Right-to-pet verdicts

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

The California State Court of Appeal on September 3 made
binding on all trial courts in California an August 25 ruling that a
homeowners’ association “no pets” rule may be overridden by a
resident’s documented need for a companion animal. The Court of
Appeal held that an animal need not have special skills or training
to be a therapeutic helper to the clinically depressed, and
reinstated an award of $18,000 in damages made in 2002 to Ed and
Jayne Elebiari by the California Fair Employment & Housing
Commission. Both clinically depressed, they adopted a shelter dog
in April 1999 at the recommendation of their therapists. The dog
helped them, but the Auburn Woods I Condominium Association obliged
them to give him to a friend in June 1999. The Elebiaris relapsed
into depression and relocated to Rochester, New York, where they
adopted another dog. The California Department of Fair Employment &
Housing sued the condo association on their behalf in February 2001.

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How P&G avoids animal testing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Replacement Method

Cytosensor microphysiometer method
Ex vivo rabbit enucleated eye irritation test
Bovine ex vivo corneal opacification permeability test
Chicken ex vivo enucleated eye irritation test
In vitro matrix corrosivity assay (Corrositex) *
Eye human tissue equivalence assay (EpiOcular) *
Eye in silico structure/activity relationship model
Skin human tissue equivalence assay (EpiDerm) *
Skin human tissue equivalence assay (EpiDerm + MTT, IL-1)
In vitro skin penetration assay *
In silico skin penetration SAR model
Proportionality (calculation) method for acute toxicity *
In vitro tissue equivalence assay for gastric irritation
Peptide reactivity screening assay
Skin allergy genomic assay
In silico sensitization SAR model
In vitro guinea pig antibody assay for Type I anaphylaxis
In silico SAR, coupled with in vitro peptide binding
Estrogen receptor competitive binding assay
Androgen receptor competitive binding assay

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Letters [Nov 2004]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Dogs in trucks

Re “Reducing the vehicular accident risk
to dogs,” in the September 2004 edition of
ANIMAL PEOPLE, back in the 1980s the Colorado
Federation of Animal Welfare Agencies found a
sponsor to introduce a state bill that would have
required dogs riding in the beds of pickup trucks
to be tethered. We had estimates of the number
of human and animal fatalities and traffic
accidents caused by unrestrained dogs; we had
the state police and the state sheriffs’
association on our side; we exempted working
ranch dogs; and the law would have applied only
in the urban counties along the Front Range, as
with the automobile emissions law.
The bill was soundly defeated by the
House Agriculture Committee because there was no
law in Colorado prohibiting children from riding
in the back of pickup trucks, and no legislator
wanted to have to explain to his constituents why
he favored dogs over kids.

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Sentencing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

“For the first time ever, an animal
abuser in New Orleans has been sentenced to
serious jail time,” Louisiana SPCA executive
director Laura Maloney e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE
on November 5, 2004. Convicted of severely
neglecting four chained pit bulls, Dwight Petit,
28, of New Orleans was on November 5 sentenced
to serve 18 months in jail, of which he had
already served six, with an additional 30 months
suspended, plus four years of active probation,
to include drug testing, counseling and
treatment, 100 hours of community service, and
restitution of court costs plus $1,000 to the
Louisiana SPCA for recovery of medical costs. The
Louisiana SPCA adopts out healthy pit bulls of
non-aggressive behavior, but euthanized Petit’s,
as medically beyond likelihood of recovery.

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BOOKS: The Craggy Hole In My Heart & The Cat Who Fixed It

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

The Craggy Hole In My Heart & The Cat Who Fixed It
(Over the edge and back with my dad, my cat, and me)
by Geneen Roth
Harmony Books (Harmony Books, 231 Broad St., Nevada City, CA
95959), 2004. 238 pages, hardcover. $21.00.

