Category: Companion Animals

Disaster plan works: Wildfire!

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1993:

LOS ANGELES, California––Southern California participants in the American
Humane Association’s mid-October disaster preparedness seminar had barely stepped off the
planes taking them home from Baltimore when their lessons were put to the test. Twenty-five
wildfires in 14 days, 19 of them arsons, roared through canyons in seven contiguous counties.
The disaster hot spot seemed to shift with the dry Santa Ana winds––from Escondido,
overlooking San Diego, to Malibu, northwest of Los Angeles. Each blaze seemed more men-
acing than the last, until the climactic fire swept down Topanga Canyon from Calabasas,
forked, and incinerated two separate coastal neighborhoods. Eighteen thousand acres of

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If it can make it there, it can make it anywhere

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Richard Avanzino of the
San Francisco SPCA is quick to point out that he hasn’t
announced his plan to end population control euthanasia
as a blueprint for anyone anywhere else. He explains
carefully that it is intended as an experiment, taking
advantage of the unique conditions in San Francisco, and
that other cities should in turn learn by the San Francisco
experience before attempting anything similar.
Nonetheless, there could be implications for
New York City. Acknowledging the example of the
SFSPCA, the American SPCA announced last April that
it would cease providing animal control service to New
York City in November 1994, exactly 100 years after it
took on the job. Like the SFSPCA, the ASPCA will then
focus upon arranging adoptions, neutering, humane edu-
cation, and improving landlord/pet keeper relations.

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Demographics of the shelter dog population

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

While good statistical data on the
U.S. animal shelter dog population is
scarce, what is available largely supports
Margaret Anne Cleek’s contention (left)
that large dogs are disproportionately rep-
resented, while small dogs remain in
strong demand. Before accepting Cleek’s
commentary, ANIMAL PEOPLE
checked her various contentions about the
nature of dogs entering and exiting shelters
with a variety of shelter managers from
across the U.S. who were attending the
American Humane Association annual con-
ference in Baltimore, October 10-13.
None had precise statistics for large dog
versus small dog intakes and adoptions,
but the experience of the North Shore
Animal League, which adopts out 43,000
animals a year, proved typical, even at
small rural shelters in remote regions.

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Guest column: We can learn from Detroit

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

by Margaret Anne Cleek
An open mind is damned near
impossible either to have or to find. The
response I’ve received to my September
ANIMAL PEOPLE guest column, “Don’t
call me a pimp” bears out the opening
premise of it: that we all have our own per-
ceptual set which colors our view of reality.
This leads to stereotyping and prejudice,
which in turn can produce polarization and
counterproductive strategy in pursuit of
mutually accepted goals.
To re-introduce myself, I am by
profession an industrial/organizational psy-
chologist. I am by avocation a dog enthusi-
ast––not just a purebred dog enthusiast.
While I have concerns about the adoption of
unsuitable dogs, the true mutt is just plain
fine in my book, and I would urge the
adoption of the right mutt over the wrong
purebred in a heartbeat.

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Editorials: When more pets don’t help

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

It’s no secret that loneliness ranks among our biggest social problems. Those who
are lonely won’t need convincing, but the available statistics are still staggering. Twelve
Americans out of every 100 over age 15 live alone, including nearly a third of those who
are 65 or older, 41% of women age 65 and older, and more than half of women age 75 and
over. Certainly some people choose to live alone, but among both sexes at all ages over
25, the numbers who are alone closely correlate with the number who are widowed or
divorced. More than half of all women will be widowed or divorced by age 65.
The impact of loneliness on many people appears in further statistics. Single peo-
ple suffer more accidents, poverty, terminal disease, alcoholism, and drug dependen-
cy––and commit suicide more often. Men commit suicide three times as often as women;
the leading reason for male suicide is loss of a spouse.
Just as otherwise healthy but unloved infants may die from acute depression,
called by doctors “failure to thrive,” most of the rest of us need to be loved to feel well.
As almost all of us who have ever been alone can testify, we were born to be social ani-
mals; our social needs don’t end with our relationships.

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Can San Francisco quit killing pet surplus? SPCA moves toward national precedent; ANIMAL CONTROL COMMUNITY ANXIOUS, SKEPTICAL

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

SAN FRANCISCO, California––Known for controversial innovation, San
Francisco SPCA president Richard Avanzino touched off perhaps the biggest furor of his
career in September by proposing that the city pound should stop euthanizing animals purely
for the purpose of population control––and offering to take care of adopting out the animals.
Not just an idealistic gesture but a detailed plan, Avanzino’s strategy for increasing
placement of adoptable animals is backed by a million-dollar special budget and an SFSPCA
shelter expansion already underway. If Avanzino achieves the goal, San Francisco will
become the first major city ever to achieve victory over pet overpopulation.
And the goal is within sight. Since Avanzino returned the municipal animal control
contract to the city in 1989, the SFSPCA has concentrated upon promoting adoptions, discount
neutering, humane education, and improving relations between landlords and tenants with
pets. The payoff has become evident in plummeting euthanasia rates not only at the SFSPCA
itself, which has virtually become a no-kill shelter, but also at the city Animal Care and
Control Department shelter.

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Books about cats and other pets

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

The Golden Song,
by Jan Brinckerhoff Chase. J.N. Townsend
(12 Greenleaf Drive, NH 03833), 1993.
32 pages. $16.95, hardback.
Pictures and story lilt across the
pages of a sunny picture book about a little
old lady, Mrs. Thackeray, who adores
above all else her canary named Caruso. His
happy music charms every moment of her
otherwise quiet life. She recognizes his
longing to join the wild canary flock that
brightens her garden one day, but she fears
that any avian companionship might end his
singing. She broods about the potential loss,
but finally gratitude and love impell her to
the pet shop to choose a big cage and their
prettiest female canary. When the others fly
that night, and he and the cage come in, is
she wrong to expect a cheerless silence
where there had been joyful song?

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BOOKS: The Hidden Life of Dogs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

The Hidden Life of Dogs, by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.
Houghton Mifflin (215 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10003), 1993, 148 pages,
hardcover $18.95. ISBN 0-395-66958-8.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, who
has studied primitive human cultures and
wolves, in The Hidden Life of Dogs casts
an anthropologist’s eye on a species in
some ways related to both. Like all such
experiential narrativeses, hers is less hard
science than informed observation. Her
interpretation of life among a family of
dogs (her own) is unashamedly anthropo-
morphic. She recognizes, too, the influ-
ence of her own emotional bonds and
weighs them in the balance. The result is
both informative and unexpectedly moving.

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