It is bills like these that HB 2833 will exempt working dogs from if passed into law. Please make those calls to the Committee Representatives - ONLY 3 DAYS LEFT!!!!
Crossposting is encouraged.
April 6, 2011
RPOA encourages everyone to send this article to your legislators. This is
why all Texas animal owners live in fear and it's time to fight back.
Animal Rights Extremists have infiltrated all levels of government. It's
not paranoia when they are really out to get you! Would you want vegans
regulating the Meat Industry? Comments can be made at the newspaper article
link below.
The Texas Tribune
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-legislative-session/texas-dog-breeders-fret-that-state-lawyer-is-mole/She's volunteered at Emancipet, an Austin animal rescue group. Her Facebook
page is populated with posts from animal rights groups.
She's also an attorney for the state's regulating agency and is helping to
draft a bill that dog breeders say is designed to kill
their industry.
"I think she's a mole," said Dale Martenson, who breeds cavalier spaniels in
the Dallas-Fort Worth area. "They oppose us, and they
want us to stop breeding."
House Bill 1451 by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, would impose
new licensing requirements and regulations on dog breeders
in an effort to eliminate so-called puppy mills. Under the bill, the Texas
Department of Licensing and Regulation would develop and
enforce the regulations. And TDLR staff, including animal rights enthusiast
and agency lawyer Della Woods Lindquist, have been
working with Thompson to write the bill. Lindquist even made a visit to one
Austin kennel, and she asked Martenson for a tour of his
facility to conduct research.
Dog breeders say Lindquist's involvement is a serious conflict of interest.
They worry it will mean overly strict regulations and
steep fees and fines that could drive them out of business. But Thompson and
a TDLR spokeswoman say breeders are overreacting. And
animal rights groups say claims of infiltration are "ridiculous." Lindquist
is one of many people involved in the bill writing, and
they say she won't be solely responsible for enforcing dog breeding rules.
"It boils down to just some simply basic things they
would want if they would stop getting overexcited about things," Thompson
said.
This legislative session is the second go-round for Thompson and the puppy
mill bill. Under the bill, anyone with 11 or more
unspayed female dogs would be considered a commercial breeder subject to
licensing and regulations. The bill would require breeders
to pay licensing fees and to abide by strict rules about the animals' living
conditions and health care.
The Tribune thanks our Supporting Sponsors
Martenson said he's not opposed to regulation, and that he has worked with
Thompson, hoping to make the measure less onerous for
good dog breeders while still punishing those who mistreat animals. "We're
all for doing it right," he said. "But we're not for
having it done by animal rights groups who want to shut us down."
After working with Thompson's office for hours, Martenson said he was
frustrated not to see changes made to the bill. Then, he got a
call from Lindquist. That's when it became obvious, he said, that animal
rights activists were plotting to put people like him out
of business.
The two had never met before. Martenson said Lindquist told him she would be
developing rules and regulations if the bill was
adopted and that she didn't have much experience with kennels. She asked to
visit his facility. But Martenson said parts of his
conversation with Lindquist raised red flags. He said she told him that each
time someone purchases a dog from him, a shelter dog is
killed. "That just was so chilling to me," he said. "I just decided to get
off the phone."
After the conversation he did a Google search on Lindquist and discovered
that she had worked with Emancipet. Even more alarming to
Martenson was a link on the Emancipet website encouraging donations to the
Texas Humane Legislation Network - the very group that is
the primary promoter of the puppy mill bill.
A review of the postings on Lindquist's Facebook page - since made private
after The Texas Tribune began reporting this story -
shows she regularly shares articles from animal rights organizations,
including the major groups supporting Thompson's puppy mill
bill. The posts include many stories about the farming industry. In one post
she wrote, "Factory farming is a great evil." In a
comment on a story she posted about puppy mills, Lindquist wrote, "Time to
end the cruelty of the 'dog trade' where the animals are
thought of simply as 'crops' to harvest and profit from." The list of groups
Lindquist "likes" on Facebook is a virtual directory of
animal rights groups, including The Humane Society of the United States and
the Texas Humane Legislation Network, both key backers
of the puppy mill bill.
Martenson also learned that Lindquist had visited the home of a fellow
breeder, Tonia Holibaugh, outside of Austin. Holibaugh raises
award-winning Maltese. Holibaugh met Lindquist through a mutual friend. She
invited Lindquist to come visit her kennel to get a
better understanding of how breeding works. "I took her on face value,"
Holibaugh said. "I thought, 'She just doesn't understand.'"
Holibaugh said Lindquist told her she was advising on the bill and that she
would be working on the regulations. (The Tribune sought
an interview with Lindquist for this story, but a TDLR spokeswoman declined
the request.) As the tour continued, Holibaugh said
comments that Lindquist made about breeding and about animal rights seemed
to betray a bias against Holibaugh's business.
"Either Della is a really good actress, or she doesn't see the conflict of
interest," Holibaugh said. "It screams conflict of
interest."
Martenson and Holibaugh suspect that animal rights groups strategically
wrote the bill to ensure that the TDLR would oversee the
regulations, knowing that Lindquist would be there to keep the rules so
strict that breeders like them would be forced out of
business. "They view our business and the success of our business as the
death of shelter dogs," Martenson said.
Susan Stanford, a spokeswoman for TDLR, said leaders there are aware of
Lindquist's involvement in animal rights causes. Though she
is working on the puppy mill legislation and would be involved in its
implementation, Stanford said, Lindquist would not be making
all the decisions. "She doesn't have the carte blanche to write these
rules," Stanford said. "She's working as a team member."
Although TDLR did not ask Lindquist to conduct field research for the puppy
mill bill at dog kennels like Holibaugh's, Stanford said
the agency often does such visits to better understand how industries that
they regulate work. Asked whether Lindquist's involvement
presented conflict-of-interest concerns, Stanford said, "No, as a
professional, she's able to put her personal life aside and meet
the legalities necessary to write the rules."
Thompson said Lindquist's involvement in the bill writing has been limited.
Colleen Tran, a staffer who is working on the measure,
said breeders have misunderstood Lindquist's role. "I think it just scared
them," Tran said. And she added that some of the
breeders' suggestions would be incorporated in a new version of the bill
that is in the works. Still, Thompson said she was
concerned that Lindquist requested to visit breeders' facilities under the
auspices of working on the legislation.
Skip Trimble, a board member of the Texas Humane Legislation Network, said
neither his organization nor the puppy mill legislation
aims to shutdown the breeding industry. Their goal, he said, is simply to
stop bad breeders who abuse animals, forcing them to
constantly have puppies and leaving them in squalid conditions. He called
allegations that Lindquist is somehow doing the group's
bidding from inside the state agency "totally ridiculous." "It's just all
sorts of paranoia," he said.
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