Chinese “Year of the Dog” begins with good omens

March 2, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2006:

The Year of the Dog, observed throughout the regions of Asia
sharing cultural affinity to China, has rarely been auspicious for
dogs.
1910, for example, brought famine and a rise in dog-eating
to Korea, following a Japanese invasion. In 1922 the Chinese
Communist Party declared that dogs are social parasites. The
notoriously dog-hating Mao Tse Tung became head of the Chinese
Communist Party in 1934, began his rise to national rule in 1946,
and in 1958 purged both dogs and songbirds, after the Great Leap
Forward brought famine on a globally unprecedented scale.
The 1994 Year of the Dog predictably began in Beijing with a
dog massacre. The Beijing Youth News estimated that as many as
100,000 dogs inhabited the city when the killing started. The
Beijing Evening News pretended that dogs found by the police were
taken to “an animal shelter run by the Public Security Ministry,” but
China bureau correspondent Jan Wong of the Toronto Globe & Mail
learned otherwise.
Chief dog-killer Li Wearui boasted to Wong that his team beat
to death 351 dogs in 10 days. His assistant Fei Xiaoyang preferred
strangling dogs with steel wire. The Beijing Legal Daily published a
photo of police dragging a dog to death behind a jeep.

Hong Kong tries again

March 2, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2006:

Hong Kong banned keeping chickens and ducks as pets,
effective on February 20, 2006, after H5N1 was confirmed in 10 wild
birds of four different species.
Hong Kong tried to ban and cull other bird species kept as
pets when H5N1 first appeared in 1996, killing six residents, but
many people released their pets rather than allowing them to be
killed–which might have spread the disease if any of the pet birds
had been infected.
Doing door-to-door inspections, the Hong Kong Agriculture,
Fisheries and Conservation Department found 42 illegal bird-keepers
with 180 chickens and 57 other fowl in their possession, among the
first 43,600 households visited. They also found 1,000
chickens at an illegal slaughterhouse.
The Hong Kong Health, Welfare, & Food Bureau asked the
Legislative Council to ban live poultry sales by 2009, a goal the
bureau has pursued for more than 10 years. Under a permit buy-back
plan introduced in 2004, 272 of 814 live chicken vendors and 30 of
200 Hong Kong chicken growers have gone out of business, the bureau
said.

How popular were pit bulls once upon a time?

March 2, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2006:

While few doubt that pit bull terriers have long been bred as
fighting dogs, most discussion of pit bull traits or regulation
meets claims such as that “The American pit bull terrier and its
cousins had a well-deserved reputation as a loyal and trustworthy
family pet in the early years of this century,” (from
canismajor.com), and that “By World War I the American pit bull
terrier had became a well loved and desired dog,” (from
americanpitbullregistry-.com).
Newspaper Arch-ive.com now provides a quick way to check the
record, via 28.9 million pages of text-searchable microfilmed
newspapers from the 18th century to today. This includes the
classified dogs-for-sale ads.
ANIMAL PEOPLE recently ran searches on 34 dog breeds and
breed types for the years 1900-1950, limiting each search to U.S.
newspapers only, and adding the word “dog” to each search to avoid
pulling up entries for “husky” football players, St. Bernard the
Roman Catholic monk, boxers and pugs who were human prizefighters,
etc.

Companion Animals

U.S. Supreme Court endorses seizure of hoarded animals

January 2, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2006:

WASHINGTON D.C., Philadelphia–The U.S.
Supreme Court in early December 2005 upheld the
right of humane societies and animal control
agencies to seize animals from alleged hoarders
and charge convicted hoarders for their care, by
refusing to hear the last appeal of Janet Jones,
55, of Hatfield, Pennsylvania.
Jones founded a local animal rescue
organization, Animal Orphans, in 1998,
operating out of her home. In September 2002 the
Montgomery County SPCA seized 96 cats, nine
dogs, several hamsters, rats, and mice, and a
turtle who were found on the premises in
allegedly negligent conditions. Charged in
December 2002 with 105 summary counts of cruelty,
Jones was in November 2003 ordered by the
Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas to pay
the SPCA $45,600 for the animals’ care during the
year while the case was pending, and to forfeit
the animals.
The sum was within $5,000 of the animal
care costs for 2002 declared on the Animal
Orphans Inc. filing of IRS Form 990. But Jones
appealed. After the Montgomery County Court of
Common Pleas convicted her a second time, the
Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld the conviction
in September 2004. The Pennsylvania Supreme
Court in June 2005 refused to hear the case.
Jones then took the case to the U.S. Supreme
Court.

U.S. Supreme Court refuses to overturn right to sue police who shoot dogs

December 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C. –The United States Supreme Court on December
5, 2005 refused to review an April 2005 ruling by the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals that law enforcement officers have a duty to
consider alternatives to shooting dogs.
The appellate court refused to block a lawsuit brought by
seven Hell’s Angels motorcycle club members against seven San Jose
police officers and a Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputy.
The Hell’s Angels contend that their civil rights were
violated when the police officers and sheriff’s deputy in January
1998 shot a Rottweiler and two other dogs while raiding two homes in
search of evidence pertaining to the 1997 fatal beating of a man at
the Pink Poodle nightclub in San Jose.
The appellate verdict noted that the raid was planned in
advance. Though the investigators “had a week to consider the
options and tactics available for an encounter with the dogs,” the
verdict pointed out, they “failed to develop a realistic plan for
incapacitating the dogs other than shooting them.”
The original case will now proceed to trial.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling followed a 1994
decision by the same court that reversed a lower court verdict and
held that killing a pet without urgent necessity violates the Fourth
Amendment, protecting citizens against unreasonable search and
seizure.

