GFN, as our members know, has had some minor editing mistakes. Those mistakes rest squarely on my shoulders as the editor. We have many good and honest people who submit stories to GFN and it's my job to follow up on the factual basis of those stories as well as to edit for punctuation and spelling. In many case's I've failed as to the punctuation and spelling. Regarding the factual issue's of the stories, I as the editor, stand behind the stories GFN publishes.

Onward

GFN members will be hearing much more from Cherie Graves. We at GFN welcome her as a member and contributing writer to GFN.

We citizens of the United States of America are still engaged in a civil rights struggle. This struggle knows no racial boundaries, it knows to social status, it knows no financial status. It affects every person, from the poorest, to the most affluent, from the city dweller, to the largest land owner. It goes to our most ancient and traditional property, and to our ownership and use rights in animals. Dog/animal ownership is as varied, as is the human tapestry that bonds our great nation.

When we site the adage, "Punish the Deed, not the Breed", we are actually encouraging legislatures to hold animals responsible for their actions. Dangerous dog laws remove the human factor, and concentrate solely upon the dog, not taking into consideration that the dog is the responsibility of it's owner. Lawmakers go to great lengths to describe, and to define animal behaviors, and to then punish said behaviors. It is far more reasonable to write laws that are directed at the dog owner, rather than the dog.

Our laws must be written for we human beings. Laws must be reasonable. Animals must not be criminalized under laws that are intended to protect human rights, and to control human behaviors. It is unreasonable to write animal behavior into laws that no animal has the capacity to understand, answer to, or to function under. It is unreasonable to mete out criminal labels to animals, i.e. dangerous, or potentially dangerous. It is unreasonable to proscribe punishments to animals under our laws. We must bring this writing of animal behaviors into our laws to a halt, and demand that humans be held accountable, not animals. We must stop thinking that it is a better trade off than prohibitions on dog ownership. We are wrong. Neither is a good choice.

No dog is capable of understanding, or answering to any law that has ever been written. Dangerous dog laws that hold a dog to a set of written regulations that it will never respond is a perfect set up to promote animal rights, where an animal is given a legal position under the law to conform, or to behave in a proscribed manner. Laws are not in the realm of the understanding of even the most intelligent dog. To set forth behavioral acceptability, and punishments for animals is to elevate them to a human level under law. This is just exactly what the animal rights movement wants. When we accept dangerous dog laws, we are hugging the serpent. Our laws must only be written to proscribe human behavior. We must see dangerous dog laws that hold animals to accountability under the law for what they are. As the law elevates animals, it devalues human beings. The animal rights movement expects us to fight breed specific legislation, and to promote dangerous dog laws, and we have done just that, undermining our own civil rights.

Neither should we allow prohibitions on the responsible ownership of any dog by breed. It violates the XIV Amendment, equal treatment, equal protection.

The taking of dogs by breed is only the beginning of the eventual removal of all animals from our ownership, and use. Animals are among the most ancient of our traditional property, when government decides to remove our ownership rights, it will be piecemeal, not whole hog. Think for a moment what would happen if your city, or county government stipulated that all dogs must be forfeit. People would stand up, and put an immediate stop to that. It would immediately be recognized as an assault on our civil rights, whereas the taking of dogs by breed doesn't engender the same recognition.

Breed specific dog laws appear on the surface to be about dogs, but upon closer examination we discover that BSL is all about we human owners of dogs. It's about government invading the sanctity of our homes, and our property, and removing animals that we consider to be a part of our family. It is about government criminalizing the ownership of dogs by breed. It is about the taking from we, the people, all of the numerous breeds, and mixed breeds of dogs that are now named in breed specific prohibitions, or restrictions in venues across the United States at this very time. Prohibitions on the ownership of dogs can overlap to become prohibitions on all animals. There are no stop-gaps built into breed specific legislation to prevent an overlap.

Laws must give us the right to due process of law. BSL in Denver, Kennewick, and many places across the United States remove animals for no reason other than breed, from responsible owners, with no charges of negligence, and no opportunity to have a case, or to have the case heard in the Courts. BSL allows warrantless searches, and seizures of private property for no reason other than the breed of dog involved. BSL violates the Constitutional right to recompense for property taken by government for public use, i.e. public safety. New Jersey is proposing to have special licensing to own dog breeds. A license is a temporary revocable permit that allows the licensee to have something, or to do something that would be illegal to have, or to do without the license. It makes dog ownership illegal. It turns over all ownership, and use rights to the licensing agency which can at any time, inspect, confiscate, suspend, revoke, or halt issuance of the license. Licensure is a taking by government without compensation.

Those who own the target breeds are set apart, are vilified, and made to look like criminals, so that the rest of society will not be troubled by the government's taking of the dogs. The owners of these targeted breeds are victims of hate crimes, initiated by government. Communities will actually endorse the taking of dogs, not realizing that other breeds of dogs are going to be added to the growing list of restricted, or prohibited dogs. The targeted dogs are purportedly endowed with mythical powers that no other breed of canine can match. The surrounding myth would make these dogs so omnipotent that no mere mortal could possibly outsmart, control, train, contain, or have a normal owner relationship with them. These are exactly the self same tactics that have been historically used against any of the victims of hate crimes.

