On Tuesday night the Lake Elsinore City Council ushered in breed-discriminatory legislation against Pit Bulls by a vote to 4-1. I’ll write about this more in depth in the coming days, but for now I wanted to focus some further examination on their local shelter Animal Friends of the Valleys. Representatives from the shelter, including manager Willa Bagwell, were also in attendance and in support of the prejudicial moves made by the Council.

Surprisingly, or not, they also employ an in-house anti-Pit Bull policy that pretty much amounts to violations of the California state law. This was first brought to my attention last year, where I detailed 7 regulations that they readily enforce against dogs that they themselves deem to fit the visual characteristics of being “Pit Bulls.” In other words, STOPPING PUBLIC ADOPTIONS AND RESCUES. The flaws in this process were further examined, and all which garnered me page visits from Bagwell herself, where she threatened another commenter with a lawsuit and then accused me of “bashing” their shelter.

This was followed by other defenders of the shelter, who didn’t come to specifically address any point that I was actually trying to raise, but instead came to just blindly defend AFV against someone who would dare criticize them in any way. How dare I do such a thing!?

One commenter, accusing me of “attacking” the shelter, insisted that I “get out from behind” my keyboard, and not only once but twice in 1 paragraph. This same person then implied that I do no educational work, called all owners “idiots,” and then told me that I should “help find homes for homeless pets.” Apparently she has no idea about how much I at least try to help those homeless pets. The same homeless pets that this shelter is actually discouraging folks from adopting. Wouldn’t me going to lengths to point out this absolute fact be considered “helping” homeless pets? At least those who have been made to seem less-than by a shelter policy that discourages their adoptions. But I guess that doesn’t count, right?

Then a former employee of the shelter came on to further defend AFV, asking me if maybe this policy is done for the animal’s own good… So we should just stifle the adoption potential for this large group of animals and ultimately kill them to hypothetically protect them from any potential abuse? Um, isn’t that what PETA says and does? She then tries to blame this policy on the “negative media attention,” not giving any thought to the fact that policies such as these perpetuate said media attention, perpetuate low adoptions numbers, and further, perpetuate the passing of laws (BSL) like the one that was just passed on Tuesday (and with the support of this shelter). This law, of course, further perpetuates that pesky “negative media attention” that this former employee tried to blame everything on back in July of last year. Awesome. By the way, my question about them having the same concern for all of the non-Pit Bulls “falling into the wrong hands” has still went unanswered…

Well, nothing new under the sun apparently. My Facebook event for Tuesday’s City Council meeting again brought out shelter manager Will Bagwell, where she again accused people of “bashing” her shelter, and for simply pointing out that AFV employs a policy of in-house breed discrimination.

Well Willa, your shenanigans are up, and they will continue to be talked about publicly. The in-house breed prejudice that you’ve put into practice at AFV is pretty much public knowledge to anyone that’s been paying attention. So how exactly is telling the damned truth about your unlawful regulations considered “bashing” your shelter? And regarding the keyboard thing, I was actually there on Tuesday night and said what I said about your shelter to your face. So, as many of us do use that damned internet contraption in the year of 2014 (including you, imagine that), we also SHOW UP AND OPPOSE YOU TO YOUR FACE. We are not just some faceless entity, a lot of times not even a real person, that trolls from behind a computer screen.

I can only speak for myself, but I’m a pretty dedicated (on the ground) advocate for both Pit Bulls and shelter reform. I don’t have to work at AFV to know that a policy not only exists but is also being used to squash potential adoptions. It’s on your website, and further, I have your shelter policies and procedures manual. I also have personal insight into the fact that you use Merritt Clifton’s unscientific and disingenuous “study” from Animal People, a study that derives their attack numbers from media accounts (and without proper breed identification), in order to justify your private positioning (that you won’t even acknowledge) against Pit Bull adoption. Not to mention the fact that Clifton is a popular hack for DogsBite.org, an anti-Pit Bull hate group hellbent on lobbying for their extermination. Nice touch.

So no, you will not be succeeding in demonizing the dogs in full, or any other tool, like a computer, in full, just because you are too pathetic to account for an actual reality that is both on your website and in your policy manual.

Without further ado, direct from their shelter manual:

Call me crazy, but this pretty much shows a control freak micromanaging the adoptions of certain groups of animals while also trying to indoctrinate volunteers by having them, well, as stated, go out of their way to “discourage” Pit Bull adoptions.