Editorial feature: Putting a practical face on breed-specific legislation

December 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

On Sunday, November 27, 2005, surgeons Jean-Michel
Dubernard of the Hopital Edouard-Herriot in Lyon, France, Benoit
Lengele of Belgium, and Universite de Amiens chief of face and jaw
surgery Bernard Devauchelle collabaorated to perform the first-ever
partial face transplant. Taking the nose, lips, and chin of
brain-dead organ donor Maryline St. Aubert, 46, of Cambrai, the
team restored the most prominent features of Isabelle Dinoire, 38,
who in May 2005 was severely mauled by a Labrador retriever she had
recently adopted from a pound near her home in Valenciennes.
The pound dog involved in that case was neither a pit bull
terrier nor a Rottweiler, both breeds continuing to glut U.S.
shelters at a rate exceeding by more than fivefold their proportion
in the pet population. Nonetheless, the French face transplant
helped to focus attention on the increasingly vexing question of what
to about dogs who are easily capable of killing or maiming someone
with their first-ever bite.
ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton has since September 1982
maintained a breed-specific log of life-threatening and fatal attacks
by dogs kept as pets. Guard dogs, fighting dogs, and police dogs
are excluded. As of December 6, 2005, 2,048 attacks had qualified
for listing, including 318 since the January/February 2004 edition
of ANIMAL PEOPLE editorially called on lawmakers to “Bring breeders
of high-risk dogs to heel.”

BOOKS: PerPETual Care & All My Children Wear Fur Coats

December 1, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

PerPETual Care:
Who will look after your pets if you’re not around?
by Lisa Rogak
Litterature (212 Kinsman Rd., Grafton, NH 03240), 2003.
192 pages, paperback. $15.00.

All My Children Wear Fur Coats:
How to leave a legacy for your pet
by Peggy R. Hoyt, J.D., MBA
Legacy Planning Partners, LLC (251 Plaza Dr., Suite B, Oviedo, FL
32765), 2002. 182 pages, paperback, $19.95.

The importance of careful estate planning, especially when
the goal is to benefit animals, was underscored on December 2, 2005
when Circuit Judge Steven H. Goldman of St. Louis County, Missouri
permanently removed attorney Eric Taylor as a trustee of the Olive
Dempsey Charitable Trust.
Judge Goldman ordered Taylor to repay to the trust $266,213
in fees and expenses collected while serving as co-trustee with
accountant James Richardson.
Dempsey, a retired telephone company employee, hired Taylor
and Richardson to form the trust in 1998. At her death in December
2000 the trust had assets of about $2 million. During the next three
years, according to IRS Form 990, Taylor collected at least
$221,929 in administrative fees. Richardson, who resigned
co-trusteeship earlier, collected $159,103.

BOOKS: Katz On Dogs

November 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

Katz On Dogs: A Common Sense Guide
to Training and Living with Dogs by Jon Katz
Villard Books (299 Park Ave., New York, NY 10171), 2005.
240 pages. $24.95 hardcover.

Dogs have their place in Jon Katz’s
family, but Katz, author of A Dog Year and The
Dogs of Bedlam Farm, neither treats them as
children nor accords them equal status with
humans. He views no-kill shelters with
disfavour, arguing that there is little reason
to keep potentially dangerous, un-adoptable dogs
in a lifetime of crowded, noisy confinement.
Katz offers guidance both from his own experience
and from case studies about what kind of dog to
adopt, how to train and feed the dog, and how
to build a healthy rapport with a dog. Handling
the complexities of multi-dog families is also
discussed, as well as some ethical and spiritual
issues.
Though centered on useful information
about dog care, Katz On Dogs also discusses the
changing roles of dogs in modern American
society, and how increasing stresses on families
affect dogs.

Anti-chaining & feral cat ordinances

November 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

The cities of Burnaby and Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada, in October and November 2005 adopted anti-chaining
ordinances that Animal Advocates of B.C. founder Judy Stone believes
are “the best in North America.” Animal Advocates of B.C. began
promoting anti-chaining ordinances through advertising in ANIMAL
PEOPLE about seven months before Tammy Grimes formed the U.S.-based
anti-chaining organization Dogs Deserve Better, and 20 months before
Connecticut passed an anti-chaining law sought since 1986 by National
Institute for Animal Advocacy founder Julie Lewin. The Animal
Advocates, Dogs Deserve Better, and NIAA campaigns have now won
banning or restricting chaining in almost as many cities as children
have been killed by chained dogs (58) since Grimes began counting in
2003.

The Indianapolis city council on October 10 voted 26-1 to
make a neuter/return program run by the local organization IndyFeral
a part of the official city animal control policy. “Indy-Feral
charges colony caregivers $20 per cat for their service, compared to
approximately $120 per cat trapped and killed by Indianapolis Animal
Care and Control,” noted Nuvo Magazine writer Mary Lee Pappas.

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