Who
is CAAOR?
The
Colorado Alliance for Animal Owners Rights is a lobbyist organization established in 2006, modeled after a grass roots alliance,
Florida Alliance for Animal Owner’s Rights (FAAOR) and the Illinois Alliance For Animal Owner’s Rights (IAAOR).
The CAAOR is committed to the task of replacing restrictive and over-broad animal health care laws with common sense,
owner-friendly, statutes. By lobbying our state legislators, we intend to clarify overly broad language in the Colorado
Veterinary Practice Act and help keep secure the exclusive right of owners to choose cooperative maintenance
modalities (such as massage, acupressure, teeth floating, farriery, etc.) for their animal companions and livestock.
We do not promote or support practicing veterinary medicine without a veterinary license. The Alliance's
position is that these cooperative maintenance modalities can not be defined as veterinary medicine.
We are an owner’s rights organization, not an animal rights organization.
We do not consider ourselves to be ‘guardians’ of the animals but we feel strongly that as owners we have the
final responsibility for the humane and enlightened care of our companion animals and livestock.
Currently there are sister organizations like the FAAOR, the IAAOR, the AZAAOR, and the CAAOR sprouting
up all over the country, dedicated to very similar positions.
The Colorado Alliance for Animal Owners Rights (CAAOR) is dedicated to the proposition that the final responsibility
for animal care rests solely with the animal owners of the State of Colorado. Our allied goal is to protect the owner's right
to pursue any humane cooperative maintenance modality which is beneficial to the wellness or specific use of the owned animal
without the threat of legal recrimination
The AVMA Campaign
In 1999, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) began a national campaign to universally describe veterinary
medicine for all state vet boards. Using common boiler-plated language they redefined the 'practice of veterinary medicine'
so broadly and vaguely that this language, if enacted into law, could be used to restrict owners, alternative/complementary
therapists, massage therapists, breeders, sportsmen, trainers, boarders, equine dentists, farriers, groomers and others from
handling animals in any fashion without first consulting or eventually hiring a DVM.
The AVMA devised this cookie-cutter strategy after a research study they commissioned which predicted
the inevitable dwindling of their market share as consumers began to distance themselves from mainstream veterinary medicine
in pursuit of complementary and alternative animal health care options. This campaign was largely financed by drug companies
and other vested 'joint-venture' corporations who use veterinarians as a clearinghouse for their products.
Many working veterinarians were totally opposed to the AVMA Model approach. They were worried it could backfire by
holding them legally accountable from a malpractice standpoint for approving therapies and modalities with which they have
no training or experience, not to mention burdening them with the additional responsibility to oversee common sense things
which breeders, trainers and owners now do with their animals on a daily basis.
Note:
While the AVMA takes full credit for instigating the Model Practice Act, they insist they bear no responsibility for its enactment
into law from state to state in its various forms.
Why We
Had to Organize to Secure Owner’s Rights
After successfully enacting the AVMA Model Practice Act legislation in states like
New Jersey and threatening enactment in Florida, it was
Illinois' turn in 2003. Illinois House Bill HBO464, the
Veterinary Medicine And Surgery Practice Act Of 1994, was re-written to include the new over-broad and restrictive
language at its core. A concerned group of people quickly organized and formed the Illinois
Alliance for Animal Care Alternatives which eventually became
IAAOR. The grass roots response against the passage of HB-0464 was overwhelming and so the group began to take steps to raise
money for further lobbying before it was too late. The end result of this effort was the bill’s Amendment Number Three
which gave animal owners the freedom to pursue any humane course of animal care without fear of being charged with illegally
practicing veterinarian medicine. It was too late to get the contested, restrictive language actually removed from the bill,
but this amendment effectively nullified it.
The action and result of the IAAOR’s successful
initiative along with a letter of warning from the BVM to an Equine Acupressure Practitioner in Colorado spurred the formation
of the CAAOR. Encouraged that they may be able to secure animal owner’s rights in Colorado and help to allow Colorado
animal body workers the freedom to practice cooperative modalitites such as massage and acupressure without threat of legal
action.
In response to a written inquiry to the CVMA in 2005 by the IAAMB, International Association
of Animal Massage and Body Workers, the CVMA wrote “Unlicensed persons practicing veterinary medicine are required to
do so only under the direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian. The board looks at each instance individually to determine
whether or not something is the practice of vet med and therefore requires veterinary supervision (it depends on what is being
done to the animal, if a diagnosis is being made, etc.)
Due to the broad language used in their response
a follow-up letter was sent to the board on June 13, 2006. The follow-up response came from the Board of Veterinary Medicine
(BVM) “The board has never formally considered whether or not animal massage is the practice of veterinary medicine
so the question has not been dealt with to date”.
The BVM’s non-committal
response and written Colorado Veterinary Practice Act combined with the AVMA’s purely restrictive model makes it nearly
impossible for an animal body worker to practice in the state of Colorado without the threat of legal recrimination.
CAAOR, Representative McKinley and several other parties attended a meeting with the CVMA in January, 2007 to discuss
the CVMA's position on massage. The CVMA representative stated the massage is considered veterinary medecine and must
be under the direct supervision of a veterinarian. With this information, CAAOR and Representative McKinley moved forward
with House Bill 1296 to attempt to secure Animal Owner's Rights in the state of Colorado.
Progress
In January 2007, CAAOR and Representative
McKinley filed House Bill 1296, that will support the alternative natural healing community of
professionals and lay practitioners in Colorado. Nutritionists,
massage therapists, equine dentists, acupressurists, bio-field therapists, Healing Touch for Animals® Practitioners, TTouch
Practitioners, aromatherapists, homeopaths, trainers and farriers and to permit them to serve the animal community of our
state without the fear of legal prosecution for doing the very jobs they have been trained to do.
HB07-1296 passed the House Agriculture Committee and then The House of the Whole by
a 51-14 majority win!
In
March 2007, the Senate Agriculture Committee voted against the bill in a 4-3 vote effectively killing it for the 2007 session.
CAAOR will work over the summer with
legislators and veterinarians to work toward common ground. Representative McKinley will sponsor a similar bill
once again in 2008.
In
October, 2007, Senator Greg Brophy agreed to be our Senate Sponsor.
In November CAAOR representatives will meet with the CVMA and discuss
creating a cooperative relationship between the veterinary community and animal massage practioners.
