A “Gotcha Day” for Over 2,000,000 Animals
Dear fellow animal lovers,
Today is my dog’s Gotcha Day. We adopted Oswald 10 years ago. It was his best day ever. Of course, for a dog who is loved, every day is the best day ever. But there are a few that are especially great: that day, the day he was pulled from the pound, and September 22, 1998, a day he didn’t even exist yet.
On September 22, 1998, California Governor Pete Wilson signed Senate Bill 1785 — a law I worked on — making it illegal for shelters to kill animals if rescue groups offered to save them. It was passed over the opposition of virtually every shelter in the state, state organizations like the California Animal Welfare Association (then called the California Animal Control Directors Association), and national groups, including the Humane Society of the United States and the ASPCA.
In the county where Oswald was sitting in the pound, no animal was sent to rescue before the law because of a “No Rescue” policy. It now has no choice but to do so, and rescue groups save 4,000 animals every year from this one shelter alone. Oswald was one of them.
Picked up as a stray, he was skinny, traumatized, had kennel cough, and a cherry eye. He was on his last day before his scheduled execution when a rescue group pulled him, nursed him back to health, and adopted him to us. Thanks to “rescue rights” laws like SB 1785, Oswald — and 85,000 other animals like him every year (over two million since the law was enacted) — will have the best day ever for years to come.
Happy holidays to you and yours.
For the animals,
Nathan J. Winograd
Executive Director
Help us pass “rescue rights” laws in every state. Together, not only will we save lives, we will create a future where every animal will be respected and cherished and where every individual life will be protected and revered. Thank you.