Much as I despised Cali, their general statewide ban on breed bans was a blessing, which I also enjoyed in Virginia. Here in NC, no such blessing, and my presumptive¹ new home county, Forsyth, is reportedly “studying” the issue. Lovely.

¹It’s my presumptive home because I haven’t bought a new place yet, but did recently accepted a full-time position in Winston-Salem, the only city cool enough to have three four cigarette brands² named after it.

²Bonus points for the first reader who can name all three.

UPDATE: The intended third brand for the cool city was Kool. A better one, which McGehee and CTG proposed in comments, is Camel.

One more reason to hate Hillary: even Socks the Cat was a prop. If you like people who get pets to make themselves look warm and fuzzy, then ditch them when the need to look warm and fuzzy subsides, Hillary’s your girl.

UPDATE: More here via the guy who doesn’t really blend puppies, reminding us that Buddy, the other former first pet, didn’t fare so well after President Clinton and her husband left office, either.

Longtime readers may remember Daisy. In late 2002 and early 2003, Daisy was a temporary (unless you ask Mrs. X, in which case the answer is “permanent”) resident of Casa Xrlq in Rancho Santa Margarita. A friend of ours had found her in a park and bought her from a homeless man who had apparently been feeding her trash, resulting in a nasty stomach infection that nearly killed her. We nursed her back to health, and for a while (to me, as I didn’t want a third dog - to Mrs. X it was going to be permanent) she was our third dog:

Unfortunately, Daisy, who is the white lab/whippet mix on the right, didn’t get along too well with Molly the fawn pit bull on the left. She also didn’t play so well with our cats, but was extremely friendly toward people. At heart, she’s more of a loner. Not when it comes to people - she absolutely loves people - just other pets. She’s the perfect single pet.

We put her up for adoption in January, 2003, and placed her with a local (RSM) couple about a month later. The couple liked her so much they even sent us a pic of their own:

Three months later, the couple later learned the hard way what they should have learned the easy way before: dogs aren’t allowed in their complex. So they returned her, and we put her up for adoption again, and placed her again. All’s well that ends well. Right?

Wrong. Last week I got a call from a lady at the Orange County, CA animal shelter, informing that Daisy’s microchip was still in our name, and that Daisy had been surrendered by her owners for euthanasia because she had become unstable and bitten someone without provocation. That didn’t sound at all like the Daisy we knew, so I prodded her for details of the incident, only to learn that by “surrender” they meant “abandoned,” by “owners” she meant “some idiot vet tech who didn’t own or want her after the original owners had abandoned her at the vet’s office,” by “unstable” she had meant “scared shitless” and/or “didn’t immediately acclimate to a strange house,” by “someone” she had meant “that idiot vet tech’s dog,” and by “without provocation” she had meant “without the idiot vet tech even trying to introduce the dogs properly.” By all accounts she has been very friendly at the pound ever since, as she always was. But until and unless we can find some place to house her, she’s on death row and time is running out.

In an abundance of caution, I do not recommend Daisy for families that have cats and dogs already. I absolutely recommend her for families who are ready for one dog who has been through a lot of crap, will know immediately that her life got better, and will reward you in spades. If you are that person, know that person, or if you think you might be interested in meeting Daisy and possibly fostering her for a while, please let me know ASAP. If you can’t take her but are willing to help with the costs of boarding her until we find someone who can, please consider donating, either by PayPal (email xrlq at xrlq dot com) or, if you prefer, by contacting the boarding facility directly once we’ve determined who that will be.

The world’s fugliest dog has died at the ripe old age of almost-15.

Rest in peace, Sam.

On the heels of passing its doubly illegal handgun ban, Frisco wasted no time taking advantage of S.B. 861, the new law which will allow doggie racism effective January 1. Coming next: a new ordinance declaring Wiccan the official religion of Frisco, and another redefining “probable cause” to authorize warrantless searches of the homes of anyone who has publicly expressed opposition to gun control, breed control, or any other law banning possession of anything Frisco has taken it upon itself to ban. Tom McClintock had some choice words for this turkey:

Proponents of this measure have said this is a matter of local control. The reality is that local officials can be just as despotic as state officials and Senate Bill 861, at its core, is a despotic bill.

There are two types of laws. One type of law holds individuals accountable for their own actions. In such a society, the irresponsible, reckless one percent who endanger others are held accountable for those actions, and we have laws that punish them. They hold the individual accountable for his actions, they punish the reckless people and they leave the other 99 percent of law-abiding individuals alone.

The second type of law treats all people as if they were irresponsible and Senate Bill 861 would create such a law. These are the kind of laws that destroy freedom and create societies of subjects rather than citizens.

