Below are copies of a couple of letters sent to the Oregonian in response to their editorial urging the state livestock law's provisions regarding killing dogs be preserved.
To the Editor:
Where did The Oregonian ("Put a muzzle on it," 2/15/98) get the
idea that residents of "farm country" believe that "good-bye dog" is
the preferred solution to local dog-livestock problems? The livestock
owners I've spoken with would be outraged by that suggestion. Most
love their own dogs just as much as do their urban cousins. Few seek
vengeance. The vast majority want only what they and their animals
deserve: effective protection from harm.
Your statement that "one dog-livestock law can't fit all Oregon counties"
is the journalistic equivalent of public incontinence, a soiling of the most
basic principles of our systems of government. What's next? A return to
the days when local officials established what qualified as harrassment,
discrimination, and free speech?
When the strains of Home on the Range die down in your editorial offices
perhaps someone with a little remaining intelligence will explain just exactly
why a state-wide law that requires fair hearings and consideration of
alternatives
to death or exile -- options which under local conditions, will provide
reasonable
protection for livestock -- can't work in Oregon.
Until that explanation is provided, your editorial will remain an embarrassment
to all Oregonians -- urban and rural -- who believe that killing should be the
remedy of last resort. You have done more to document the need for change and
the character of the opposition to our modest proposals than Jackson County's
commissioners ever could. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Robert E. Babcock
To the Editor:
I wouldn't have thought it possible, but The Oregonian has managed to insult every pet owner in Oregon in the space of one sarcastic editorial ("Put a muzzle on it," 2/15/98) as well as perpetuate the myth that most of the people of our state are callous and mean-spirited.
If as you claim, a dog in a purely rural county that chased a horse wouldn't have lived long enough to become "an Internet cause celebre", then either that county has dispensed with the rule of the state law, that requires hearings and an appeal process, or you are now advocating a return to vigilante justice. Shame on you for continuing to inflame an already passionate issue.
Modification of the state law is needed because local governments have demonstrated their inability to provide for fairness on both sides of the issue. Jackson County's new ordinance is cruel. The burden of proof is still on the dog owner to prove that the dog DID NOT chase livestock. The decision is made by an animal control officer, not a judge. The last time I checked, our constitution presumes innocence until guilt is proved, and decisions of this consequence are made in a court of law.
If the dog owner can not raise the money or obtain the public support to arrange out of state placement at a sanctuary, then the dog will be killed anyway, regardless of the merit of the accusation. We can expect that, except for high profile cases, it will be business as usual in Jackson County.
All pet owners, whether Oregon residents or visitors to our state travelling with their animals, are currently at risk under the underlying state law. Killing someone's companion animal, without just cause, is not only abhorent, it all too clearly reaffirms the perception that Oregon has become "The Death State".
Sincerely,
Robert Schlesinger