BOOKS: Rabbit Handbook

June 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:

Rabbit Handbook:
A Family Guide to Buying,
Keeping & Breeding Rabbits
by David Taylor, BVMS, FRCVS, FVS
Sterling Publishing Co., Ltd.
(387 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016), 2000.
96 pages (all with color photos), paperback; $12.95

Every other guide to rabbit-rearing that I have ever seen, including several bad examples kept on file here, emphasizes the fecundity of rabbits, their limited space needs, and their inexpensive diet as an opportunity to get rich quick–– or at least win a 4-H ribbon––by raising them for meat.

Pet big cat buyers buy trouble the world over

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

HOUSTON, CALCUTTA–– The growing proliferation of poorly housed, understimulated, and often underfed big cats in private hands was spotlighted yet again at a child’s expense on March 15 in the Channelview district of Houston.

Jayton Tidwell, 4, wandered outdoors unseen during a family reunion and apparently tried to pet his uncle Larry Tidwell’s pet tiger. The tiger bit young Tidwell’s arm off at the elbow. Neurosurgeon Mark Henry reattached the arm and waived his fees, but the medical costs are still expected to exceed $500,000.

The tiger remained on the premises, haphazardly “quarantined” under a blue plastic tarpaulin.

The incident was heavily publicized for several days, but went unmentioned in national coverage of a March 29 press conference in Washington D.C. called by actresses Bo Derek, Melanie Griffith, and Tippi Hedren to promote “The Shambala Wild Animal Protection Act of 2000.”

GONE TO THE DOGS

May 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:

Dog breeder Peter Gronbeck, of Emmetsburg, Iowa, told media in midApril that Iowa Pet Breeders Association members have voted to switch their registrations from the American Kennel Club t o the rival American Pet Registry, because AKC now requires breeders to submit DNA samples to establish the paternity of any dog said to have sired more than seven litters.

Crufts dog show judge Caroline Gatheral, 65, and her 63-year-old sister Mary, pleaded guilty on March 22 in Durham County, England, to 83 counts of severely neglecting their own dogs while nursing a widowed sister who had suffered a brain hemorrhage. The Gatherals were barred from keeping animals for two years.

GONE TO THE DOGS

April 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

Carolyn Gatheral, 65, in early March judged King Charles spaniels at the Crufts dog show in Birmingham, England, the world’s biggest, despite charges scheduled to be heard on March 23 that she and her sister, Mary Gatheral, 63, seriously neglected 83 dogs at their kennels last year.

Five million more homes are waiting by Ruth Smiler

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

In 1997 I closed my antiques shop in Vermont and moved to California to begin a snow-free life. I neither intended nor expected to become an expert on homelessness, either human or quadruped.

When the cottage I had rented in Oakland was sold, I failed to find another apartment for me and my two dogs. The three of us movedback into the camper van in which I had crossed the country, staying with friends for a few days here and there, house-sitting once for four weeks.

Since then I have experienced apartment hunting in Miami, San Diego, and suburban New York. Renting with pets is tough. And it is not just a problem for renters. It is also a growing problem for the humane community.

RETURN OF THE PET THIEVES

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

NASHVILLE, MUNCIE, KALAMAZOO, FLINT––Missing dog reports reminiscent of the bad old days of roundups for laboratory use flooded animal shelter telephone lines and Internet chat boards between Thanksgiving 1999 and mid-January 2000 in at least three midwestern and southern regions linked by Interstate Highways 64, 65, and 69.

The first burst of theft reports fitting the pattern came in Maury County, Tennessee, south of Nashville. Almost all of the missing animals were reportedly purebreds.

After Christmas came 30 alleged thefts in southwestern Indiana.

“Red flags started going up,” said Evansville Courier & Press staff writer Judy Davis, when Gibson County Animal Services director Cindy Hyneman realized that, ‘All of the dogs’ descriptions matched––large, shorthaired, friendly dogs.’”

Kindness: where east meets west

March 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

HONG KONG, BEIJING– – Beijing TV electrified China as the millennium changed with a rare western-style investigative expose of pet theft for the dog-andcat meat markets.

Foreign correspondents swiftly amplified the revealed atrocities. Yet, in a nation where man biting dog is scarcely news to anyone, most missed the breaking edge of the story.

“By fair means and foul, predatory traders are getting their hands on Russian dogs and packing them off by the busload across the border to China to supply a booming demand there,” wrote Baltimore Sun foreign staff reporter Will Englund from Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

“Thousands of animals have been taken out of Siberia,” Englund continued, “in a business that is ruthless, dishonest, and violent––and is breaking the hearts of Russia’s dog lovers. Local gangs buy some dogs and steal others.”

BOOKS: Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and other unexplained powers of animals

by Rupert Sheldrake

Crown Publishers (201 East 50th St., New York, NY 10022), 1999.

350 pages, $25.00, hardcover

Spend enough time around animals, of any species, and after a while an observant person will discover that they frequently know some things well before humans. Some of this has a simple explanation: most mammals and birds have keener hearing than humans, most mammals also have a sharper sense of smell, and cats and many other mammals have built-in night vision. Rats even see in the ultraviolet spectrum.

But some other phenomena are harder to explain. One is how come many dogs and some cats seem to know when a favorite person is coming home, and occupy a characteristic greeting location not used at other times, even when the person may still be aloft in an airplane or just getting ready to leave work. Even harder to explain is how come such animals are often able to anticipate unusual changes in the person’s schedule.

PETsMART dumps British subsidiary

January 1, 2000 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2000:

Phoenix––Describing a 92-store British subsidiary, Pet City, as “an asset that has not met our performance expectations,” PETsMART president Philip L. Francis on December 15 announced that it had been sold––at a substantial loss––to the British firm Pets At Home.

The deal was reportedly already in negotiation when the British TV program Weekend Watchdog on December 3 interviewed four former PETsMART/Pet City employees who described senior staff bludgeoning unsold hamsters and rabbits at stores in Fife, East Anglia, and Surrey.

PETsMART marketing director Simon Blower responded to the content of the broadcast a day before it actually aired by setting up “an external advisory panel, made up of independent consultants, veterinarians, and educators” to do a “comprehensive review” of Pet City animal care.

“We are absolutely determined to make whatever changes may be necessary to get things right in all our stores,” Blower said.

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