Click here to download ^this in PDF format to print and hand out…

So over the last week I was finally able to watch Fruitvale Station, the movie that follows the 22-year-old Oscar Grant up until his murder on New Year’s Day 2009. First off, the movie is really good. If you haven’t seen it yet please do. More relevant to this page though is a scene that was included in the movie for metaphorical reasons, as it features a stray Pit Bull having a moment with Michael B. Jordan, who plays Grant, while he gets gas.

*Spoilers ahead*

The camera then cuts back to Grant as you hear a car speed by, which ultimately strikes the Pit Bull and doesn’t stop. The dog is fatally wounded. Grant runs after the car and then turns around to help carry the dog off of the road, where he was left to die. I’ll leave it to them to explain the symbolism…

From Michael B. Jordan:

Black males, we are America’s Pit Bull. You know, we’re labeled ‘vicious,’ you know, ‘inhumane,’ and left to die on the street. Oscar was kinda like left for dead, so many of us, you know, um, young African-American males are left for dead. We get branded a lot.

From director, Ryan Coogler:

When you hear about them (Pit Bulls) in the media, you hear about them doing horrible things. You never hear about a Pit Bull doing anything good in the media. And they have a stigma to them … and, in many ways, Pit Bulls are like young African-American males. Whenever you see us in the news, it’s for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody–for being a stereotype.

Many people apparently love this scene, and others seem to hate it. Not for the metaphor, but for reasons that they feel the scene “misleads” the audience into liking Oscar Grant more. To that I say: It’s a movie! Don’t criticize these men for one aspect of their art. For anyone to sit here and act as though they knew Oscar Grant in full prior to seeing this scene, and then for you to get angry at the notion that this scene possibly tampers with your potentially bad thoughts about Grant, it just goes to show the improper judgment that you are carrying around in the first place! You don’t know him either way, and it’s certainly no crime to humanize someone who we all came to know only from a YouTube clip showing him being unjustly murdered in the back, while laying face down and handcuffed.

Isn’t that what should lead to your outrage? But that doesn’t and Coogler’s artistic choice does? See, it’s stuff like that that makes me shake my head at some folks in a vigorous fashion, certain media “journalists” and otherwise.

As for the comparison: It’s real, and it’s deep, and it’s powerful. Human beings are individuals, just as dogs are individuals. You do not learn someone’s character in a sound bite. Character echoes through life, through existence, through action, through history. Through the seen and the unseen, known and the unknown. Millions of things make up someone’s character, and provide evidence to their track record. No man or woman is all bad or all good. We are all imperfect. But each of us is an individual, and if we act heinously towards another then let us be judged on the crime that we committed, and on the facts. To demonize the group on the actions of the singular is the biggest sham that this system can ever conjure up. To look at someone and say that they are all (insert here), based on how they look and nothing more, well, it’s most definitely the bottom of the intellectual barrel (and the compassionate one, too). The same applies to dogs. That’s the point. And it’s wholeheartedly true.

For those curious, the dog in the movie is named Ian and you can follow him on Facebook.

Many of you are familiar with the awesome webpage Stuff on Scout’s Head, which shows a cute and tolerant Pit Bull-mix displaying different humorous items balanced on his head. He is quite the talented character indeed. Well, Scout is from Ontario, Canada where Pit Bulls have been banned since 2005. He was grandfathered into the ordinance, as his owner had already adopted him prior to this draconian law being put into place. All those dogs coming after have been seized and killed simply because of how they look. Please stop for 2 seconds and think about that… Not killed because a shelter was full, or for space, or for behavior, or because a staff would rather ignore efforts to promote dogs and get them adopted. They were killed because of how they look! That’s BSL/BDL, or breed-specific (more appropriately called breed-discriminatory) legislation. I found this photo to be incredibly powerful, I hope you do as well. It shows Scout wearing his muzzle, which he must wear any time he steps foot outside. Please support them and stand against discrimination at all times.

I’ve seen people say similar things to what I’m about to write about in many different instances over the last 3 years. Yes, it’s a problem. But how do you go about dealing with it, and what are the consequences of doing nothing? Read on.

This is Amber and she was killed by the Carson shelter on Friday morning, directly after the holiday break. What makes Amber’s death even more heartbreaking is that she was surrendered by the family of her prior owner, after her owner tragically passed away. For me, personally wrapping my mind around that type of a betrayal is pretty difficult. Amber was a good dog.

