Once, when I got called upon by mental health in this county, when I lived in the neighboring county, to help some guy near Lebanon, I thought to just get cats fixed, I was brought face to face with the crapola. Inside his trailer, crap was three feet deep in spots. Literally. There was cat shit piled high atop even the stove. Ammonia burned my eyes and throat when inside.
Nevertheless, I went at it, in my fashion, even in wavering light, as the crazed man preached the word of god behind me, shoveling out a a massive deep pile of cat shit in one corner that swallowed wiring and even stereo speakers, that nonetheless were blaring Christian rock music. When a friend came along, to see for herself, she immediately called 911. The deputy who came would not go inside. He yelled "this is what I hate about animal people, they don't care about people." I had to differ. Nobody helped this man. Not his church. Not his neighbors. Not the authorities who are supposed to deal with animal hoarders. Not the health department and not the police. Only animal people cared enough to help the man. The deputy didn't even write a report.
Who cared about who was irrelevant anyway. He had specific laws to enforce. He refused to do that.
That's classic Linn County for you.
Helping animals is a thankless job. People use you, use emotional blackmail on you, promise to pay you back for your gas, but then don't and manipulate you to get their cat situation solved, without breaking a sweat on their part. Here in Linn County where I live, there are zero services for cats. None. Nada. Stray cats and excess cats and kittens born each year, they're on their own. There is one No Kill shelter who gets tons of donations but is rarely known to take in a cat, for reasons unknown. They are useless actually, to cats in this county. Local authorities already ignore animal laws, like state laws against abandonment. Abandonment rates in this county are sky high.
A handful of little people and small rescues have tried to stem the tides of suffering and make a difference. Like me. And now to add to the misery, is this Oregon bill.
Read the bill here.
This bill sounds nice, on the outside. But go deeper.
Deeper in you will find that it will regulate by license and inspection every rescue or person with ten or more rescue animals who also seeks donations in any form. Like me begging for cat food. Or trying to raise money so a cat can have a bad tooth pulled. Really now?
Really?
Now you're going to regulate and charge fees to the little tiny people trying to solve the problem, when no one else will, when the big shelters drip in money and directors make six figures? Really now, you're going after the little people?
You talking heads committee type people cannot keep your paws out of other people's lives and struggles, can you? You won't actually pass a law that would be helpful in solving the state's companion animal overpopulation problem. Like why not charge fees to anyone who breeds their cat or dog, or is an outright breeder? Or pass mandatory spay neuter laws. Now that might help.
But you will blindly create more problems, by limiting a desperate animals' options, driving people out of the state, and causing the deaths of animals, that a person has rescued but who cannot afford the ridiculous license and intrusions by state inspections.
Oh, people say, if your place is neat and clean and animals well kept, you have nothing to fear. Really? Are you that naive? Go talk to some contractors to find out just how nasty inspectors can be, especially if they have some chip on their shoulder or didn't get the right blend to start them out at Starbucks.
Sure there are shit rescues. But there are far more cats and dogs who die due to overpopulation and people who breed dogs and cats for profit, and from hoarders. And probably the number one cause of death for cats and dogs, is big shelters. They're often nothing more than death camps, where cats and dogs wait to be gassed.
Oh, people say, this would stop unscrupulous animal abusers like that Keizer woman who kept five or six dogs to a crate etc. She was allegedly a rescue. But she never was, really. She was a scammer, trying to make money off dogs. Well law enforcement had been informed previously about her, I was told then, and did nothing despite complaints then. Laws on the books already would have criminalized her behavior.
About three years ago, I got a call at 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. That was rude enough. Some guy wanted to borrow my traps. Seems he was a house flipper and he'd bought a foreclosed upon Lebanon house and claimed the couple were cat collectors and left behind 40 cats.
I cussed him out good for bothering me late night like that, to get his needs fulfilled and asked him what he was going to do with the cats. No answer. There isn't one for cats in Linn County. It haunted me all night. I called KATA. They had been called by the man too. One volunteers' personal phone number had been given to him by animal control. WTF!
