I read LA Times columnist Meghan Daum's Saturday op-ed titled "Doggy gentrification" with particular interest as Daum, who lives in Echo Park, was writing about dogs and values in the neighborhood. She even touched on a dog I have written about in Chicken Corner -- "Hubble," who once was called "Trouble." (And it's true, he was renamed in order to make him seem more appealing to potential adoptive humans. He's still "looking" for a family.)

Daum justly praises the Echo Park Animal Alliance for its services and the passion of its members/participants. And she rightly calls the Alliance's list serve on a tone of superiority in regards to people who are not up to speed in animal-rescue-know-how. But I take exception to the implication in Daum's article that wandering dogs are usually the pets of working-class Latinos.

Daum says that when she reads the Echo Park Animal Alliance list serve,

Issues of race or class are never mentioned outright, but the postings are often filled with enraged chatter about who needs to be "educated" about proper pet care. And what everyone knows but won't say out loud is that nearly every member of the rescue group is middle class and white and nearly every negligent owner they "monitor" is poor or working class — and probably Latino.