Animal Control Watch

It is a buzzword - phrase, really, since it is a group of words. It is the language. It is in the manual. But really, when you read about any theft of animals from their owners by animal control, if you read the news article, it is always there.

From Mark Madows’ blog:

So it’s the 29th of April, and I show up for this hearing. I go into the hearing officer’s office and he’s got two of the Animal Control people there. Unfortunately, the guy had more testosterone in his veins than blood cells. He has a three-quarter-inch thick file of paper, and he’s shaking his head and wagging his finger and telling me that he sees these terrible, terrible things in that file. He starts going down the list: there are more than three animals, and they’re not healthy, and the conditions are not healthy for human beings, and he goes on and on with all these allegations. While he’s ranting, I’m thinking he’s got the wrong file. I mean, it seems like he’s talking about one of those cases you see on TV, where there’s 57 animals living in a small apartment, plus twenty dead ones, all paddling around in feces stacked three feet deep. He finally says, “What do you have to say about it?”

“Will you show me a photograph, or a paragraph in your report there, that alleges the animals are unhealthy, for example, or a danger to human beings?”

He slams the file closed and says, “This is not a joke, this is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen.” And he won’t show me a specific word that anyone has alleged, and he doesn’t show me any photograph.

Now, I suppose that I could believe that if someone had been working at the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office for say, one day, that a person who had feral cats TNRed and fed and watered feral cats *might* be the “worst case they’d ever seen.” Or, I guess if you hate cats with a passion impossible to comprehend, someone trying to help them might be the “worst case you’ve ever seen.” But it is pretty hard for us to believe, even then. And it seems this particular hearing officer, Ben Lovato, has a rather storied past. Seems he used to be a detective with the LAPD. And even just having been a dectective with the LAPD, one would have to guess that he’d seen worse things than a man trying to help some cats (personally I wish the worst thing *I’d* ever seen was a man trying to help some cats.) But it seems Ben Lovato has been around a while, and has a rather storied past.

Then there is the unnamed Los Angeles animal control officer (again quoted from Mr. Madow’s blog):

She said something like, “Your animals are all healthy, and they have adequate clean food and water, so my only question is why you do this.” I agreed with her that it was a lot of work, and I certainly don’t get the food for free. She said, “Well, if you’re doing this much work for this many animals, you must not have much of a life.”

Why do we do it?

Because we love animals, because we want to help animals, because it is the right thing to do? What business is it of hers why we do it? As for not having much of a life, well, we can all do the things we are able to do to try to have the kind of life we want. At least, in the America I want to live in. And getting feral cats TNRed deserves kudos, not criticism. Again, in the America I want to live in.