Category: Companion Animals

Animal control & rescue

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Midwest
The legislative committee of Willard, Ohio, consisting
of councillors Bob Owens and Larry Jacobs, on July
3 introduced a policy allowing residents to borrow traps from
the police and dispose of stray cats at their own expense.
Objected councillor Tod Shininger, “If Joe Citizen doesn’t
have the will or the heart to destroy a cat, he’s going to move
it from one side of the city to the other, or take it out in the
country and dump it.” He noted that few residents would pay
a veterinarian to humanely euthanize a stray cat, and that
accidental killing of pet cats could touch off “a neighborhood
fight like you won’t believe.” Added mayor Stan Ware,
“We better get a cat warden.”
Second-year police officer Jeffrey “Mike” Crall,
of Beloit, Wisconsin––back on the job a month after being
stabbed while breaking up a bar fight––on June 26 performed
a daring rescue of a 14-year-old German shepherd/collie mix
caught in Rock River floodwaters. Crall “is our kind of guy,”
says Humane Society of Rock County executive director
Chris Konetski. The dehydrated, emaciated dog was reunited
with his owner, who recognized him on TV.

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Reptiles

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Herp traffic
The 72 Malagasy ploughshare tortoises
stolen from a captive breeding project at
the Amphijoroa Forest Park in Madagascar in
May have turned up “for sale in Prague,”
reports Allen Salzberg of the New York Turtle
and Tortoise Society. But due to corrupt
authorities, herpetologists “have little hope of
getting them or the people selling them,”
Salzberg adds. The Austrian Chelonical
Society warned in June that any members who
buy any of the stolen tortoises will be expelled.
German customs officials on July
8 announced the arrest of a 32-year-old man
caught at Augsburg with 328 tortoises
“stacked up like plates” in his luggage. The
man, who may get up to five years in prison,
reportedly “admitted selling around 3,000 rare
and protected tortoises since 1991,” either
caught or bought cheaply in Serbia.

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REVIEWS: Pet Food

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Pet Food
Investigative report by the Animal
Protection Institute of America,
free from API (916-731-5521 or
POB 22505, Sacramento, CA 95822).
16 pages, 1996.

The Animal Protection Institute
holds that the $9-billion-a-year pet food
industry is committing legal consumer fraud.
“Regulation of the production of pet food is
almost nonexistent,” API charges, calling
“for new state and federal regulations that set
standards similar to those of foods for
humans, truthful labeling of pet food ingredients,
and prosecution of pet food companies
who falsely advertise the health benefits of
their product.”
The API view may be debated––but
even if commercial pet food is generally good
for pets, opposite to the API contention, it’s
hard to argue against more accountability.

BOOKS: Counting on Calico and Calico Picks A Puppy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Counting on Calico and Calico Picks A Puppy
both by Phyllis Limbacher Tildes
Charlesbridge Publishing (85 Main Street, Watertown, MA 02172-4411),
1995, 1996. $6.95 each, oversized paperback.

Children love Counting on Calico
and Calico Picks A Puppy, from the introduction
of Calico the Cat by “Squeaker of
the House” Willy Whiskers to the very last
drawing in the brightly illustrated set, showing
cat and dog together. Though these
books have a rudimentary plot, and are
drawn as richly as any story-book, they are
in fact manuals on cat and dog basics, the
things every child should know before getting
a pet. The information is accurate; the
format and scale of the art are conducive to
group read-alouds. Humane educators will
particularly appreciate that after admiring
various purebreds, Calico finally settles on
a mixed-breed puppy, noting that mongrels
often combine the best traits of both parents.

