Animals are Family Too

Seth Victor

          This past week I attended the 2010 New Jersey State Bar Association Annual Meeting and Convention in Atlantic City. I had a very enjoyable time, and while I think part of holding the event in Atlantic City is to entice lawyers to come and make a holiday of it, I was there strictly to attend the seminars (and maybe have some fried oreos on the boardwalk). The lectures did not disappoint. My Thursday started at 8:00am. I know of no law school courses that are scheduled for 8:00am because no student, or law professor, wants to be thinking critically that early. When, however, you have an intriguing discussion awaiting you with some of the top names in animal law, you find ways to perk up. Thus I found myself in “Animal are Family Too,” sponsored by the NJ Animal Law Committee.   

Thinking About Dogs

Bruce Wagman

I have had dogs on my mind lately.  They are the main players in many of my (and many animal lawyers’) cases, and they are the species I get the most calls about.  This week I had a call about a sheep owner shooting a roaming dog, with the caller wondering about the implication of the California statute that allows a livestock owner to shoot any dog on his land, even if the dog is nowhere near livestock, Cal. Food and Agric. Code section 31103, and the case that upheld the broad scope of that statute, Katsaris v. Cook, 180 Cal. App. 3d 256 (Cal. App. 1986).  I talked earlier in the year with a lawyer who convinced a court that her client’s dog breeding operation was a livestock facility, United States v. Park, 536 F.3d 1058 (9^th Cir. 2008), on remand, 2009 WL 2949333 (D. Idaho).  The irony of that case seemed to escape everyone involved.  The issue in the case was whether this breeding operation could operate on land with a federal easement.  “Livestock operations” were allowed to do so.  So the interesting point of the ruling for me is the conclusion that breeders are in fact just like factory (livestock) farmers and others who operate commercial operations, use animals for profit, and in the short and long run contribute directly to the death of thousands of animals in shelters around the country.  When someone buys a dog from a breeder, they automatically kill a dog in a shelter who could have been saved – “buy one, get one killed,” as one of my t-shirts says.  The math is simple and can’t be denied; if a new dog if brought into the world for profit, and given to someone who has room for a dog, then that breed dog replaces the life of a dog in a shelter, who will then be gassed, injected or otherwise summarily wiped off the planet, dying sad and alone and wondering why.