Today I log into Facebook to see someone posting that “a rescue was working on a plan to get her out.” Further, the person that posted this was completely familiar with the Carson shelter and their incompetent ways of doing business. I say this because if she’s aware of said “rescue” and their “plan,” then she should have made sure that part of their plan included what I’m about to detail below…

My question is: What does “a rescue was working on a plan” mean exactly? Did they let the shelter know? Did they call and place verbal notes on Amber’s account or state to the staff an intent to adopt or rescue her? Did Amber have an IP (interested party) or a CTA (commitment to adopt) that was placed on her account? Was there a temperament test requested? Rescues should know the processes when it comes to this shithole shelter. If none of that was done then the rescue didn’t do much of anything. And if they did those things and the shelter still killed Amber instead then this rescue needs to go public with the details and consider suing the L.A. County DACC. End of story. People need to take action if their rights and their ability to rescue a dog were violated. California state law says that a rescue has the right to pull a dog, any dog, so long as they take the proper steps to do so.

People will vaguely mention these types of things after the fact, aligned with rage against the violating shelter, but yet there is nothing more that is ever done. Whether this actually happened with Amber is unknown to me, as I don’t know the actual steps that were or weren’t taken, but I know for a fact that this scenario has happened many times before (and will happen again).

The hard truth is that this will continue to be a regular occurrence until someone does something when it happens, thus the constant circle of violation and inaction.

In Amber’s case: Who was the rescue? What steps did they take? Was the shelter in violation of killing a dog that this rescue notified them that they wanted? First and foremost there needs to be specific answers to those questions. The rescue just can’t sit in anonymity and silence and then expect it not to happen again. That does nothing but continue to allow this to happen again and again. Whether they want to acknowledge it or not, their inaction sets further precedent for it to happen again.

Merry Christmas. Please consider adopting this holiday season.

For individual dog information go here to match video images with album pictures.

Dogs in this video are currently at the Carson shelter, located at 216 W. Victoria St., Gardena, CA 90248. Phone# 310-523-9566/527-5158.

On December 19th I posted a photo that I had taken a day prior at the Carson shelter. It showed the dead carcass of a large dog laying across the top of 1 of their 3 intake cages, with 2 other dogs filling the neighboring cages after just being surrendered or picked up as strays. As expected, this immediately drew the ire of most people. You can see the photo below…

I posted the picture for 2 reasons. 1) Because it was highly unacceptable and spoke to many things that so often define the attitudes of select individuals that work at the shelter. And 2) As a social experiment of sorts. I knew full well what this picture would do, as I see similar reactions all the time.

Keep in mind, I was only at the shelter to visit with the dogs and photograph them for eventual networking. I do this because I want their adorable faces to be seen, and I want people to know that they are there and exist, and I want people to consider saving a life and adopting their next pet and family member from a shelter.

As I posted the picture of the dead dog I was also in the middle of editing and then uploading the many photographs I’d taken of the shelter dogs… This is always a process, as on any visit I come home with over 50 different dogs that I’d met that day. Instead of mass-uploading the pictures untouched I try to personally edit each photograph and then add an embedded informational tag that includes all of the relevant information for that specific dog. This takes me many hours, so the album began filling up throughout the day. By the end of the afternoon my new Carson shelter album consisted of a total of 69 pictures of 48 different dogs.

So back to my 2 reasons… The 1st should be obvious, as the placement of a dead corpse in the intake area is pretty damn unacceptable. Dead dogs shouldn’t be sitting out in the presence of other dogs or kids, both of whom were there on Wednesday to witness this.

Carson’s intake area is literally right as you enter the gate of the actual kennel facility, which lies directly behind the office and administrative staff, and numerous families with children were forced to walk right by this dog. Just as important are the dogs sitting next to the body, which were just surrendered and very likely already scared to death. In my opinion this type of stuff shows a lack of care and respect for the “sheltering” profession, the visiting public, and especially the animals themselves.

Some proposed the thought that maybe a member of the public simply stacked the animal there and left. My response to that would be that regardless of who put the body there, they were obviously instructed where to leave it by someone on the staff. A person just doesn’t drive a dead dog all the way to the shelter just to leave it anonymously on an intake crate. If they happened to be a concerned citizen they would have first went into the office and asked an employee what to do with the body. And if it wasn’t a concerned citizen then why would they even drive a dead dog’s body anywhere in the first place? That doesn’t make any sense to me personally. We can sit here and guess all day about who put it there–whether a member of the public or an AC worker or a staff member–but the entire circumstance just says a lot about a lot of things, none of which are good.