COURT CALENDAR

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Pet theft
The Oregon Court of Appeals o n
May 18 overturned a $100,000 defamation
award to former laboratory animal supplier
James Joseph Hickey, issued by a Linn
County Circuit Court jury in July 1994 against
his godmother Merthal Settlemier, over
remarks she made to the ABC television program
2 0 / 2 0 in a 1990 episode about pet theft
called “Pet Bandits.” Hickey lost a similar suit
against ABC, heard in federal court. The
appellate court ruled that Hickey, as a public
figure, had the burden of proving that Settlemier’s
claim that his animal care was “inhumane”
was false, and that he “presented no
evidence that the conditions defendant
described did not exist on the day she visited.”

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Flaws in the laws

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Calls to reform Massachusetts
child neglect law rose on May 23 when Essex
County authorities filed cruelty charges against
Heidi Dreher, 25, of Hyannis, and Kenneth
Reader, 25, of Windham, New Hampshire,
for leaving a border collie locked in a hot car,
but were unable to charge them for leaving two
small children in the same vehicle. Police officer
Albert Inostroza did arrest them for possession
of crack cocaine. Reader was also
charged with assaulting Inostroza; Dreher was
additionally charged with disorderly conduct.
The children were turned over to the state
Department of Social Services, while the dog
was taken to the Methuen shelter of the
Massachusetts SPCA. State senators Frederick
Berry and James Jajuga said on May 28 that
they were drafting appropriate legislation.

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Animal control & rescue

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

The North Shore Animal League’s second annual May adoptathon
involved more than 700 U.S. shelters, which among them placed
20,000 animals––and all of the National Canine Defense League and Blue
Cross Animal Care shelters in England, which placed up to 60-75% of the
dogs in their care plus 40% of the cats.
The Calcasieu Parish Animal Control and Protection
Department uses local high school career days “to spread the word that
work in animal control makes a major contribution to the community,”
reports director Laura Lanza, who is willing to share a three-page set of
handouts on career opportunities in animal control with other agencies.
Her office address is 210 West Railroad Ave., Lake Charles, LA 70601;
telephone 318-439-8879; fax 318-437-3343.
Knox County Humane Society consulting veterinarian
Stephen Smith, 34, has filed as the only Democrat to oppose
Republican incumbent John J. Duncan Jr. in the race for the Second
District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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The wild west

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

HERRO OF THE HOUR
LAS VEGAS––Believing the nonprofit Animal
Foundation International could adopt out more animals and euthanize
fewer than the for-profit Dewey Animal Control Center, AFI
president Mary Herro bid successfully on the Las Vegas animal
control sheltering contract, taking over the job in December.
After five months, AFI had received 3,409 dogs and
cats from animal control, only five fewer than Dewey, and had
returned 652 animals to their owners, 29 more than Dewey.
Adoptions were right at Herro’s target pace of 500 a month:
2,534, up from 686 under Dewey, and the euthanasia percentage
was down to 31%, from 46%, already low compared to the
national norm of about 65%, reflecting the impact of the 75,000
discount neutering surgeries done by AFI since 1989. But
euthanasias were also up, from 1,871 under Dewey to 2,041 under
AFI, because public turn-ins rose from 487 under Dewey to 1,463
under AFI, and owner surrenders jumped from 179 to 1,650.

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Puma panic

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Worthy of a film expose in the tradition of Reefer Madness,
the hyperbolic 1936 documentary that alerted the world to the perils of
marijuana, PUMA PANIC!!! could be coming soon to a suburb near you!
Causes include the possible presence of a puma within a few
dozen miles; public reminders that pumas eat pets and people; hunting
advocates blaming the problem on an alleged lack of people using
hounds and telemetry to track pumas, then blow them out of trees in
such a manner as to save intact heads for the wall; and wildlife officials
engaging in bizarre rituals to avert the threat, sometimes reminiscent of
animal sacrifice to appease an alleged dragon.
For instance, with the approval of Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife biologist John Thiebes, volunteer trapper Richard Stahl
circa May 13 live-trapped a purported feral cat, fed the cat for three
days, and then staked him out in a small cage as live bait for a puma
who purportedly stalked two boys near Medford on April 3, six weeks
earlier; killed several other cats; and killed a dachshund on April 29.

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