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Alert of 11/13/06 - Press Release

Please find below a Press Release which we hope each of you will distribute to your local media outlets.  You may send it to newspapers, radio and TV stations.  If you do not already know to whom Press Releases are sent at your local newspapers, radio and TV stations, please call and get a fax number or email address and send.  If you know the recipient, please leave in the contact info we’ve offered and you may surely add your own; if you do not, please leave the contact info we’ve offered intact.  Please also insert the date when you actually send out the press release. 

We are making every effort to broadcast the Attorney General Opinion so that communities which might be euthanizing or refusing to adopt dogs based solely upon breed will stop that practice immediately.

We need your help getting the word out!

Thank you very much.

Lillian Clancy and Donald Marro and

Board of Directors, Virginia Voters for Animal Welfare/Virginians for Animal Welfare:

Peyton Coyner, Debra Griggs, Cindy Ingram, Kim Kincheloe, Mollie McCurdy, Pat Weakland

PS:  If you wish to see the opinion of the Attorney General again, here is a link:

http://www.oag.state.va.us/OPINIONS/2006opns/06-078_Alexander.pdf
                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Insert Date when sent out

Contact:           Debra Griggs

                        Email:  jasper550@cox.net

                        Phone:  757-725-1705

Virginia Voters for Animal Welfare (www.VirginiaVotersForAnimalWelfare.com), in partnership with Patti Stinson of A Forever Home Rescue Foundation (www.aforeverhome.org), recently conducted an informal assessment of the situation of pit bulls in Virginia.  Their conclusion was that in too many places, pit bulls are euthanized simply because of their breed, and in many cases they are never offered for adoption.

This conclusion prompted a request by Del. Kenneth C. Alexander (D- District #89) for an opinion on the matter from the Virginia Attorney General, Robert F. McDonnell.  On October 30, 2006, Attorney General McDonnell issued opinion 06-078, which reads in pertinent part that “publicly funded animal shelters or ‘pounds’ may not euthanize dogs based solely upon breed.”

“Thanks to Kenny Alexander’s accessibility to constituents’ concerns, and to the Attorney General’s interpretation of the law, we now have a formal affirmation of what many already believed – that animals should be judged by their actions, not their breed,” explained Debra Griggs, VVAW board member.

VVAW was formed in 2003 and seeks to remedy companion animal overpopulation by effecting change on a legislative level.  As Kim Kincheloe, also a VVAW Board member so aptly puts it, “We must stop breeding a lot, adopting a few and killing the rest”.

VVAW bills to change this, and in particular to eliminate gas chambers for euthanizing companion animals, will be introduced to the Virginia House and Senate in January, 2007.