“Although not every present-day pattern in our lives can be
traced back to our childhoods, the imprint for love–who and how we
love, and what we recognize as love –can,” says self-help writer
Geneen Roth.
“To some people love means being left, being anxious, being
constantly on the edge, and this pattern plays out with frustrating
consistency throughout their relationships. To others love means
being wanted, being seen, being cherished–and their relationships
reflect exactly that.
“Our earliest experiences of being known or ignored, being
held or left alone, being welcomed or criticized, being told we
were too much or not enough, create the architecture for love in our
nervous systems and limbic brains and effects us for the rest of our
lives.”

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25% of the meat sold in Nairobi is illegal bushmeat, Youth for Conservation finds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

NAIROBI–“Youth for Conservation,
commissioned by the Born Free Foundation,
surveyed 202 Nairobi butcher shops, and
shockingly established that 25% of the meat sold
was bushmeat,” YfC founder Josphat Nyongo
e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on November 1, 2004.
“This is an alarming revelation [for
human health as well as the status of wildlife] in the light of the known health hazards,”
Nyongo explained. “It means that people are
buying uninspected bushmeat unknowingly.”
The YfC bushmeat survey findings were
first disclosed a week earlier by Born Free
Foundation spokesperson Winnie Kiiru, but were
not attributed to YfC in coverage by John Kamau
of the East African Standard. Kamau reported
that, “Up to 51% of the meat sold in Nairobi is
bushmeat or from unknown speciesÅ Only 42% of the
202 samples randomly purchased from different
butcheries was found to be domestic meat.”

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Ontario introduces pit bull ban bill

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

TORONTO–Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant on October
26, 2004 introduced an amendment to the Dog Owners’ Liability Act
which would ban breeding, selling, and importing pit bull terriers
into the province.
The amendment also doubles to $10,000 the top fine and
provides a possible sentence of up to six months in jail for
possession of “any dangerous dog who bites, attacks, or otherwise
poses a menace to public safety.”
Explained Bryant, “Those who currently own pit bulls will be
able to keep their dogs. However, these dogs will have to be
muzzled and on leashes while in public, and spayed or neutered.
Municipalities can also add further restrictions.”
Kitchener banned pit bulls in 1997. “Since our ban,
Kitchener has sen a dramatic decline in the number of pit bull
attacks from 18 to about one per year,” mayor Carl Zehr told
Canadian Press.

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Florida panther biologist fired

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

VERO BEACH, Fla.–The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on
November 5, 2004 fired Florida panther biologist Andrew Eller Jr.,
an 18-year employee, two weeks after postponing the scheduled
adoption of a panther habitat protection plan completed in 2002 by a
team of 11 panther experts.
“The agency decided to hold off on adopting the so-called
panther strategy so that it can hire an outside contractor to review
controversial science on which it may have been based,” wrote Pamela
Smith Hayford of the Fort Myers News-Press.
In May 2004 Eller filed an Information Quality Act complaint
“accusing his own agency of knowingly using bad data on panther
habitat, reproduction, and survival to approve eight construction
projects,” reported Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel staff writer David
Fleshler.
On July 31 Eller told media that he had been warned he would
be fired within 30 days.

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Amish puppy mills lose two rounds

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

LANCASTER, Pa.– Communities in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the puppy mill
hub of the eastern U.S., have twice in three
weeks said “No” to kennel permit applications
from would-be dog breeders and established
breeders seeking to expand.
Penn Township farmer James Hess on
October 20, 2004 withdrew his application to
convert a pig barn into a 225-dog kennel near
Silverwood Estates, an upscale residential
development.
The Providence Township Zoning Hearing
Board on Nov-ember 9 refused to issue a kennel
permit to boxer breeder John King.
“Monica Goepfert, who attends township
kennel application hearings, reported that the
zoning board members were unanimous. The zoning
officer also ordered King to stop dumping dead
farm animals on his property,” e-mailed New
Jersey Consumers Against Pet Shop Abuse.

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