my neighbor came to my door several days ago with a petition to protest a new law that will be put into place later this month, limiting the number of pets a resident may have. the limit is 5 pets.
Many municipalities have a limit on dogs, typically three. But very few have an aggregate limit on all pets, especially animals that never go outside like hamsters, or those who, even indoors, are never out of their cage except inside a ball like chinchillas.
I'm a dog lover and we have eleven of them on five acres in a remote area with very few restrictions. Nonetheless I understand that dogs can bother people. They bark, and even the most diligently confined manage to get out occasionally; that is perhaps a dog's most well-honed talent.
Generally the problem with a large number of other pets is poor sanitation, or even outright chaos caused by the owner being a couple of tacos short of a combination plate. In those cases the authorities just bust 'em for creating a health hazard. The disorder often extends to other things like piles of newspapers, so they also get 'em for hoarding and creating a fire hazard.
my neighbor has like 17 cats, and at least one dog (which is a great dane) in her home. to my knowledge, she loves them very much, cares for them very well, and cleans up after them adequately.
Loving a pet, just like loving a child, does not automatically manifest as taking good care of them. Look at all the bratty, uncivilized kids out there whom even the best of us occasionally daydreams about simply shooting out of exasperation. The number of bratty, uncivilized companion animals is far greater.
the way i see it, there are already plenty of laws in place to regulate the treatment of animals and pets, and to regulate any community problems associated with them.
Those laws are extremely difficult to enforce. Almost no city or county has enough animal control officers to cover any but the worst cases, or complaints from people who contribute to political campaigns. Maximum-number laws are much easier to apply; just knock on the door and count noses.
We had a superbitch buy the house next door to us who thought she was queen of the neighborhood. She called the cops to report that we had more dogs (eight) than the legal limit (three). An officer dropped in, found eight tiny Lhasa Apsos who were all de-barked, professionally groomed with ribbons in their hair and, like all Lhasa Apsos, couch potatoes who didn't spend much time outside in their immaculately maintained, sweet-smelling, poop-free yard. She almost cried but she said, "I gotta do this because it's my job. You have one month to choose three to keep." That's when we moved out to the forest.
Tell that to the factory farmers who don't give them enough room to turn around, or to the motherfucking asshole
kosher and
halal butchers who slaughter them by letting them bleed to death.
there are zoning laws that would prohibit breeding facilities or shelters being operated in a residential area.
Ironically this targets the "back yard breeders" like us, whose dogs run free in the yard during the day, watch TV with us in the evening, and sleep in our beds at night. And who routinely clean up our gene pool by outbreeding so our puppies are much healthier than pet shop dogs. These laws are a scam perpetrated by the AKC, who is in league with the puppy mills in Iowa and Missouri, who support them with their fees while keeping them in stacked cages like laying hens. The AKC will allow you to breed dogs back to their own children and grandchildren for twelve generations, and still register them. Thank them for all the hereditary diseases that have lowered the life expectancy of large breeds to eight years and of small breeds to twelve. We've spent 25 years developing Lhasa Apsos that make it to their fourteenth birthday; fifty years ago they commonly lived to be 18 or 20.
imo, it's big brother in action. what do you think?
Welcome to the People's Republic of America.
you know, i don't necessarily agree with that (i have outdoor kitties), but i can see the logic behind that law more than this pet limit law.
Cats wreak havoc with the local ecosystem in urban and suburban regions. They kill birds wholesale, as well as small mammals. And there's always a couple of bozos who didn't bother to have their male cats neutered so they howl all night. (Or they wait until they're already sexually mature and have developed behavior patterns that will never change.) Laws against outdoor cats have become very common in the USA, and they enjoy immense popular support.
to me, it does seem odd that someone would want to take on that responsibility. i mean, my neighbor must have like 20 animals in her house. i can barely clean up after 3. but if they are willing to take on that responsibility, and care for them, and clean up after them, and they aren't a nuisance to the neighbors (which my neighbor definitely does), then hey man, this is america...land of the free.
Over the years we have learned that it's not the number of animals that makes the work, but the number of different species. We once had one dog, three cats, one African Grey and a tame grosbeak. Those six pets were far more trouble than eleven dogs.
imo our loss of civil liberties in this country is a disturbing trend. what's next? will they put a limit on the number of children we can have? the number of cars we can own? what home we can live in? what job we can have? if this trend continues at the rate it's going, by the time you get to be my age, you're gonna swear you live in china.
I don't know how old you are, but I'm 67 and as far as I'm concerned we got there when they started making the poor little kids wear helmets on their bikes. I was fifteen before we had a car with seat belts. And don't get me started on Affirmative Discrimination.