My 2nd reason for posting the picture is ultimately the reason why I now write this post. Almost 3 days after both the picture and my album were posted there’s things that have happened (and not happened) that just leave me shaking my head. As I write these words the picture of the dead dog has received 301 comments, been shared 804 times, and had a “total reach” (which Facebook classifies as “the number of people who saw your post”) of 35,860. By comparison, my Carson shelter album has received 6 comments, been shared 77 times, and had a “total reach” (throughout many different postings) of under 5,000. If I added up all of the comments on all 69 photographs inside of the album they would not equal the 301 comments that are currently on the single picture of the dead dog atop the intake cage. For someone that goes to the shelter to bring you the faces of these amazing dogs, in hopes that they be seen and considered, this is endlessly frustrating. Discouraging is a better word for it, especially when viewing the absolute frenzy that’s so often whipped up by pictures such as that of a dead dog. Many times it’s not even thoughtful commentary or action either, but rather some paragraph of curses and/or already answered questions. People threaten to do this or that, ideas are thrown about, but very few people ever do anything.

Further, there are more comments on the dead dog’s photo that are specifically criticizing me, the person who took the photo, and for “not doing anything” for the dog, than there are total comments on my Carson album’s link. There are photos inside of this album that, after almost 3 days, have not received a single lick of interaction at all (tag, like, share, comment). These are living dogs that depend on the networking! All of this matters to me, as this is how Facebook functions and the interaction is needed in order to push and promote these photographs into the viewable space of people’s Facebook walls. The algorithms are already less and less featuring fan pages, so minimal acts could have an effect, especially when added up. Yet live dogs are going basically ignored by the majority of people while so much enthusiastic traffic is being driven to me over 1 photograph, which is of a dog that is not alive.

As you can tell, I do not know how to deal with this. Other than voice my frustration in the most constructive way that I can. Many of you may not find it constructive. I apologize. I’m trying to be honest, while not being too critical, while also taking on a topic that demands I think critically. This is not directed at anyone specific, and I appreciate any help that can advance these dogs into a good home. But please consider the observation I’ve made.

Much of this same topic could be applied to the recent breed-discriminatory language coming out of Pasadena as well. You’ll see so many people against it online, up in arms, aghast over the gull of certain politicians, yet I’ve been the only public speaker on the topic at the last 3 City Council or relevant Committee meetings. This is the time to come! Not the hour before they vote! I only get 3 minutes to speak each week. No matter how good (or bad) you think I am at speaking on behalf of all of our dogs, I only get 3 minutes per meeting and that barely allows me to scratch the surface. This issue is so much bigger than that. Please help me oppose discrimination and please help me promote and network these amazing shelter dogs.

Yesterday at the latest Pasadena City Council meeting a woman pulled me aside and wanted to talk to me about Pit Bulls. She promised that she was a dog lover, but that Pit Bulls were different. She repeatedly told me that she was “scared” of them, and that she is always “hearing things” that clearly serve to fulfill her own mind’s accepted prophecy. I was being really nice to her, and it was actually quite a cordial conversation, but she wouldn’t give me an inch on the subject while repeatedly reverting back to what she’s “heard” instead.

She noted a personal friend’s experience with 1 dog from over 15 years ago and held onto it like it was evidence to condemn them all. I asked her if she’d at least acknowledge for me that there were millions of these dogs in and around the country. She said no, that she couldn’t. She told me that she fell out of an elevator years back and messed up her leg, and that the last thing she wants to worry about is having to be attacked by a Pit Bull. Coincidentally she was at this meeting to request a ban on leaf blowers. As she was telling me about her elevator story I was wondering to myself if she ever desired to ban elevators too.

She conceded that my dogs were probably nice, but that they were the exception. I tried to tell her that 1 visit to any shelter of her choice would prove that logic wrong, but she blew my point off, telling me yet again that what she’s “heard” is far too much to ever have her view change. She told me that she’s uninterested in meeting any Pit Bulls because she’s scared of them.

I’m still not quite sure why she pulled me aside, because she was so extraordinarily stuck in her ways and flatly opposed to some of my most basic points. It’s like she wanted to see if I had a magical answer to her astronomical fear, and when I suggested the obvious, that she just go meet a few, she immediately wrote me off as someone who just doesn’t get it. Maybe she was so oblivious to how her own position made her look that she genuinely thought her opinion would somehow serve to rub off on me instead? Could that have actually been it? I don’t know, but it was odd nonetheless.

The 2nd meeting started and our communication came to a close. I was so sad to see someone so terrified and living in literal fear over this notion that millions of dogs are bad, and further, that they are out to get her. What kind of life is that? And why does my dog have to be maligned because another person is out there being so closed-minded and fearful of the world around them? It’s quite depressing and ridiculous. The folks with their perspectives so tightly crafted in whatever corner of whatever world, with no desire to hear or even think on another point of view, are the same folks that refuse any kind of interaction or experiences that would possibly lend to shedding some of that irrational fear. Fear is so devastating to this world. It kills everything.

