Advocacy

Sure, Giving Tuesday is a pretty new concept—but we happen to think it’s also a pretty important one. The idea is quite simple: An entire day dedicated to giving back to others and getting to the true roots of the holiday season. After the mega-shopping weekend many of us just had, Giving Tuesday feels like a breath of fresh air. Here are three easy ways you can spend today giving back to animals in need.

Hug a Dog, Cuddle a Cat. Shelters across the country rely on their volunteers to help keep the animals in their care happy—and that includes some serious cuddling. Whether it’s cozying up with a puppy or taking the time to befriend a skittish kitty, a little love goes a long way when you’re a homeless pet. Changing litter boxes, filing paperwork and scooping poop, are a BIG help for shelter staff, too!

Join the ASPCA Advocacy Brigade. Help us fight to get strong anti-cruelty laws passed on federal, state and local levels as a member of our Advocacy Brigade. When you sign up, we’ll automatically send you important actions you can take. It’s a great way to give back all year long!

Become an ASPCA Guardian. Okay, you kind of knew this ask was coming, but we really hope you’ll consider it. As a non-profit, our team really depends on the small monthly gifts our members provide. They are our backbone. Did we mention you get a really cute calendar and the donation is tax deductible?

Thanks for joining us for Giving Tuesday, and don’t forget to share this post with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!

Hooray for L.A.! Last night, the Los Angeles City Council voted 12 to 2 in favor of a proposed city ordinance to ban the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores. If the Council upholds the vote next week, L.A. will become the largest city in the U.S. to pass this type of law!

The ordinance is designed to stem puppy mill abuse by making sure that dogs from puppy mills don’t find their way to pet stores in the city. There’s good news for homeless pets, too: The new law will allow pet stores to sell animals who come from shelters, humane societies, and registered rescue groups—just not from commercial breeders. It also still allows people to buy directly from breeders.

According to our No Pet Store Puppies map of stores that sell puppies, there are 18 stores in Los Angeles that will no longer be able to prop up the puppy mill industry once the ban takes effect.

Kudos to our good friends at Best Friends Animal Society for spearheading this incredible effort and helping to turn the tide for puppy mill dogs across the country! Please help us keep momentum moving in the right direction by taking our No Pet Store Puppies pledge today! 

Update 11/19/12: Way to go, Los Angeles! On October 31, the L.A. City Council formally approved a new ordinance that bans retail sales of dogs, cats and rabbits. The ordinance will go into effect by the end of 2012, after which stores have a six month grace period to stop selling these animals. The ordinance will not affect responsible hobby breeders.

ASPCA Government Relations intern Young Kang.

Guest blog by Jessica Johnson, Grassroots Advocacy Manager for the ASPCA’s Government Relations team.

One of the highlights of my work at the ASPCA is supervising our incredible Government Relations interns. I am so grateful for the many mentors and hands-on experiences I was lucky to have over the years, and I love being able to pay that forward to future animal welfare professionals.

If you are a student with an interest in pursuing a career working in animal welfare, policy, law, or other similar field, we have a great opportunity you should know about. Apply for an ASPCA Government Relations internship in our Washington, D.C. office where you can work side-by- side with our Government Relations staff! There is no better window to our world than interning with us, and you can make a real difference while learning about public policy as it affects animals.

Our interns were incredibly instrumental in our work last summer. They reached out to members of our ASPCA Advocacy Brigade to mobilize them on key initiatives, responded to constituent requests for information, and helped me organize citizen lobby days. They tracked the thousands of state and federal laws and administrative regulations pertaining to animals, and they drafted letters, memorandums, and fact sheets to support our lobbying efforts. Throughout the summer, they served as our eyes and ears at many hearings and briefings on the Hill, and accompanied us at meetings with legislators. They sat in on our internal staff and strategy meetings, getting a real insider’s view of our work.

We appreciate interns’ contributions more than words can say, but I also want to share what some of our former interns have said:

“I feel extremely fortunate for the learning experience that the ASPCA internship provided because I think that few interns are exposed to such a wide variety of work. This internship has taught me what nonprofit government relations work really is, and it has confirmed my desire to work in this field after graduation.”
- Rachel Easter, first-year law student at Stanford Law School

“Working with the ASPCA Government Relations team has made for an awesome internship. I enjoyed working alongside the fun and supportive staff, and I feel that I was able to work on a diverse group of topics and have become much more familiar with animal welfare issues than I was before.”
- Joshua Loveall, second-year law student at Georgetown Law School

“My summer internship at the ASPCA was the perfect transition between school and working, and provided me with so many valuable experiences and skills with which to start my job search. I learned a ton about policy in a short amount of time, and everyone was welcoming, gracious and so much fun. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the government relations team!”
- Melissa Rothstein, graduate student, Master of Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University

If you’re ready to make your mark on Capitol Hill and work on animal issues across the nation, I strongly encourage you to apply for a Government Relations internship! Learn more about the position and how to apply [PDF]. And feel free to email me with any questions at GRinternship@aspca.org.

I hope you’ll join us in our work to change laws and save lives!

Check out our Advocacy Center for more information about laws affecting animals in your state and in Congress.

Guest blog post from Nancy Perry, Senior Vice President of ASPCA Government Relations.

Californians, your hard work has paid off! Yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed the state’s bill to ban hounding (S.B. 1221) into law. The new law bans the practice of releasing radio-collared dogs loose in the woods to chase and tree bears and bobcats, all so trophy “hunters” can shoot the terrified animals down from point-blank range. California now joins the more than 30 states that do not permit this blatant and needless form of animal cruelty.

We started work early on this legislation, partnering with the many groups and shelters that attended our 2012 California Humane Lobby Day. Hundreds of advocates flooded the Capitol, where we held a rally for the hound dogs and wildlife—and of course, hound hunters showed up to oppose us and the ban. They were determined to preserve this unsporting pastime despite ample evidence of the grotesque abuses inherent to hounding.

Even under such pressure, humane voices won the day. Every time we asked for your help, you responded in full force. Your work has changed your state forever and made it a safer haven for thousands of animals. If you live in California, please take a moment to thank Governor Brown.

In addition to the hounding ban, Governor Brown signed two other great bills for companion animals:
Declawing/devocalization (S.B. 1229): Landlords are now expressly prohibited from discouraging potential tenants from applying for housing if their pets are not declawed or devocalized.
Cost of care in animal abuse cases (S.B. 1500): This measure clarifies existing law so that anyone accused of animal abuse must provide for the cost of care for animals seized from them. This helps shelters tremendously, and also helps ensure that animals will not end up back in the hands of their abusers.

As a California native, I was thrilled to join our California advocates in-person and work on this legislation! But I’m excited to announce that we now have Sacramento-based Kevin O’Neill, our new Western Region State Legislative Director, aboard to guide us as we take on new challenges in California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada. Welcome, Kevin—may this be just the beginning of great things from your states!

Want help us change laws to protect animals? Join the ASPCA Advocacy Brigade!