“and a ban against selling or giving away animals on public property, private parking lots and flea markets.”

I work for PawMatch, a registered 501c3, non profit, animal rescue and adoption shelter. We rescue animals from shelters across central Texas and since 2005 we have saved the lives of over 12,000 grateful animals. At present this ordinance does not differentiate between a puppy mill setup on the side of the road and a rescue organization such as PawMatch. The reason for our success is that we take our rescue dogs and cats out into the public, drawing attention to the overpopulation problem while working to solve it. I believe the intent of the ordinance is well placed, as it is intended to stop the illegal sale and breeding of pets within the city. As a rescue group, we are entirely behind that intent. However, as it stands, this ordinance will ban rescue groups such as PawMatch from functioning within the city, and in doing so condemn more innocent animals to euthanasia. Shelters such as the San Marcos shelter often exterminate nearly 3 out of 4 animals taken in. The animals we rescue from these shelters beat these odds only because we are there to take them. Our numbers speak for themselves. Bringing this issue out into the public works. We need people to understand the importance of spay/neuter initiatives to bring the animal birthrate numbers down. The following is an excerpt from an article published on Newstreamz.com on January 22nd, 2009. Written by Andy Sevilla, Associate Editor.
“Bert Stratemann, the city’s animal services manager, said the ordinance is fine as it stands, adding that he would have preferred an even more extensive ordinance.
“We’re showing we’re a progressive community that looks out for the welfare and cares about the animals that are in the community,” Stratemann said. “And a community that shows compassion and caring for the animals of the community really is a nice community.”"
I have to disagree with Mr. Stratemann as I do not think this ordinance is fine as it stands, nor do I think it is, “progressive” to ban a non profit rescue group from saving the lives of innocent animals in your community.

Turning this debate into discussions of microchipping children and grandmothers is a straw man argument. People who can debate facts don’t need straw men. I don’t know a single person who advocates microchipping children and I have seen no one posting here has advocated it. I’m sure if you search the internet, you can find some nutjob somewhere with a blog who advocates this and any fool thing you can think of it. But that does not equate to “lots of people wanting to microchip children”.

There are no reliable statistics regarding whether the strays who are never claimed are lost or dumped. There is no way to collect this information unless you make the erroneous assumption that if it were lost someone would have found it.

Very often, a lost animal will be found by someone who really cares about animals. Those who don’t care will just ignore it unless it is being a nuisance. Those people who find the lost animal will be reluctant to take it to a shelter for fear that it will be euthanized. Instead they will try to find the owners on their own with varying degrees of success. So the first place that people look for their animal is the last place many people will take it. Eventually, the finder may give up their search for the owner and turn the lost animal over to a shelter but by then the original owner may have given up their search.

One of the reasons that shelters, rescues, and responsible breeders microchip is because they are taking on a lifetime responsibility for the animal. If that animal ends up at another shelter or rescue, the original rescuer will take it back and rehome it again. That is not really feasible with tags. Tags get lost. I don’t know how he does it, but one of my dogs has lost his tags and, once,his entire collar at the dog park. And, yes, his collar fits correctly.

Has anyone done replicated research on this topic…any thing published in professional journals? Check it out. I will.

For some reason, I have known of far too many pet owners who have had tragically ill pets, tried in vain right up to traveling to Texas A&M, contacting the SPCA, et al, and yet had no rights as citizen pet owners. That smacks of a financial conflict of interest on the part of vets, the cities, et al.

I would never have that put in a pet, much less myself. They are now in the products we buy to track our purchasing habits. BASTA.

It took this town at over 30 years to change the mandatory bar closing times on the weekends, regardless of the continuous input from the citizens and small business owners who have been trying to get this changed for so long. It finally took some bright accountant to figure out that we were losing all of that DUI – DWI money to Austin. Once they figured that out, the law was changed. Everything political is about money. That’s just the way it works in our country.