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.
