Category: Companion Animals

Missouri & Oklahoma puppy mill legislation is diluted before taking effect

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
 
JEFFERSON CITY, OKLAHOMA CITY– Missouri
Governor Jay Nixon and Oklahoma Governor Mary
Fallin on April 27, 2011 and May 17, 2011 each
endorsed into law two-bill packages substituting
weaker regulatory packages for anti-puppy mill
legislation passed in 2010. The substitution
means the laws passed in 2010 never took effect.
In Missouri, wrote Kansas City Star
correspondent Jason Noble, “parallel bills
constituted an agreement between the Democratic
governor and the Republican-led General Assembly
to overhaul Proposition B, approved by voters
last November. Nixon signed SB 113, which
substantially watered down the restrictions
enacted by Proposition B. In exchange,
lawmakers quickly pushed through SB 161, which
contained compromise language brokered by Nixon.”

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Far from Fukushima, helpers find themselves near the eye of the storm

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:

TOKYO, ST. LOUIS–Six thousand miles
from the earthquake, tsunami, and triple
nuclear meltdown that hit northeastern Japan on
March 11, 2011, and six weeks after the crisis
began, Kinship Circle executive director Brenda
Shoss and Best Friends Animal Society community
relations specialist Troy Lea remained on
post-disaster overload in late May, even though
they never left their home offices near St.
Louis, Missouri.
Shoss, of University City, used Skype
telephone calls, Facebook, and e-mail to
coordinate animal rescue efforts involving 10
Kinship Circle volunteers and about 30 volunteers
from other organizations in the vicinity of the
stricken Fukushima nuclear reactor complex.

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Proposed compromise on Missouri puppy mill bill pleases few

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
JEFFERSON CITY–For 24 hours Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and
Humane Society of Missouri president Kathryn W. Warnick thought they
had brokered a deal to preserve key provisions of the Puppy Mill
Cruelty Prevention Act, an initiative approved by Missouri voters in
November 2008, but dismantled by the state legislature on April 13,
2011.
Overwhelmingly supported by urban voters, the Puppy Mill
Cruelty Prevention Act did not win approval in rural districts,
whose representatives hold the majority of seats in both the Missouri
House and Senate.

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Activists block truck to save dogs in China

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

BEIJING–Driving on the Tongzhou section of the
Beijing-Harbin expressway at 11 a.m. on Friday, April 15, 2011, a
China Small Animal Protection Association volunteer surnamed An saw a
livestock truck hauling between 430 and 580 dogs, according to
various different news accounts.
As dogs are rarely eaten in the Beijing region, and are not
raised in the Beijing region for sale to the parts of China where
dogs are commonly eaten, An suspected that the dogs were stolen.

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BAWA achieves Bali rabies turnaround

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

UBUD, Bali, Indonesia–Vaccinating 210,000 dogs in the six
months ending on March 31, 2011, the Bali Animal Welfare
Association achieved a 48% reduction in human rabies deaths and a 45%
decrease in dog rabies cases. This was the fastest containment of a
rabies outbreak in the history of Indonesia, achieved even as a
13-year-old outbreak continues in Flores, where officials have
fought rabies mainly by culling dogs.
During the six-month vaccination sweep, BAWA established by
counting dogs from house to house in every village that the Bali dog
population is “just over 300,000 dogs, about 1 dog to 12.5 people,”
BAWA founder Janice Girardi told ANIMAL PEOPLE–exactly the ANIMAL
PEOPLE estimate produced in late 2008 when the rabies outbreak was
first recognized. Government estimates were half again to twice as
high.

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Ohio keeps deal on veal, but backs off on exotic pets

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
COLUMBUS–The Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board on April 5,
2011 voted 11-0 in favor of a standard requiring that veal calves be
kept in pens in which they have room to turn around. The vote
reversed a 6-5 vote on March 2, 2011 which would have allowed veal
crating to continue–and would have broken a June 2010 agreement
brokered by former Ohio governor Ted Strickland that kept off the
November 2010 ballot a proposal advanced by the Humane Society of the
U.S. to ban veal crates, sow gestation crates, and battery cages
for laying hens.

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Evacuees risk radiation to save pets

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
TOKYO-The Japanese government on April 21, 2011 introduced
penalties of up to 30 days in jail and fines of $1,000 for people
caught infiltrating the 20-kilometer “no-go” zone surrounding the
failing Fukushima nuclear reactors.
The penalties came into effect two weeks after the leading
Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that “An increasing
number of people from the 20-kilometer evacuation zone are defying
authorities to return temporarily to take care of their pets,” four
weeks after a March 11 earthquake of record magnitude and ensuing
tsunami critically damaged the Fukushima nuclear complex.
“Volunteers from animal protection groups also have been entering the
evacuation zone at pet owners’ request for such purposes as feeding
the pets,” Yomiuri Shimbun added.

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BOOKS: A New Name for Worthless

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2011:

A New Name for Worthless: A Hero is Born
by Rocky Shepheard, illustrated by Tamara Ci Thayne
c/o Dogs Deserve Better (P.O. Box 23, Tipton, PA 16684), 2011.
Hardcover, 16 pages. $17.97.

A chained dog named Worthless craves human companionship. In
the winter a shabby doghouse barely protects the old dog from the
brutal winters. There is not much shade from the sizzling summer sun.
A New Name for Worthless means well. Author Rocky Shepheard
presents it as a tribute to Tamira Ci Thayne, founder of Dogs
Deserve Better, and her devotion to freeing dogs from the misery of
chains, a most laudable goal. But the book conveys mixed and
confusing messages to its intended audience of young readers.

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