I am SO happy with how that fence turned out- feel free to repeat it!

Could not agree more!

 WERD

Amen!

The common thread between all of us here is RESPONSIBILITY for our domestic animals; our beloved shorthairs!  See, most of the dogs you will see the Dognamic Duo discovering are of all breeds, THEY are in neglectful situations.  There are way too many!  Even if there is legislation for tethering laws, who's gonna monitor that, EVERYWHERE?  You will never stop abusers, or neglectful pet owners.  For our dogs safety, WE all employ methods that work for us, that are NOT neglectful to our dogs.  Not everyone is that way, not everyone is thinking.  It IS a sensitive subject; but it is one that should be addressed.  Many communities NOW have tethering laws.  Who's monitoring that, I have no clue.  It's on those back roads, maybe it's even on the block next to you, we all know of a dog that is chained up, lieing in the mud, in his own feces, with no food, no water, maybe just a porch for shelter, if his chain will let him get to it?  Can you imagine what it must feel like to be out there all alone, trying to get some zzzz's, and being constantly on edge for wild animals, from drunks who like to go "dog hunting" in the middle of the night?  To never be able to relax, to always wonder when they will get water again, or food, or a kind pat on the head?  To wonder when the next time his owner goes out back, all he's gotta get is jerked outta his barrell by his chain and socked in the head twenty times, for merely whining or barking?  Repeatedly?  It's on You Tube NOW, a guy in High Point NC...busted on video, repeatedly going out to that barrell, yanking that chained dog out and punching him in the head, then throwing him back in the barrell, pulling him back out, God!  It lasted forever....and the police said there was nothing wrong with that....  I hope when I die, I do not come back as a dog, cuz my luck, I"ll end up at the end of a chain with mange, heartworm and arthritis worse then I already have....  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.  But really the key is responsibility.     

Lisa everything you detailed there is sad.  However in none of those instances did the fact the dogs were on a chain have anythig to do with their abuse.

Would any of those dogs been better off if they were being beaten, starved, neglected, and abused while being housed in a 20,000.00 Kennel?  How bout if they were stuck in a 50.00 vari kennel?  How about if they recieved the exact same treatment while housed in the home's garaged or storage shed?

Teathering is not abuse, it does not cause abuse, neglect or anything else.  It's the mentality of the owner which causes them.

Teathering laws won't do anything to reduce abuse or neglect, what they will do is create one more excuse for government to intrude on the lives of law abiding citizens.

A much more sensible approach is to simply enforce existing abuse, neglect, and animal cruelty laws.  Making more laws only subdivides the time of a limited number of enforcement personell.

One key component of these laws that is never discussed is the simple fact that by making it more difficult and expensive to legally own dogs, the end result will be fewer people owning them thereby reducing the impact we dog owners have at the ballot box as our overall numbers continue to drop.  Just one more way for the peta crowd to back door their way into government pushign their ultimate agenda of eliminating the ownership of pets. CR

"never discussed"?  I beg to differ, your point is essentially the same thing I was discussing.  IMO "tethering laws" make it dramatically more difficult to place unwanted dogs into adoptive homes.  However I think you've got your numbers mixed up & are looking at from the wrong perspective.  I'm less concerned by the number of people owning dogs-my concern is mostly with the huge number of homeless dogs.  For me its the excess number of dogs-not the total number of owners.  I do not advocate artificially stimulating dog ownership/consumption since I've been sickened by the fad/fashion breeding/buying seen in Dalmations, Weimerainer & now Pitbulls.  I'd also thought that dog ownership was up & continuing to grow.  I would enjoy learning if your contention "our overall numbers continue to drop" is a fact or fiction?

"One key component of these laws that is never discussed is the simple fact that by making it more difficult and expensive to legally own dogs, the end result will be fewer people owning them thereby reducing the impact we dog owners have at the ballot box as our overall numbers continue to drop.  Just one more way for the peta crowd to back door their way into government pushign their ultimate agenda of eliminating the ownership of pets"

The fact that Rescue & Humane Society policy summarily rejected me, w/o any recourse, solely on the basis of no "fenced yard" was inhumane insanity.  I offer an exceptional situation when trying to adopt a dog, 17 acres of forest & work at home, my dog is a constant companion-yet misguided rigid stupidity sent me away as unacceptable.  These are private organizations dictating policy outside "tethering laws".   IMO they would sooner euthanize millions of dogs than place them, even into doggie nirvana like my situation.  I'd also enjoy learning about actual links between "the peta crowd" & Rescue, Humane society & "tethering laws" it certainly sounds plausible.  

My long term support & admiration for Rescue & Humane Society was turned into contempt.  I've become an outspoken critic.  I ran into unethical Rescue, where desirable dogs, vetted at tax payer expense, were siphoned out of a county shelter for less than $40 & offered for $200-$300 along w/some made up sob story.  Also got channeled by corrupt Rescue, via ads for dogs that did not exist, directly to high price breeders.  The worst of their type preys upon heart broken owners who've lost their beloved pets.  Their traditional purpose has been subverted.  However its quite a leap to suggest an "agenda of eliminating the ownership of pets".  IMO there's a movement to maximize profits & squeeze every $ possible  An equation which makes absolutely no sense at all.   America is paying to euthanize millions of unwanted dogs annually, people like me who have had dogs all their lives & offer a great rural home for them are rejected even when waving cash in their faces to adopt, BUT I can buy a high priced puppy anywhere/anytime, w/no questions asked!  