Here’s the thing. And this is just my opinion obviously, but something I deeply believe. To be an effective Pit Bull advocate you need to oppose discrimination. That goes for both dog discrimination and people discrimination. Why is this the case? Well first, because it’s wrong. But secondly, because you can’t be out asking people to not discriminate against a certain dog, while in the same sentence or paragraph you so readily discriminate against people, and on a mass scale. That discredits your intent. When people negatively speak in generalities about other people and cultures or statuses they are literally complaining about millions of individual people, but as a group, and in doing so giving the impression that they are all universally like (insert here). For example, you cannot cite the x-number of dog-related fatalities in 2013, which is under 30 nationwide, and blame it on all low-income people. When someone says “low-income people” they are quite easily speaking about tens of millions of people. You don’t know them. One may be fantastic while another may be the devil’s seed. Just as rich people carry the same individual attributes. My best guess optimistically says that most people who have pets are good people who love animals, and while they may not treat their pets exactly like you treat yours, or while they might not meet a certain standard that you feel you’d want to set, to unfairly alienate any endless amount of the country is hugely unhelpful and basically serves to criticize a lot of good homes run by people that do love and provide comfort to their animals. Does education and information or idea sharing make it better? For sure. Does communication amongst each other, and the viewing of one another as fellow human beings and not someone that you’re looking down on make it better? For sure. Does more access to choices and less intimidation from government make it better? For sure. Also, talking about people by what they visually look like is more discrimination, which is exactly how these dogs are vilified. It’s a circle and cycle of harm. Please oppose discrimination in all facets of your lives. Otherwise your inconsistency is going to be used against you by anyone paying attention.

So last Monday, November 25th to be exact, the Pasadena City Council voted 6-1 to have their staff draft a “breed-specific” mandatory spay and neuter law against Pit Bulls. Only Councilwoman Jacque Robinson voted against the measure. Casting aside the fact that the name of this type of legislation is a total misnomer, as there’s hardly ever anything specific about any of it, it was still readily approved for creation and will now likely be defended by many people calling themselves “dog advocates.” Another misnomer apparently.

More disgusting than that, many “Pit Bull advocates” will publicly defend this idea (and the coming legislation) on its spaying and neutering components alone, while ignoring the fact that its established end is to legally phase out these types of dogs from communities while endlessly vilifying them in the process of attempting to do so. Worse, Councilman Steve Madison, who brought this newest idea to the Council, has publicly lobbied for a Pit Bull ban for at least 2 years.

Councilman Steve Madison, from 10/1/2012:

Time after time, a Pit Bull chews a kid to death somewhere, and I’m not going to let that happen in Pasadena. I would have no problem saying Pasadena’s a special place: If you want to live here, come, but don’t bring your Pit Bull.

Councilman Steve Madison, from 7/8/2013:

We read about it over and over and over how these Pit Bull breeds kill either small children or elderly people. It happened earlier this year in Antelope Valley, and it’s always happening, and I don’t want that to happen in Pasadena. I don’t think this ordinance is as effective as what I had hoped, which was a ban, but I think we have to do what we can.

Councilman Steve Madison, from 10/8/2013:

This is going to happen in Pasadena if we don’t do something about it. At least fifty percent of the fatal dog attacks on humans are caused by Pit Bull breeds. There’s no sound policy reason why a community like Pasadena shouldn’t be allowed to ban such dangerous animals. We should also keep pursuing in Sacramento a wake up call to state legislature so that local communities can decide whether or not they want to have these Pit Bulls that cause such a disproportionate share of fatal and severe injuries on humans.

Councilman Steve Madison, from 10/9/2013:

It’s only a matter of time until we have another attack in Pasadena. But, inexplicably, state law prohibits municipalities from adopting breed-specific legislation. So the spay and neuter ordinance is a tepid response to an urgent problem. At present, it’s all we can do, supposedly. We should change this state law and then immediately ban Pit Bulls from Pasadena before we have another attack that might cause death or severe injury to a kid or a senior.

I know these things because I am involved. I try to provide everyone with the proof, going so far as to provide video proof (in the cases of both Riverside County and City), and no one even watches it. I’ll now be criticized for daring to criticize anyone supporting this type of a law, and instead of hearing what I’m actually saying they’ll simply turn me off because I am putting their position under a spotlight.

This vote comes on the heels of 2 separate op-eds from the Pasadena Weekly, both of which I responded to but was not published, that flagrantly demonized millions of dogs while ignoring the consistent roots of each cited incident that they used as their evidence for demonization.

