Hot car death of Richmond SPCA director’s dog may have helped to lower summer 2009 hot car death toll

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

RICHMOND, Va.–The Richmond Animal Care & Control Division
on August 28, 2009 announced a finding that “no willful intent was
found” in an investigation of the death of Louie, a 16-year-old deaf
and blind cocker spaniel/poodle mix who died of heatstroke on August
19, 2009 after being left in the back of Richmond SPCA director
Robin Starr’s station wagon.
Starr’s husband, Ed Starr, stated that he put Louie into
the vehicle as his wife prepared to return to work after a 10-day
vacation, but forgot to tell her that he had. Robin Starr found
Louie when she started to go to lunch at noon. “Louie died around
midnight after veterinarians were unable to restore the pet’s kidney
functions,” reported Jeremy Slayton of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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Obituaries [Sept 09]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
Danny Bampton, 9, of St. Charles County, Missouri, was
killed on August 19, 2009 when hit by a car. “Investigators say the
boy was riding with his mother when he saw an injured duck in the
road and asked her whether he could save it. After she pulled the
car over, Danny hopped out and put the duck in a roadside culvert on
the south side of the highway. When he tried to cross back over the
rural, two-lane road to his family’s car, Danny was struck by a
westbound Subaru Legacy driven by Alayna R. Hitz, 18, of
Wentzville. He died at the scene,” wrote Joel Currier of the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch. ANIMAL PEOPLE reminds readers that the safe way
to rescue animals from roadways is from the side of the road that the
animals are on, using one’s vehicle to block traffic, with four-way
flashers on.

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Not vaccinating beyond rabies hot zone leads to more human rabies deaths on Bali

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

TABANAN, Bali–The rabies situation on
Bali “remains dire,” assessed International
Society for Infectious Diseases ProMed forum
moderator Craig Pringle on September 15, 2009.
“Little progress appears to have been
achieved in containing the outbreak,” agreed
fellow ProMed moderator Tam Garland on September
18.
The most recent human victim, Ni Ketut
Sari, 47, died on September 14. “She got bit
by her own dog,” who “was suddenly destroying
her kitchen” on July 20, reported the Bali Post.
“She was rushed to the health clinic in Kediri
and got a tetanus shot,” but was not given
post-exposure rabies vaccination–apparently
because her home in Tabanan was outside the
radius of officially acknowledged rabies cases.
“According to her husband Ketut Sunarta,”
the Bali Post said, “a few weeks after being
bitten she was scared of water and wind, but was
always thirsty and shivered.”

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BOOKS: Dogged Pursuit

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

Dogged Pursuit: My year of competing Dusty,
the world’s least likely agility dog by Robert Rodi
Hudson Street Press (c/o Penguin, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY
10014), 2009.
288 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Dusty the Sheltie spent his early life tied outside a
trailer. He endured savage Midwestern winters, blistering hot
summers, and crippling isolation. Demented teens pelted him with
stones. Food and water were probably scarce. He probably never saw
a veterinarian. Somehow he found refuge with Central Illinois Sheltie
Rescue.
Chicago resident Robert Rodi and his dog Carmen, also a
Sheltie, were newcomers on the agility circuit. Carmen won a few
novice awards, encouraging Rodi to pursue more challenging courses.
He enrolled in weekly classes to hone their skills, but hip
dysplasia abruptly ended Carmen’s short but potentially successful
agility career.

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Animals key in Le murder & Dugard kidnap cases

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut; ANTIOCH, Calif.– Animals were 

central to two of the most sensational crimes against humans coming
to light in late summer 2009.
Yale University lab animal technician Raymond Clark III, 24,
was on September 18, 2009 charged with killing Annie Le, 24, a
pharmacology Ph.D. candidate. Le disappeared on September 8. Her
remains were found on September 13–scheduled to have been her
wedding day–hidden behind a wall in the lab where she and Clark both
worked.

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Animal obits

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

Hugo Bear, recalled as “one of our most beloved rescued
dancing bears at the Agra Bear Sanctuary” by cofounders Kartick
Satyanarayan and Geeta Seshamani, died on August 7, 2009.

Emi, 21, a Samatran rhino who was imported to the
Cincinnati zoo in 1995, died on September 5, 2009. Her first of
three calves, Andalas, born in 2001, was the first Sumatran rhino
bred in captivity since 1889.

KM04, a puma blamed for killing 15 bighorn sheep in seven
months in southwestern Arizona, was shot on September 2, 2009 by
state wildlife staff, under pressure from conservationists and
trophy hunters.

BOOKS: The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter
by Holly Robinson
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019),
2009. 304 pages $23.00, hardcover.

Publisher’s Weekly says that author Holly Robinson
“intersperses her compelling narrative with accounts of gerbil
mayhem, managing to milk a great deal of humor and pathos out of the
rodent that eventually became a common children’s pet.”
Gassing “extra inventory” as her father, Navy commander and
gerbil farmer Donald Robinson calls the victims, is not my idea of
compelling. Rather, it is disturbing and cruel–and so is much of
the rest of Holly Robinson’s account.
Holly Robinson grew up around pets, but how her family
treated them was questionable even by the standards of her childhood
in the 1960s and 1970s.

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BOOKS: Animal Migration

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

Animal Migration: Remarkable Journeys in the Wild by Ben Hoare
University of Calif. Press (2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA
94704), 2009. 176 pages, 200 color illustrations. $34.95,
hardcover.

Though recognized by humans for far longer than recorded
history has existed, there is still no universally accepted
definition of just what migration is.
“Animals make all kinds of different movements–short and
long, seasonal and daily, regular and once in a lifetime, highly
predictable and seemingly random,” explains Animal Migration author
Ben Hoare.
Hoare in Animal Migration explores the often mysterious
migratory patterns of at least 50 different species of birds,
reptiles, amphibians and insects. Most migrate as a necessity of
survival, in search of food and water, mates, and/or safe places
to lay eggs. When threatened, they move to avoid predators.
Climate chance or bad weather may force migration, or migration may
be caused by a combination of factors.

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BOOKS: Horses & The Horse

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

The Horse: A miscellany of equine knowledge
by Ian Whitelaw & Julie Whitaker
MacMillan (175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010), 2007.
244 pages, illustrated. $19.95 hardcover.

Horse by Elaine Walker
Reaktion Books Ltd. (33 Great Sutton St., London EC1M 3JU, U.K.),
2008. 216 pages, illustrated. $19.95 paperback.

The Horse, by Julie Whitaker and Ian Whitelaw, is an A to Z
compendium of information about equine history, anatomy, grooming,
health, behavior, and dressage, among other topics, with even a
touch of Hollywood thrown in. Short paragraphs carry the reader on a
fascinating journey, starting with the origins of the horse.
American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899)
uncovered equine fossils in Nebraska, Wyoming and the Dakotas.
“Marsh determined a clear line of equine descent,” say Whitaker and
Whitelaw. An excellent chart on page 17 outlines this order,
including the contributions of the Ecocene equids Mesohippus,
Hypohippus, Megahippus, and Dinohippus. These were also ancestral
to the donkey, the zebra, and the Asiatic ass.

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