IMO the PETA crowd needs to camp out at the malls, big box pet stores, flea markets & puppy mills where big money is being made peddling pet fantasies to compulsive comfort addicts.   Consumers impulse buy puppies at alarming rates & there's no issues raised about "fenced yards" & submitting to "home inspections" or "periodic visits".  All a 1st time dog buyer w/o a clue needs to do is parrot the right prepackaged BS, have a valid credit card & they walk out w/dog. 

Fortunately the internet offers an alternative to a PETA dominated 'Idiocracy'.  In my agonizing search I didn't just find abusive morons w/dogs-I also found the Salt of the Earth genuine dog people that I love, respect & admire.   I found Petfinder.com virtually useless & never discovered why they frustrated searching by obscuring where, even what state, a dog was in.  No, I wasn't willing to travel 1000 to look at a dog.  Using the regional online free classifieds to connect directly saved one extremely deserving GSP from serious neglect.  As a pup Kal was no doubt selected as an urban (WPB) toy/prop by an owner w/no understanding of dogs or GSP's & discarded as soon as he became an out of control adolescent.  Things went down hill from there, about all Kal ever got were "fenced yards" until he came to my 'totally unacceptable' 17 acres of forest & got his 1st chance to actually be a dog.

Lisa you know me well enough to know how much I think of you personally.  However I think in this case  you are letting your passion overwhelm your normally high level of common sense.

Again it's NOT the fact that a dog is teathered that causes problems at all.  They get just as neglected and abused in back yards, garages, homes, and nice looking kennels. 

What anti teathering campaigns do is play on the heartstrings of people.  They (promoters of anti-teathering laws and ordinances) do is to falsely make a connection that teathered dogs are abused, neglected, used for fighting etc.

I get a hundred plus visitors to my kennel every year.  When they see the dogs on the stake outs they are amazed at what great physical condition they are in, how loving, friendly and outgoing they are, and how fit they are when turned loose to hunt.

Now if a dog is never let out of the backyard, never let out of the garage, kept stuck in a vari-kennel 20 hours a day, or forgotten in a kennel they are just as neglected and abused as the dog that spends eternity on a stake out without proper care and attention.

Just like in the example above.  Here's a guy that has a lot to offer a dog, but because he doesn't have a fence he's "off the list".  Now if he wants to be a responsible owner, when he turns his dog out to "go" and he puts the dog on a stake out instead of following him around on a leash is he abusing or neglecting his dog?  No he's being responsible, far more responsible than a person with a similar situation who simply turns the dog out and leaves it free to roam for an hour or so in the woods.

While I applaud your work, in this case I sincerely believe your target is misguided because teather absolutely do not create abuse. CR

I guess my opinion on this would be that a no tethering law isn't going to solve the dog/animal abuse problem. The abuse starts with the people not the tethers.

Personally if you are going to have a dog and have it tethered 24/7 and not provide proper shelter then why have a dog? But I see nothing wrong with tethering IF the dog/s have proper shelter from the elements, isn't tethered 24/7, has enough space to stay clean, and some water source that can't be tipped over. Whenever I have had to tether my dogs I have always been careful make sure they couldn't reach anything dangerous, couldn't get tangled up on anything, couldn't spill their water, they had something to occupy them, and that the space was always cleaned up after.

Like I said before I don't see a no tethering law a way to cure dog abuse...in my opinion it would hurt the innocent much more then the guilty because for one thing the dog abusers don't care how they do it, or even if it's against the law.

Tethers, kennels, crates or whatever you use to contain your dog can all be abused. And personally if I were a dog I would rather be tethered with a safe cable then in a kennel (not saying that kennels are bad, just that I personally wouldn't like the cage around me). Some dogs will do better on a tether and others better in a kennel. That's why we all must do what works best for our dogs responsibly.

There used to be some people who lived near the back of our country block who never contained their dogs....they wandered all over the block, the owners were warned several times by one of the dairy farmers (because the dogs were chasing his cattle and freaking them out...not good if you know anything about dairy cows) , and after all that he finally told them that if he saw their dogs doing this again he was going to have to shoot them....the owners did not attempt to contain their dogs and they did get shot. Here is a case where there was absolutely no physical abusive whatsoever...but still the dogs were killed. All it would have taken to save the dogs lives was a simple tether, walking the dogs a couple times a day and a little bit of simple training. If they decided it wasn't worth it or they didn't have time, the dogs should have been adopted out.

http://www.dogsdeservebetter.com/dognamictourmississippi.html

Within the last year some neighbors in a nearby town noticed a house that appeared to be abandoned and a dog left locked in the garage. HOW I don't know. The cops and the local newspaper were called, and the discovery was horrific... a young boxer had been left without food in the cement block garage until he was so emaciated he could hardly stand. The paper ran a picture of the poor creature on the front page along with a diatribe that was echoed throughout the community, God bless 'em.

I don't see a crusade against dogs in garages coming out of that. However, the community as a whole had a big reminder about staying a little nosy about neighbors and their pets. Ultimately I think that's the only way to end these tragedies.

I agree with Megan.  This is an issue about cruelty to pets and taking care of pets in a proper way.  We already have laws in many states (maybe all) that address this and we can't enforce them.  How are we going to enforce more laws?  Personally, I would like to see stiffer penalties for those that do mistreat their pets, along with enforcement of the existing laws.

Of course if I were on the jury of one of these jerks that is abusing a fur kid, I would probably want to hang them.

Good for you!! I may have done the same thing. I have embarrassed some of my family by speaking my mind instead of minding my own business on occasion. But a situation like that one, oh they would've had to hold me back.