We went at it the next day, with the stupid house flipper sitting in his fancy SUV watching, not helping, for gosh sakes, not helping. Neighbors watched in curiosity. One told me I was sick, because I cared and I needed cured for caring. I said "You need cured. You didn't even help out your neighbor so that strangers have to come in to help at their own expense?"
Come to find out the "collector" couple husband worked for the county. And they were friends with the animal control officer who had been so quick to hand out my number and that of the other rescue involved. I was mad. Tired out and mad. I filed a complaint against animal control for, number one, being friends with these people and not helping them get those cats fixed and number two, for, instead of helping when they got foreclosed on, giving out my number. That is just wrong!
The commissioner told me when he asked the animal control man about it that he said he considered them a referring agency not one that really does anything. What? That's government in action. Refer work to little unfunded poor people and kick back.
But now, in the name of protecting animals, from us horrible little evil rescuers, you're going to charge fees and invade our space, and judge us further? And the fees will go to....wait for it...local animal control....the enforcing agency for this new shit law in this area. How do you like that? Get fees from me?
Not from me you won't. I have no money for this. Nor a stomach for it. I will leave the state with my cats or my cats will die. One or the other.
Fuck you state of Oregon and goody two shoe rich bitch clueless people pushing this. Fuck you for killing my soul and my cats.
And by the way, I can tell school's out for the summer. The kids are online. How do I know? Check out google stat search terms used that brought people to my blog today:
If I'm known for nothing else in this world, if my entire life were summed up by google, I'd be known for the cat penis photo. That's me. And I'm proud!
I have a chip on my shoulder myself. The state ruined my life once already, with the abusive mental system, forcing drugs on me, giving me labels I'll never shake, engulfing me in forever poverty. I have a metal plate to remind myself of that beating I took by staff on that Portland psyche ward. It reminds me also I went before one of the same senators now sponsoring this bill, basically to beg for justice, for my life stolen and an atrocity committed against me (the beating). I was dismissed then, after my three minutes. In one committee, only two members were present and one got up and left while I was talking. It was an experience, to realize, "Ok, there's no hope here either."
Now that same senator is helping craft legislation that will, if enacted, drastically affect my little life. I can hardly believe it. There's no winning for me I know at this point. I just want to survive til I die. Where can a person run to, with their cats, to be free and happy and left alone?
I know life isn't fair. But....come on!
I'm not going to roll over, expose my stomach and whisper, "That's ok. Go ahead. It will hurt me but that's ok."
It's important bullshit be called out as bullshit. Yes, this law will hurt me and others and animals. No, current laws on the books now, are not enforced. Why add more? It's a feel good thing for somebody.
The new law in the works is bullshit. Just more bullshit.
I have a chip on my shoulder myself. The state ruined my life once already, with the abusive mental system, forcing drugs on me, giving me labels I'll never shake, engulfing me in forever poverty. I have a metal plate to remind myself of that beating I took by staff on that Portland psyche ward. It reminds me also I went before one of the same senators now sponsoring this bill, basically to beg for justice, for my life stolen and an atrocity committed against me (the beating). I was dismissed then, after my three minutes. In one committee, only two members were present and one got up and left while I was talking. It was an experience, to realize, "Ok, there's no hope here either."
Now that same senator is helping craft legislation that will, if enacted, drastically affect my little life. I can hardly believe it. There's no winning for me I know at this point. I just want to survive til I die. Where can a person run to, with their cats, to be free and happy and left alone?
I know life isn't fair. But....come on!
I'm not going to roll over, expose my stomach and whisper, "That's ok. Go ahead. It will hurt me but that's ok."
It's important bullshit be called out as bullshit. Yes, this law will hurt me and others and animals. No, current laws on the books now, are not enforced. Why add more? It's a feel good thing for somebody.
The new law in the works is bullshit. Just more bullshit.
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