activists claim that university police are targeting and harassing them because of their anti-animal research message.

UCLA officials, however, say it simply isn't so.

"We believe this [lawsuit] is an attempt by extremists to draw attention to their cause," UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton tells LA Weekly. "I'm not going to connect those four individuals to some of the serious criminal activity we've seen, [but] this is UCLA carefully monitoring these demonstrations at the home of researchers to strictly enforce noise and distance municipal codes designed to protect people from criminal harassment."

One of the issues, says Hampton, is that animal rights activists usually "put up inflammatory images, shoot epithets and have a history of frightening children while demonstrating at the homes. We think the allegations are groundless and without merit, and we're merely trying to protect our researchers while allowing for the free and open exchange of ideas."

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