Virginia Hunting Dog Owner's Association

----- Original Message -----
From: vhdoa@mailman.montana.com
To: S_VHDOA
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 8:13 PM
Subject:HB339 and Virginian-Pilot story - Pet owner feels ''tricked'' by Beach dog check

A VHDOA message to dog owning sportsmen about protecting their traditions, avocations and livelihoods from anti-hunting, anti-breeding, animal guardianship advocates. Forwarding and cross posting, with attribution, encouraged.
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URL typo edited
Dear John,
I don't see your name on VHDOA's press contact list, so that you may not understand how much your Virginia Beach story today resonates with dog owners statewide. Tidewater animal control people dominate the Virginia Animal Control Association (VACA), one of the groups that pushed HB339 through the General Assembly.

See http://vhdoa.uplandbirddog.com/339PR5.html and http://vhdoa.uplandbirddog.com/VETO_HB339.html With a Vet supplied dog owner database based on rabies vaccinations, ACOs and everyone else gets to play "I spy" games on dog owners. The result will be few rabies vaccinations and dog tag purchases. As a sidebar to your story, Wayne Gilbert's people would feel right at home in New Hampshire. In many townships and counties there, "dog police" go door-to-door every spring, asking if residents have dogs, how many and which of their neighbors have any dogs. They also examine the number and size of dog droppings in yards as check point. It's incredible that any Virginia locality has adopted such an intrusive "Big Brother" program. I hope that your readers ring Gilbert's phone off the hook and do the same in Newport News and Chesapeake, where VACA reighs supreme. Urge the Governor to veto HB339 - TODAY.

Bob Kane
Virginia Hunting Dog Owners' Association
http://vhdoa.uplandbirddog.com/VETO_HB339.html

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=102495&ran=204011

Pet owner feels ''tricked'' by Beach dog check
The Virginian-Pilot
© April 4, 2006
Last updated: 12:37 AM
JOHN WARREN

Imagine you’re watching a “Twilight Zone” rerun and someone knocks at your door.

You recognize your caller as Velma, the humorless DMV clerk who makes you feel small every year because you don’t renew by mail. Her call is not a social one: She asks you to present evidence of insurance for your vehicle, or else.

Talk about your “Twilight Zone,” huh? Thank goodness that sort of thing doesn’t happen, right?

Not so fast.

On the afternoon of March 16, Tracey Hall was getting out of the shower in her home in Chick’s Beach on Fentress Avenue in Virginia Beach when her doorbell rang.

It was a Beach animal control officer. The officer asked Hall to present proof of a rabies vaccination.

Startled, Hall said she asked the officer if someone had reported her dog. Hall said the officer informed her that she was making a random check.

Hall didn’t have paperwork to prove that her dog had been vaccinated, b ut she provided the officer, Sheila Irving, with the number for her veterinarian.

That evening, a police officer knocked on Hall’s door. He delivered a summons because Hall hadn’t purchased a $2 dog tag.

“I feel tricked,” Hall said.

Animal control superintendent Wayne Gilbert told the Warrior that the visit to Hall’s home is part of a new citywide initiative to ensure dogs and cats have rabies vaccinations and licenses.

Hall views it as a program in which pet owners are asked to prove they’ve complied with the law, based not on evidence of a violation but simply for being a pet owner.

Gilbert said the intrusion is trumped by a greater good: protecting the public from possible rabies infection. According to the Virginia Beach health department, since 2002, there have been 37 cases where people were exposed to rabies.

It’s an argument not lost on Laura Jehoich, who lives several doors away from Hall. Jehoich, who doesn’t own a pet, said an officer knocked on her door March 16.

“I didn’t have any problem with it at all,” she said. “They are just doing their jobs . I’m glad they check, because there are a lot of children in this neighborhood.”

City law gives animal control officers the authority to perform the checks after they determine there is a pet at a residence, Gilbert said.

Hall is bothered by the means through which she believes the animal control officer compiled a list of pet owners. Hall’s across-the-street neighbor, Marcus Corderey, said he was approached by Irving.

Corderey told the Warrior that Irving asked for a list of pet owners because the city was offering free rabies vaccinations. He said he provided the list, believing he was helping his neighbors.

“That woman pulled a sneaky-pee ky to get into people’s houses,” an angry Corderey told me.

The Beach offers no such free rabies program. It does periodically offer reduced-fee rabies clinics.

But Gilbert said Irving denies having made such an offer. The Warrior asked for Irving’s side of the story; she responded through Gilbert.

Irving told Gilbert that when she knocked on doors, she told Beach residents that it was to check dogs and cats for rabies information and dog licenses.

Gilbert said the city plans to expand the program “to as many neighborhoods as we can” but that those communities with historically high numbers of stray-animal calls will be targeted.

Among them: Green Run, Salem, Redwing/Red Mill, Beach Garden, Magic Hollow/Princess Anne Plaza and Aragona.

However, after corresponding with the Warrior, Gilbert said he’ll re-evaluate the program to consider residents’ input. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The message above was posted to Virginia residents by the Virginia Hunting Dog Owners' Association (VHDOA).

VHDOA is a nonpartisan volunteer group working to protect sportsmen and hunting dog owners from the legislative and political threats of radical animal rightists. We lobby the General Assembly and Congress, when necessary. It is the largest Virginia organization fighting this struggle and has an established record of accomplishments for both sportsmen and dog owners in these arenas. Visit our website at http://vhdoa.uplandbirddog.com/ for our mission statement, goals, legislative track record and elist signup details.

To unsubscribe from this list, exercise that option at http://mailman.montana.com/mailman/listinfo/vhdoa/