They treat us as if we are dumb, and many of you let them.

My written response was put out on my website on November 17th. I called the Pasadena Weekly the next day and asked how to go about getting it published on their website. They gave me the editor’s email. I emailed him and got no response. I also emailed the specific authors of the 2 hit-pieces, 1 being a secondary editor of the website, and got no response. I left my response in their comment sections. On November 26th, having no clue that the Council had already voted the day before, I sent my writeup to all 7 of the Council members. A field representative of Margaret McAustin was the only person to reply back to me, simply saying that she’d “pass it along.” My point in detailing all of these steps is to simply point out that no one even bothered to tell me that they were voting on 11/25.

In the end was my missing the meeting where they voted on whether to draft this law my own fault? I guess so. But it certainly wasn’t for lack of caring or trying to engage the participants. So if I, who runs this website and cares deeply about these issues, can’t even get a clear idea of when an actual vote was going to be taking place, how were the citizens of Pasadena made aware? They weren’t, of course, and now they have to work from the backwards position of already having the majority of the Council on board with wanting to draft more draconian legislation into existence.

This comes, even as the city of Pasadena already has a breed-neutral dangerous dog law on its books. I pointed this out to the City Council last year while giving a public comment during the meeting where this was originally being discussed. This also comes, even as the City Council claimed on October 7th that they were going to “hold off another six months before considering the issue again.” The “issue” being the mandatory spaying and neutering of ALL dogs. Yet they lied, and then hit their city with this vote 6 weeks later, and while also changing the rhetoric from “all dogs” to “Pit Bulls.” Nice. And you wonder why I missed the vote? Well, it’s because they said they were (again) putting it off! Guess not!

So here we are… I will be attending the next City Council meeting with the sole intention of giving a public comment about this issue. I hope you will join me. The next meeting, as far as I can tell, will be on December 9th. Coincidentally there was a meeting previously scheduled for today but according to their website it has been cancelled. In the mean time you can email the Council members at the addresses below. Keep in mind that Councilwoman Jacque Robinson was the only one to oppose this discriminatory legislation.

Pasadena City Council
100 N. Garfield Ave., Pasadena, CA 91109 at 6:30pm (they meet privately for an hour beforehand) in City Hall Council Chamber S249.
They potentially meet every Monday.
Next meeting: 12/9/2013.

Pasadena Public Safety Committee
100 N. Garfield Ave., Pasadena, CA 91109 at 4:15pm in City Hall Council Chamber S249.
They meet the 3rd Monday of every month.
Next meeting: 12/16/2013.

Pasadena Legislative Policy Committee
100 N. Garfield Ave., Pasadena, CA 91109 at 5:30pm in Fair Oaks Conference Room S039.
They meet the 4th Wednesday of every month.

I’ll close by asking the people that “have no problem” with this type of nonsense to please come out to the next meeting (where it’s actually on the agenda, could be a few months) and physically sit there and listen to them generically talk about all Pit Bulls in a general sense. See what you think then. Can you please do that? Listening to Councilman Steve Madison speak on this issue is literally like watching Colleen Lynn from a political bench. And some of you folks support it, which inevitably supports him and his ideas!? You need to wake up. I don’t mean to insult you, but you insult me by supporting legislation that unjustly vilifies my dogs. It’s ludicrous.

To contact the Pasadena City Council:

Mayor Bill Bogaard
bbogaard@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4311
Jacque Robinson, District 1
district1@cityofpasadena.net, jacquerobinson@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4444
Margaret McAustin, District 2
mmcaustin@cityofpasadena.net, mlmorales@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4742
John Kennedy, District 3
johnjkennedy@cityofpasadena.net, christiancruz@cityofpasadena.net, jwest@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4738
Gene Masuda, District 4
gmasuda@cityofpasadena.net, nsullivan@cityofpasadena.net
Victor Gordo, District 5
vgordo@cityofpasadena.net, vdelacuba@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4741, 626-831-8609
Steve Madison, District 6
smadison@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4739
Terry Tornek, District 7
ttornek@cityofpasadena.net
626-441-4802

Further contacts with the city:

City Manager Michael Beck
mbeck@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4333
Assistant City Manager Julie Gutierrez
jgutierrez@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4333
Assistant City Manager Steve Mermell
smermell@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4333
City Attorney Michele Beal Bagneris
mbagneris@cityofpasadena.net
626-744-4141
Director of Public Works Siobhan Foster
sfoster@cityofpasadena.net
Director of Public Health Eric Walsh
ewalsh@cityofpasadena.net

For further information read both here and here, and watch my debate with Riverside City Councilman Mike Gardner, either the full version or the condensed version.