I ask you to consider what direction we are taking society when we begin passing laws that treat all individuals as if they were all irresponsible. That’s what this bill does. It is an insult to California’s law-abiding citizens and is an affront to a free society.

Attorney Dawn Capp is leading the charge for a referendum to overturn S.B. 861. Time is of the essence; we only have until Tuesday, January 3. You can download the petition here.

Via Tammy Bruce, H.R. 3858 would require state and local authorities to include pets and service animals in their disaster evacuation plans. The bill reads in its entirety:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2005′.

SEC. 2. STANDARDS FOR STATE AND LOCAL EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS OPERATIONAL PLANS.

Section 613 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5196b) is amended–

(1) by redesignating subsection (g) as subsection (h); and

(2) by inserting after subsection (f) the following:

‘(g) Standards for State and Local Emergency Preparedness Operational Plans- In approving standards for State and local emergency preparedness operational plans pursuant to subsection (b)(3), the Director shall ensure that such plans take into account the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals following a major disaster or emergency.’.

This one’s a no-brainer. Call your Congresscritter and tell him to support it.

UPDATE: All this comes not a minute too soon.

UPDATE x2: For those would-be Cruella de Villes who can’t bear the thought of one taxpayer dime going to pay for anyone’s pet or service dog, bear in mind that 42 U.S.C. § 5196b is a federal funding statute, not a direct mandate. If Louisiana wants to retain its policy of screwing pet owners, and soaking the taxpayers twice on service dogs that will need to be replaced, they can still do it; they just won’t be able to ask the rest of the country to help pay for it.

Another dog tragedy, this time involving a Rottweiler (h/t Tom Girsch). Adding a cruel sense of irony, it was a 150-pound male named Enano, which is Spanish for “dwarf.” True to form, the story does not tell us whether or not the dog was neutered, a factor that is far more likely to have been responsible for the incident than the breed of the dog. Meanwhile, here in “the” O.C., another such tragedy was likely averted when cops shot a chow mix that had just attacked a 12 year old boy and had bitten a 2 year old two months earlier. Also true to form, the story doesn’t report whether the dog’s idiot owner, who spoke only Spanish during the interview, had any business being here.

Pit bulls and their owners in California can breathe a little easier, now that Senate Bill 861 has been watered down to allow breed-specific spay and neutering programs only. I think that’s actually a good idea, albeit one being passed for all the wrong reasons. The right reason is that supply and demand is not equal for all breeds, so it is reasonable to be more lax about spaying and neutering those that are in short supply while being more strict about it with breeds that are overpopulated - such as pit bulls.

Unfortunately, the news from Colorado isn’t quite so good. While state law prohibits BSL, Denver continues to exempt itself from state law, pushing canine genocide. The only semi-good news to report here is that some Denver families have managed to save their pets by transfering them to an out of town sanctuary and promising never to bring them into the Fiefdom of Denver again. If you have the misfortune of living in that God-forsaken city, my only advice is to vote with your feet.

Once again, leave it to a liberal to do the wrong thing, even on an issue that is not traditionally viewed in terms of liberal vs. conservative. Via Classical Values, Uncly-Wuncly and San Jose Mercury-News (BugMeNot), we learn that State Sen. Jackie Speier, (TAKEAWILDGUESS-San Mateo), has introduced gutted and amended S.enate Bill 861 to allow breed-specific legislation (BSL) in California. On the one hand, I suppose I should be congratulating Gavin Newsom for finally working with the Legislature to “fix” a state law he doesn’t like rather than simply ignore it as he usually does. On the other, I’m a much bigger fan of the regular Olympics than the Special Olympics, so I’m loathe to give Frisco a medal for following a basic procedure we rightly expect any other city to follow as a matter of course, especially when the bill being pushed is a bad one.

Speier’s Bill would generally allow cities and counties to enact BSL, by amending the anti-BSL clause of Food & Agriculture Code Section Section 31683, which currently says this:

…[N]o [city or county] program shall regulate [potentially dangerous or vicious] dogs in a manner that is specific as to breed.

To say this, instead:

Cities and counties may pass breed specific legislation to address public safety and welfare concerns in their communities, provided that no program shall institute a ban specific as to breed.

Lovely. In other words, Frisco won’t be allowed go the way of its PETA adherents or its would-be sister city Denver, but they could come damned close. If this turkey passes, watch for Frisco to pass incredibly onerous “regulations” applicable to pit bull owners only (or maybe applicable to Rottweiler owners, too, but not to owners of presa canarios, as that would make too much sense), followed by inevitable lawsuits over which regulations are permissible, vs. which ones are merely a ban under a different name. Call it the Lawyers Full Employment Act of 2005.