We're Not In China, Anymore, Toto - Slate Mag Covers Dog Politics

We're Not In China Anymore, Toto - Slate Mag Covers Dog Politics

Dog Politics is like the "Little Political Blog That Could!  Journalists covering the world of politics suddenly Woke Up & Smelled The Dog, realizing the enormity of this demographic.

Commenting on President Bush's trip to Asia, Slate's  Bruce Reed,  author of the political blog, "The Has Been",  covers DogPolitics as it relates to China's recently implemented "One Dog" policy, and connects the dots to the recent  My Dog Votes Voter Opinion Survey on the issues dog owners hold dear..........................

In a piece  entitled, "Honey, I Shrunk The Dog"  -" To retrieve his presidency, Bush needs a new China policy: speak softly and throw a big stick", Bruce Reed writes,

"China's action has split the American animal-rights community. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, makes the sensible argument that vaccinating dogs for rabies would do far more good than limiting each household to one (unvaccinated) dog. By contrast, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk's only objection is that there should be a "grandfather clause so that people who have more than one dearly loved dog don't now have to kill them." PETA's position doesn't sit well at dogpolitics.com—"The Political Blog for Dog Owners"—which attacks Newkirk for sending China the message, "Kill 'em but just don't eat 'em."

For Bush, the domestic politics of jerking China's chain on this are irresistible. The Pew Research Center reports that 39 percent of American households have dogs (only 23 percent have cats), and they're disproportionately the same middle-class families who ran away from Republicans last week.

No PETA sympathizers in that crowd; they're all hard-liners. Just look at the recent survey of 1,000 dog owners by a group called My Dog Votes. The group says "a startling 94.3% of dog owners ranked dog laws and policies as being an even more important concern than even property taxes." More to the point, the survey found that 97.9 percent of dog owners oppose size restrictions, 99.6 percent oppose limiting access to parks or downtown areas, and 92.9 percent "would cross party lines in a local or state election to preserve the right to own the dog of their choice."  We're not in China anymore, Toto."

For the entire story, visit Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2153724/?nav=fix

Bruce Reed, who was President Clinton's domestic policy adviser, is president of the Democratic Leadership Council and editor-in-chief of Blueprint magazine.

Guess we're not obscure, anymore, huh, Toto.

Comments

[Cheryl]

Why can't people inflitrate this unspeakable torture of animals for their skins and get these animals out. My God, they do espionage for every other thing but not this. People are wearing more fur then ever. I just want to tell them how those animals had to die so they could their pelts on their back to boost their self-esteem. I say take some kind of acid into a store and somehow put it on the coat and then it eats a hole in then and they can't sell it. This is the worest thing I have seen the skinning of these animals alive.

[Katrina]

What I have never really understood about China's new "enforcement" of old laws is this: how is reducing the number of dogs in a household supposed to reduce the incidence of Rabies? And, second, how is requiring that dogs over a certain size leave the "boundaries" of the identified enforcement area supposed to reduce the spread of Rabies? The only thing that will reduce the spread of rabies is the destruction of rabies, and that is best done thru the prevention (ie: rabies vaccine).