Category: North America

Walking horse industry quick-steps after failed USDA soring inspections

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
NASHVILLE–Between allegedly “sored” horses and sore losers,
walking horse competition burst into national view as never before in
late August 2006. But the attention was almost all embarrassing to
breeders and exhibitors in a business whose excesses, a generation
ago, prompted passage of the federal Horse Protection Act a year
before the passage of the Animal Welfare Act.
The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration championship
competition in Shelbyville was cancelled on August 26 after USDA
inspectors disqualified seven of the 10 finalists for alleged soring
violations of the Horse Protection Act. For the first time in the
67-year history of the event, it named no grand champion.
The National Celebration reportedly brings as much as $38.5
million a year into Shelbyville.

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Editorial: Voting to help animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
On midterm election day, November 2, 2006, depending on
the will of the U.S. electorate, both the House of Representatives
and the Senate may shift from Republican to Democratic control.
President George W. Bush, a Republican, will remain in the White
House until 2008, but history suggests that if either the House or
the Senate goes to the Democrats–or both–the outcome for the next
two years will probably be much better for animals than if either
party controlled all three elected branches of the federal government.
That possibility alone should be sufficient incentive to get
pro-animal voters out to the polls in the many closely contested
districts, even where neither candidate has a record on animal
issues that especially inspires either support or opposition.
Pro-animal voters will obviously want to support strongly pro-animal
candidates of either party, and oppose those with anti-animal
records, as indicated by the legislative scorecards published by
such organizations as Humane USA PAC and the Humane Society
Legislative Fund, but this year there is a further consideration.
Almost all of the major pro-animal federal legislation, including
the Animal Welfare Act, Endangered Species Act, and Marine Mammal
Protection Act, was originally passed and has been most positively
amended by divided Congresses. Precedent thus indicates that this
year the outcome of every seriously contested House and Senate race
matters to people who care about animals.

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Could carbon monoxide gas chambers make a comeback?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
Are the surging numbers of dangerous dogs
entering animal shelters retarding progress
toward abolishing gas chambers?
Warren Cox began to wonder in May 2004
when he arrived for a stint as interim executive
director at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter
in Dayton, Ohio, and found a carbon monoxide
chamber that only a few days before was still in
sporadic use.
Having managed more than two dozen
shelters since 1952, Cox knew he was looking at
an anachronism. The Dayton chamber had
supposedly been decommissioned years earlier.
The Dayton Daily News published exposés of
gassing in nearby Fayette County and Darke County
in 1995 and 1997 without apparent awareness that
animals were still gassed right there in Dayton.
Continued gassing at the Mont-gomery
County Animal Shelter came to light as result of
a September 2003 complaint to county officials by
veterinarian Sue Rancurello and shelter
volunteer Jodi Gretchen, and was discontinued
after a shelter evaluation by American Humane
affirmed the obsolescence of gassing.
“Two top administrators at the Montgomery
County Animal Shelter were removed,” the Dayton
Daily News reported, in part for “using carbon
monoxide instead of lethal injection to euthanize
more than the recommended number of animals.”
Cox had the carbon monoxide chamber
removed. But Cox also took note of who used it,
and why. Throughout the first half of Cox’s long
career in shelter work, carbon monoxide, carbon
dioxide, nitrogen, and decompression chambers
were used to kill animals in high volume. The
Dayton gas chamber was used to kill specific
animals whom some of the staff considered too
dangerous to handle.

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Anti-chaining activist is busted for saving a dog

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
ALTOONA, Pa.–Tammy Sneath Grimes, founder of the national
anti-chaining organization Dogs Deserve Better, was released from
police custody in East Freedom, Pennsylvania, at 2 a.m. on
September 12, 2006, about 12 hours after she removed a seriously
debilitated chained dog she called Doogie from the yard of East
Freedom residents Steve and Lori Arnold.
“I’m out,” on unsecured $50,000 bail, Grimes e-mailed to
ANIMAL PEOPLE, for whom she is a part-time assistant web site
developer. Charged with theft, receiving stolen property, criminal
mischief, and criminal trespass, Grimes remained convinced she had
done the right thing.
“I will not take this lying down,” Grimes pledged.
The criminal trespass and criminal mischief counts were
dismissed at a September 21 preliminary hearing, as about 75 Grimes
supporters demonstrated outside. Grimes is to stand trial on the
charges of theft and receiving stolen property on November 27.
The Arnolds call the elderly German shepherd/Labrador mix
Jake. They claim he is 19 years old, an extraordinary age for
either breed. The Arnolds told news media that the dog was in the
condition he was in because he is arthritic and they had hesitated to
have him euthanized. They said they had given him aspirin for pain
relief.

