Please Support Grace’s Law
She was a hound like many of the other countless numbers in Georgia. She either became nose blind following a squirrel and the trail home went cold, rending her irretrievably lost. Or she was lost on purpose. Too old to hunt. Too unfocused to hunt. Or just plain was skipped over when the scent hound gene was handed out. In any case, the result was the same. Her collar was unbuckled or unsnapped and the person she trusted drove away, or counted on the fact that she would soon get lost on her own. Afterall, she was just a hound and with all the money spent, she wasn’t making a return. Kept in a steel crate in the open back of a pick up in the rain, giving out a yodel or pressing her nose up between the home made, flat, rectangular bars just hungry for affection, she was taking up space where a dog earning his/her keep should be.
Like most large hounds in the state of Georgia who find themselves in her position, she found herself at a county pound. Her number was up. Large hounds just don’t get adopted, nor does anyone else. Her card was turned over just as she was settling in. As most large hounds do, she probably even wagged her tail hopefully as she leaned in to accept the slip lead that would lead her on her very last walk. Was this a strange looking dog crate they were putting her in? But there were other dogs in there. She could hardly moved, even though many of them were sedated or just frozen with fear. The switch was pulled and the air got thick.
Through some miracle, when the door was opened, she was somehow still alive. How could it be possible? There are always stories of infants surviving a fire or young people in Auschwitz, alive through an air pocket under the dozens of bodies that kept them from succumbing.
The staff at Liberty County Animal Control called her “Amazing Grace,” and believed that she deserved to live after surviving the gas chamber, which had been illegally installed in 2002. The day a tricolor hound named Grace came out alive, the chamber was never started in the county, ironically named Liberty, ever again. Bill 1060 started right there. It was nicknamed “Grace’s Law.”
In 1990, the gas chamber was banned from use in the state of Georgia. To satisfy the bean counters, there was a loophole, exempting from cities and counties with populations less than 25,000 residents from the ban. They could not purchase a replacement chamber in the future, but they could continue to operate their current unit for as long as it would run or could be patched up. One theory is that it prevented a small tax base from necessitating a renovation to their shelter. However, there couldn’t possibly be fifteen counties and towns, the number which have been grandfathered in, that small running a shelter. Their aren’t. The rest have been grandfathered in by the other loophole that if the chamber was in operation prior to 1990, they could also continue on. Grace’s Law would close the loopholes and stop the chambers altogether.
Through my own independent research, the cost of silencing a gas chamber is less than five calories, the energy an adult in reasonable physical fitness expended to turn a knob, permanently snuff out a pilot light or take the first swing with a hammer.
The shelters operating gas chambers (graciously supplied by Georgia Voters for Animal Welfare). This does not include shelters that have a gas chamber on their facility that are not in use but still physically present.
Ashburn, City of (in Turner County; no county facility; chamber housed in City of Ashburn.)
Barnesville, (City of) Animal Shelter (In Lamar County; no county facility; chamber housed in City of Barnesville.)
Butts County Animal Control
Cobb County Animal Control (After court order in 2006 to cease using chamber)
Cordele, City of (In Crisp County)
Cuthbert, City of (In Randolph County; no county facility; chamber housed in City of Cuthbert.)
Haralson County Animal Shelter
Hawkinsville, City of (In Pulaski County; no county facility.
Henry County Animal Control
Lakeland, City of (In Lanier County; no county facility.)
Macon, City of (In Bibb County; no county facility; chamber operated in City of Macon, under the jurisdiction of Macon Police Animal Control. Macon City Council voted unanimously June 2008 to cease using chamber by July 1, 2009.)
Mitchell County Animal Control
Spalding County Animal Shelter
Vienna, City of Animal Shelter (in Dooly County; no county facility)
Warner Robins (In Houston County; no county facility)
One small Georgia shelter currently has a gas chamber, but it has been long silenced. The top of the chamber is now used to pile up supplies and the inside is used for storage. The local magistrates hate that their past includes that chamber, and have promised that the sleeping beast will never be roused. It would be a poor reflection on their humane administration, they reason. There are not enough blankets, towels, and bags of dog food in the entire state, however, to hide the elephant in the room. That may be the way it is now, but at election time, I admit that I wake up in the middle of the night a little apprehensive about a new regime that feels differently.
HB 1060 was heard in the Georgia Assembly only briefly, as perhaps it is not deemed that important.
If you are in Georgia, GVAW encourages you to turn out February 26th. According to a mailing I received:
The Gathering for Grace will be held next Thursday, February 26th, at the Washington Street entrance of the Georgia State Capitol, from 9:30 A.M. until 2:30 P.M.
Please do it for your “best friends.”
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January 18th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
The use of gas chambers at Auschwitz are viewed as such a horror, never to be repeated. So why are they being used to kill dogs?
January 18th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
The use of the gas chambers at Auschwitz is regarded as such an awful horror by humanity. But here we are still using it on dogs, man’s best friend. And this is okay? How can this be?