Letters: Shaming pet owners won’t fix poor veterinary care

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Owner shaming won’t fix subpar pet care

Re: “Even through hard times, our animals still rely on us for care” (Page A6, July 31).

As a pet owner my entire adult life, I was shaking my head while reading Melissa Rae Sanger’s column.

Instead of wagging her finger at pet owners that we’re not spending enough money on veterinary care, how about focusing on the subpar veterinary care that pet owners frequently encounter? Over the years, my dogs and cats have been seriously misdiagnosed, and two were left to nearly die while under “supervised” in-house veterinary care.

As to her assertion that people are hoping “for months” that pet health problems “simply go away,” I couldn’t schedule a follow-up appointment for four weeks after the vet exam for an eye infection. In the meantime, the eye infection cleared up on its own. Not every ailment requires a vet visit.

My experiences are from different vet hospitals in different cities over decades. Are they all bad? No. Is there room for improvement? Most definitely.

Kerry Swyers
Manteca

Mudslinging at Wahab displays desparation

This past week, there has been a flurry of campaign ads slinging mud at Aisha Wahab using dubious sources as evidence. These messages come from organizations cloaked in secrecy.

Two “organizations” behind these negative ads, American Democracy Project and the Safer Alameda County PAC, affiliated with AIPAC, have websites that are simply one page with a message supporting democracy or safety. There’s no contact information, mission statement or any other information about the organization — just a web page quickly launched.

Safer Alameda County flyers cite a couple of articles, some nonexistent, others misrepresented. One such citation is from The Sun, a British tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch and often sued, most notably for the phone-hacking scandal in the UK.

Don’t be fooled by these messages. Candidates who start slinging mud do so out of desperation, a lack of platform and because they are lagging in the polls.

Lisa Fuller
Pleasanton

Warriors’ owners turn backs on community

From Oakland, we’ve loved the heart and soul of the Warriors players going way back. Sadly, especially since moving to San Francisco, the owners and management seem to have lost their heart and now maybe their soul also.

It’s sad to see them squander opportunities to build the team for the sake of profits. We can’t afford to go to games anymore. Does it also enrage others that they signed a $50 million a year deal with IREN, a technology company that builds and runs data centers for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency? AI will put more of us out of work.

We admire Steph Curry and so many of the Warriors who built the team and have been involved in our communities. But the current owners and management are leaving all that behind. What will it take for them to care again?

Susan Sachen
Oakland

When Trump term ends, what will supporters say?

The parallels between the current White House administration and the Nazi regime are all too obvious. Both blamed immigrants and those thought to be inferior for the woes of the country; both tried to eliminate opposing viewpoints by controlling the media; and both leaders were convicted criminals.

The residents who lived in the vicinity of the concentration camps during WWII could smell and observe the smoke from the crematoria and could occasionally witness the ash falling around their homes. Like those villagers who were forced to walk through a few of the camps after they were liberated, will MAGA voters also say, we just didn’t know, knowing full well the extent of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior?

Like Hitler’s henchmen when put on trial in Nuremberg for their horrific crimes, will the Republican Congress members who blindly supported a criminal also say they were just following orders?

Michael Meneghetti
Pleasant Hill

Democrats need new leaders to right ship

I would like to issue a prediction and a dire warning before the midterm elections that most Democrats are waxing triumphant about. It is clear to me that the mainstream Democratic Party is the main culprit in the rise of Donald Trump and the authoritarian government that we have today.

They shut out incredibly popular, fantastic candidates like Bernie Sanders in favor of right-leaning warmongers like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, both of whom support the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Mainstream Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries take huge contributions from AIPAC, refuse to oppose genocide and have supported the same-old politicians against hugely popular progressive candidates. These old-school, corrupt incumbents will not reverse the horrendous atrocities of the current administration. They will do the same half-stepping same-old that they always have done and always will do.

We need new leadership in the Democratic Party.

Jon Harwayne
Walnut Creek