The Senate Committee on Water, Land, Agriculture, and Hawaiian Affairs has approved a bill that that would prohibit the practice of chaining dogs in one spot for long periods of time. The committee, chaired by Sen. Clayton Hee, passed SB 30 (with amendments) by a 7-0 vote.

The bill drew quite a bit of testimony, most stressing that chaining or tethering for long periods is cruel and tends to make dogs more aggressive. You can find links to the testimony here.

Meanwhile, following our burglaron on Monday, I’ve been hearing from several friends who happen to be dog people.

First was Cindy:

The Hawaii Dog Foundation has the perfect dog for you !

She is a look alike to my Polly ( soooo cute ) and her name is Lily.

www.hawaiidogfoundation.org

I have been told that she likes – and is very good with – cats !!!

Good with people and other dogs too.

She was being fostered by a family in Hauula a few months ago but they got flooded out in the heavy rains and
I’m not sure what happened to Lily after that…..

For the sake of the cats – please try and track Lily down and at least meet her .

It’s stressful for them to have creepy burglars stomping thru the house making a mess of things.

The kitties need a dog and Lily needs a family…….

See you at the dog park ( hopefully ) !

And from John, just around the corner:

Your approach of contacting the family first is very thoughtful and neighborly. After all, who wants to “ruin” a young person’s life with a felony charge. Faced with similar issues a few years ago that was my approach too. That’s when the reality of the dealing with the authorities and the banks provided a wakeup call for me. The apathy and lack of professional follow-up was appalling, even with rock solid evidence. I am very jaundiced now and feel that an individual cannot expect the system to protect personal property and even our own lives.

I’ll be interested in your experience with this case.

Given the degree of “sophistication” of the act, ignoring the baseline stupidity, I would conclude that this isn’t his first time. Meda I am sure has a more scientific and valid opinion. From urns and decorative antique pots stolen, gas siphoned from my gas tank, and I am sure other petty crimes around the neighborhood, my guess is this kid and his accomplice have been involved in a fair number of these other crimes.

We haven’t had anyone inside the fence because of the dogs. Most of the “fur bags” have chained pit bulls to keep their neighbor fur bags from taking their property. It works and until Kaaawa and surrounding communities rid themselves of these people we will continue to have the problems.

Get a Pea’ puppy and the 70 lbs. of house trained, undying affection will keep the fur bags out.

Pe’a just had eight wonderful puppies. We’ll catch up with them this weekend. Right now, that “70 lbs. of house trained, undying affection” sounds pretty good. I’m not at all convinced that the cats will agree.

And Linda Vanatta let me know she objects to police officers advising people to get a dog to protect their property.

She explained why in a letter to Sen. Hee supporting SB 30, which I’m quoting here in its entirety.

I was born and raised in Niu Valley where I still reside. Growing up we always had wonderful neighbors until several years ago when new neighbors moved in next door. Mrs. T is from Hilo and Mr. T is from Japan.

Unfortunately, the first week they lived there, they were burglarized. At about the same time a newsletter was sent from the Niu Valley Neighborhood Security Watch that contained information telling of a reformed burglar who admitted choosing which houses to enter by whether or not they had a dog . The next weekend our new neighbors arrived home from the Hawaiian Humane Society with two large adult dogs in tow.

They first put the dogs in their spacious, fenced back yard, but the dogs escaped by climbing over the short 4 foot fence. As a solution, Mr T. tied the dogs around a single tree in the back yard on two ropes about 5 feet long. The surrounding neighbors could hear the dogs yelp every time they got tangled and would call the family with their concerns.

I assumed that this was temporary until they could better secure their back yard. However, when days turned into weeks and weeks into months I realized that this was a permanent situation for the dogs. The only change Mr. T made after being confronted by a Hawaiian Humane Society officer was to move the dogs to separate trees. This stopped the tangling, but now they had no interaction with each other and after a few days the dogs were sleeping all the time and never barked. The Hawaiian Humane Society made several visits to the home, but said that, according to Hawaii State Law, there were no violations.

This sad situation that involved not only the dogs but all four of Mr. T’s surrounding neighbors lasted one year. One dog was found dead in the yard and the other dog, after the family had a second burglary, was taken back to the Hawaiian Humane Society and replaced with a burglar alarm.

I learned in my conversations with Mr. T that he did not understand the needs of dogs. To him, their only need was for food and water.

The year we witnessed those two sad dogs was a difficult one for myself and family. We felt totally helpless to improve the situation for the dogs. At one point we even begged to take over their care.

Laws teach people what is right and what is wrong. For those citizens who do not know that the care of a dog goes beyond food and water this law is absolutely necessary. This law will not only address the welfare of dogs, but also address a quality of life issue for the unfortunate neighbors who are forced to live next to dogs who are chained on short ropes 24/7.

With all this talk of dogs, I suppose it’s time for some photos of our canine friends out here in Kaaawa. We can vouch for the fact that none of these dogs spend their days on a short chain or rope.