Month: September 2009

All-India dogs thrive at Chennai exhibitions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

CHENNAI–Nature selected the humble All-India street dog as
the best-suited dog for the Indian environment at two of the most
renowned Indian dog shows, in a manner no exhibitor wanted.
“Heat and humidity took a toll at the Madras Canine Club’s
championship show, where a Rottweiler collapsed and died due to
dehydration and two mastiffs were hospitalized,” reported Shalini
Umachandran for the Times of India on September 14, 2009.
“We had a vet and emergency facilities available, but we
were informed too late,” said Madras Canine Club committee member
Sanjay Reddy.
The show included 350 purebed dogs, many of them reportedly
visibly suffering. “As the afternoon progressed, German shepherds
and golden retrievers lay panting on sheets, St. Bernards rolled in
the mud while handlers tried to groom them, Great Danes stood
patiently as owners squirted water to keep them cool, and
Chihuahuas, miniature Pomeranians and pugs looked exhausted,”
Umchandran wrote.

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Pro-animal White House appointee is at last confirmed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
WASHINGTON D.C.–The U.S. Senate on September 10, 2009
confirmed the appointment of legal scholar Cass Sunstein to head the
Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs, one of the most
influential non-cabinet positions in the Barack Obama
administration. Repeatedly denounced as a would-be
“czar” by Fox network commentator Glenn Beck, Sunstein had become
one of Obama’s most controversial appointees, largely for views
about animal rights. Sunstein has argued for expanding the ability
of humans to file lawsuits on behalf of animals, and has called
sport hunting morally unjustifiable.

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De-worming makes a real-life “slum dog millionaire”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

De-worming makes a real-life “slum dog millionaire”
Commentary by Merritt Clifton

“I walk through Kalhaar daily with my own
two former roadway dogs, so I know all the
street dogs here,” e-mailed Lisa Warden on
August 1, 2009 from the suburbs of Ahmedabad,
India.
“The dog pictured here just turned up
three days ago. I guess it’s safe to say that
he’s one of those who isn’t going to make it,
don’t you think?”
Perceiving emaciated street dogs, cats,
cattle, horses, and donkeys as starving and
irrecoverably suffering is the usual response of
Americans and Europeans to those whose bones
protrude as much as this dog’s did–but I
recognized a different issue.

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Barking over Animals & Society fellowship

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
ANN ARBOR, Mich.–The Animals & Society
Institute had difficult questions to answer in
August 2009 after awarding a “Human-Animal
Studies Fellowship” to Jere Alexander. Alexander
in November 2008 resigned as director of the
Fulton County Animal Shelter following an exposé
of shelter conditions by Randy Travis of Fox 5 TV
and several follow-up exposés by the Atlanta
Journal Constitution.
The exposés, summarized in the November/
December 2008 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, focused
on allegations that Alexander refused to
euthanize pit bull terriers deemed dangerous by
staff, housed other dogs with pit bulls who
killed them, removed 83 cats from the shelter in
the name of a rescue group whose existence could
not be verified, admitted having attended
dogfights in connection with academic research,
hired the wife of a convicted dogfighter, and
maintained other associations with alleged
dogfighters.

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Nepal halts monkey exports to labs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

KATHMANDU–Nepalese animal advocades on August 27, 2009
celebrated success in preventing Nepal from entering the fast-growing
traffic in exporting monkeys from developing nations to research labs.
“Around 300 monkeys who were to be exported to the U.S. will
be able to find their food in freedom, in their own country,”
headlined the Kathmandu Post.
“We have decided not to allow the monkeys to be exported,”
announced Nepal forestry minister Deepak Bohara. “We will ask
Pravesh Man Shrestha,” the prospective monkey exporter, “to release
the monkeys within a week.”

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Busting puppy mills vs. busted budgets

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
LANSING, MI; WASHINGTON D.C.– Impoundments of dogs from
alleged puppy mills are coming at a pace, entering the last quarter
of 2009, that could top 10,000 for the year–up from about 8,000 in
2008 and 3,000, then the most on record, in 2007.
Many of the seizures are enabled by the passage of new
legislation regulating conditions at dog breeding facilities, at pet
stores, and in transit. The impoundments are in turn attracting the
attention of lawmakers, bringing further regulatory reinforcement.
Among the last acts of the 2009 California legislature was
sending to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger “The Responsible Breeder
Act of 2009, ” limiting the number of dogs and cats an individual or
business may keep to breed for the pet market.
“Arizona, Indiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington passed
legislation [earlier] this year to address puppy mills. In 2008,
Virginia, Louisiana and Pennsylvania passed similar laws,”
recounted Humane Society Legislative Fund president Mike Markarian,
celebrating the passage of a second round of legislation in
Pennsylvania.

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[Editorial] Time to stop declawing, ear-cropping, & tail-docking

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

Declawing cats and ear-cropping and tail-docking dogs have in
common that they are frequently performed surgical mutilations,
lucrative for veterinarians who are willing to do them, which convey
no benefit whatever to the animals.
The exception is when cats and dogs fall into the hands of
humans who may mistreat them further if the animals fail to conform
to the humans’ sense of aesthetics.
Then, in theory, the cat whose paws have been cut at the
bone equivalent to the first knuckle of the human hand will be less
likely to be dumped at a shelter for scratching furniture. The dog
whose ears are disfigured and whose tail no longer visibly wags a
greeting will somehow become a more desirable pet.

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Clouds gathering over BLM horse program by Willis Lamm

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

Most wild horse advocates recognize that the wild horses roaming our public lands require some degree of management. Herd population growth, loss of predators, intrusion by other land uses, extreme weather, and the horses’ inability to migrate to new ranges due to human-made barriers require some intervention so that the horses remain in balance with range resources. It is in the application of horse management techniques that the Bureau of Land Management has demonstrated both competent resourcefulness and gross incompetence.
The recent roundup of the iconic wild horse Cloud and his herd in the Pryor Mountains of Wyoming and southern Montana have provided a shining example of incompetence. There were no major injuries to either horses or humans, according to the BLM, but videos posted to YouTube showed horses who were unnecessarily stressed, limping, and frightened, and local news coverage described incidents and procedures which could have had disastrous consequences.

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LETTERS [Sept 09]

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
 
Financial tables

I recently received the 2009 edition of
the ANIMAL PEOPLE Watchdog Report on Animal
Charities, and wonder if you have a spreadsheet
summarizing the financial data included in the
report. I seem to recall that earlier reports
had tables such as that, and hoped they would be
available for 2009. This would make it much
easier for me to compare the various
organizations.
–Christopher Hersha
Information Technology Manager
SPCA Tampa Bay
9099 130th Ave. N.
Largo, FL 33773
Phone: 727-586-3591, x161
<chersha@spcatampabay.org>
 
Editor’s note:

Those tables appeared in the ANIMAL
PEOPLE newspaper each December for 14 years, but
became redundant when we started publishing the
Watchdog Report in 1999. After rising newsprint
and postal costs obliged us to reduce our page
count and frequency of publication, we dropped
the tables to keep more for news and reader
response.

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