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New Jersey Consumer Affairs prosecutes another coin-can fundraiser

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

HACKENSACK, N.J.–Exiting New Jersey Office of Consumer
Affairs director Kimberly Ricketts on August 2, 2006, her last day
with the agency, appealed for public help to locate and impound an
estimated 1,400 to 1,500 coin collection canisters believed to have
been placed by an entity calling itself Lovers of Animals.
The Office of Consumer Affairs has filed suit, reported
Newark Star-Ledger staff writer Brian T. Murray, alleging improper
accounting for about $7,500 raised and spent in 2005.
The case followed the state shutdown of coin can fundraiser
Patrick Jemas in June 2006. Jemas did business as the National
Animal Welfare Foundation.
“Lovers of Animals was incorporated when Russell Frontera,
49, of Beachwood was furloughed from state prison in late 2004 after
serving two years of a seven-year sentence for loan sharking,” wrote
Murray. “His name appears on charity documents filed with the
Internal Revenue Service and the state that year, when he also
opened a post office box for the charity.

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DELTA Rescue loses challenge to L.A. County inspection requirement

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

LOS ANGELES–The Los Angeles District Court of Appeal on
August 8, 2006 affirmed an earlier ruling by Los Angeles Superior
Court Judge Victor H. Person that the Dedication & Everlasting Love
To Animals sanctuary, better known as DELTA Rescue, is subject to
inspection by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care &
Control.
The 94-acre care-for-life sanctuary houses approximately
1,500 dogs and cats. A subsidiary, Horse Rescue of America, cares
for equines.
“The department annually inspected and licensed DELTA Rescue
from 1985 to 1993,” summarized Metropol-itan News-Enterprise staff
writer Steven Cschke. “In 1998 the [animal control] board and DELTA
Rescue entered into an agreement whereby DELTA Rescue would be exempt
from the licensing requirement as long as it retained nonprofit
status, complied with rabies vaccination requirements, and the
department had no cause to believe it was mistreating animals, DELTA
Rescue alleged.”

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Primarily Primates will fight trustee’s recommendation that Ohio State University chimps should be sent to Chimp Haven

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

SAN ANTONIO–Primarily Primates president Wally Swett on
August 17, 2006 told news media that the sanctuary will fight the
recommendation of court-appointed trustee Charles Jackson III that
seven chimpanzees formerly used by Ohio State University researcer
Sally Boysen should be transferred to Chimp Haven, of Shreveport,
Louisiana.
“We’ll fight to the death to keep them from being moved,
especially to Chimp Haven,” Swett told Mike Lafferty of the Columbus
Dispatch.

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California animal transport exemption leaves livestock to cook

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

SACRAMENTO–The California legislature on August 14, 2006
sent to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill to criminalize leaving
pets unattended in weather that puts the animals’ health at risk–but
specifically exempted “horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, poultry or
other agricultural animals in motor vehicles designed to transport
such animals,” a clause excluding from protection more than 99.9% of
all the animals who die in transit from either excessive heat or cold.
Violators of the California bill could be punished by fines
of up to $500 and up to six months in jail. The bill specifically
empowers animal control officers to break into cars to rescue animals
in distress.
But Virginia Handley of Animal Switchboard, the senior
animal advocacy lobbyist in California, did not join other humane
leaders in claiming an apparent victory. She pointed out that many
California agencies have already successfully prosecuted people who
left pets in hot cars under the state anti-cruelty statute–which
permits stiffer penalties.

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Quick rabies containment

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

WASHINGTON D.C.–PetSmart Charities suspended cat and dog
adoptions at 22 stores in Virginia and Maryland in early June 2006,
after two kittens adopted from the Greenbelt store in the Washington
D.C. suburbs proved to be rabid. The kittens were in the store for
five days, beginning on May 14, Greenbelt PetSmart manager John
Marsiglia told Washington Post staff writer Hamil R. Harris.
The adoption shutdown limited human exposure to animals who
may have had exposure to the kittens. Those animals were quarantined
successfully.
The two rabid kittens and four litter mates of the first
kitten were euthanized, Last Chance Animal Rescue director Cindy
Sharpley told Harris. Six humans from two familes who adopted the
kittens and several store employees received post-exposure
vaccination.

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