Realistically all domestic animal breeds were developed by human beings. When we come to the realization that it is us that these laws are truly aimed at, then we can shed the blinders, and get down to the real business of protecting our civil rights. When we stand up for ourselves as citizens, when we refuse to have our rights, and our property stripped from us, then we will be invincible. We must demand due process of law. We must not give over our civil rights and our property, or our property rights. Dogs are valuable property. We humans have tens, of thousands of years of tradition in owning dogs. Dogs serve us in most every capacity from the gentle companion to service dogs, to guide dogs, to police dogs, to search, and rescue dogs, military dogs, drug sniffing dogs, hunting dogs, field dogs, herding dogs, guard dogs, show dogs, obedience dogs, dancing dogs, agility dogs, fly ball racers, the list is endless. and endlessly varied.

Far more people are killed by any number of other things than by dogs. Venomous snake bites kill an average of fifteen to twenty Americans per year. Bees kill one hundred, to three hundred persons a year on average. In 1989 fire-ant stings killed thirty two people in Texas. Lightening strikes one in every six hundred thousand persons killing one hundred, to three hundred persons annually.According to the U.S. Department of Labor there were five thousand, five hundred, and seventy-five work related fatalities in 2003. There were thirty eight thousand (38,000) fatal automobile crashes in 2003 across the U.S. Sadly, an average of fifteen hundred (1,500) children are killed each year in the United States by a parent, or guardian. The leading cause of death among pregnant women in the U.S. is murder at the hand of the father of her unborn child.

Given these figures, the restrictions on ownership of dogs, by breed, make no sense. California's SB 861 analysis quotes figures that there have been forty- seven human deaths in California that were attributable to dogs from the years 1965 through 2001. That averages to one death a year out of a population of some thirty-five million, eighty-four thousand, four hundred and fifty-three people (35,084,453). Subtract one from the figure 35,484,453 and you will see how many people did not die from dog bites in California each year... San Francisco averages three hundred and sixty two reported dog bites per year, approximately one bite per day, from a population of seven hundred fifty- one thousand,six hundred and eighty-two (751,682) people. In any given year in San Francisco 751,320 people are not bitten by dogs. Public Safety, cannot, and must not be used as an excuse to remove our civil rights. Sound, responsible dog owner legislation that is strictly enforced, is a reasonable alternative that reinforces our civil rights.

Every year approximately four million people across the United States are bitten by dogs. That number makes up less than 1% of our population. Out of that figure, the vast majority of dog bite victims are unattended children who are bitten by their family dog at home. The rest are unattended children who are off of their family property that are bitten by a dog that is at large. The number of fatalities resulting from dog attacks across the United States average from twelve, to twenty four in any given year. Dogs are certainly not the threat to public health, and safety that the news media would lead us all to believe. Shocking, and horrifying as these dog related fatalities are, there are many, and far more serious threats to human life here in the United States.

There are a whole lot of dogs, in the United States, tens of millions. Of the 400,000,000 of us human beings , about sixty-five percent, give or take, own dogs. If the vast majority of dog owners were not responsible, there would be at least as many deaths attributable to dogs, as there are to automobile crashes. Dog related fatalities are very few in comparison to any other cause. Out of a population of some 400,000,000 to lose 12, to 24 people in a year to dog attacks is a strong case for, and speaks volumes to the overall safety record of dog owners.

(CBS 11 News) Wally Swanson’s passion is the Camp Wolfgang Rescue Operation. He founded the program 4 years ago in order to help save German Shepherds. Swanson says, “Every dog you see here would be dead if we didn’t take them.” He is now caring for 180 German Shepherds just south of Palmer in Ellis County.

Swanson claims that his deep love for dogs has now led him to file a lawsuit against the SPCA of Texas in Dallas. “It’s something I did with great reluctance.”

In 2002, Swanson says he entered into an informal agreement with the SPCA. They would take in the dogs he received that were not German Shepherds. They would then adopt those dogs to families and give him a record of what happened to each dog.

Swanson says that, as part of their agreement, the SPCA would not euthanize any of the dogs. Animals that became sick or aggressive or couldn’t be adopted would be returned to Swanson.

In all, he entrusted 100 dogs to the SPCA’s care. Swanson filed the lawsuit because the SPCA won’t tell him what happened to the dogs.

Swanson says, “My fear is not all the Camp Wolfgang dogs were adopted out as was represented to me. What happened to them? We will find out.”

Swanson says that, at one point, he regularly received e-mails showing pictures of his dogs with their new families. After SPCA president James Bias told him that these updates would no longer be send, Swanson ended the agreement.

Bias says that he is not aware of any agreement with Swanson.

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