Showing horse sense. California is one of the top five states for horse ownership, and horse protection is something of an orphan issue in the state. There are some trainers who “sore” Tennessee Walking horses, and we are soon to execute a plan to stop that abuse. We’ll also leverage the power of the California Congressional delegation and its animal-friendly electorate to help drive national policies to end the slaughter of American horses throughout North America. And we’ll be advocating for California’s wild horses and burros – from Modoc County in the far reaches of the north to Death Valley in the southern region of the state. There have been controversial round-ups of horses and burros, and we’ll oppose those crude and costly efforts and advocate for humane population management on the range, principally through fertility control programs. Our new staff, Holly Gann, is an equine specialist, and she’ll work with Action executive director on these campaigns and activities.

Instituting a “Stop and Frisky” program to protect dogs and law enforcement personnel. We intend to create training videos for police officers when they enter a property where a dog is present. With their uniform and their presence, police officers can seem menacing to dogs, and dogs may bark and exhibit other behaviors that seem threatening to police. In too many cases, officers act out of fear and shoot and kill or maim dogs. In fact, more shots are fired at dogs than people, and those terrible outcomes occur because police officers simply don’t have the training to handle these circumstances. By providing training videos that help officers manage these encounters in humane ways, that keeps dogs alive and police officers safe.

Unmuting vets on mutilating our pets. Veterinarians have sometimes been an impediment to the enactment of policies to forbid declawing and cosmetic procedures such as tail docking and ear cropping. These are unneeded forms of mutilation, and they are typically conducted by veterinarians. We can help amplify the voices of veterinarians to get the job done.