Abbott Hates Dogs

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#AbbottHatesDogs

A wise person once advised me to "Never trust anyone who is not kind to animals."

In the years since I have learned that my advisor's insight into human behavior was spot-on. I have, to date, not once met a trustworthy person who was not kind to animals. By kind, I mean those who treat pets with respect and those who support protections for animals in the wild.

Greg Abbott is one of the Untrustworthy. The Texas Governor recently vetoed bipartisan "Senate Bill 474, known as the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act, which would have prohibited the use of heavy chains to restrain dogs, mandated that animal-control and rescue groups scan pets for microchips, and given tax breaks to pet-rescue organizations."*

The bill called for the regulation of collar size, heavy chains, and the availability of food and water. Abbott called referred to the bill as "micromanaging" and "over-criminalizing." 

It is not micromanaging when existing animal protections are "vague and unenforceable,"* and isn't it no more over-criminalizing than those misdemeanor punishments that regulate pedestrian traffic and safe driving.

I grew up in an environment in which the old agrarian way of life was being fazed out in favor of industrial jobs in a nearby city. Old ways die hard, and the former farmers, seeing their woodlands scraped to make way for a booming population and suburban development, continued to keep hunting dogs in cages even when their weekday jobs left them too exhausted for hunting trips to hunting destinations that receded with each new birth and suburban development. Those dogs were often ignored for days. Their masters filled their food and water containers hurridly and absent-mindedly. They were sheltered by plywood doghouses and tethered to them to keep them from climbing over or digging under their prisons. Only neighborhood children gave the animals attention. A law like Texas Senate Bill 474 in those days would have been a blessing to those dogs, who suffered not from cruelty, but from the unkind lack of respect that pets crave.

* "Texas Gov. Abbott vetoed a state animal-cruelty bill, saying the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act was 'micro-managing"  https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-gov-abbott-vetoed-bill-expanding-animal-cruelty-law-2021-6