A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
Trident K-9 Warriors by Mike Ritland with Gary Brozek St. Martin’s Press (c/o MacMillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010), 2013. 272 pages, hardcover. $25.99.
A health issue forced Navy SEAL Mike Ritland to retire from active duty. While serving in Iraq, the precision of military dogs impressed him. So Ritland combined his love of dogs and service to the U.S. by forming a company that trains military dogs. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May/June 2013:
JAIPUR, India––Four years after the Rajasthan state government took over administration of the working elephant aid program in Jaipur, the Rajasthan capital city, the death rate among the Jaipur elephants has markedly accelerated. Read more
From Animal People May-June 2013—
Saving Baby: How a woman’s love for a racehorse leads to her redemption by JoAnne Normile with Larry Lindner Powder Point Publishing (P.O. Box 530, Hingham, MA 02043), 2013. 263 pages, paperback. $15.00.
JoAnne Normile entered horse racing relatively late in life, at age 43, seven years after convincing her husband to move from urban Detroit to rural Michigan, where they could keep horses.
By the end of the 1980s they had two horses. They entered the racing circuit in 1992 with Normile’s beloved Baby. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2013:
ANCHORAGE––Rarely apologetic about campaign statements and tactics, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals apologized on April 8, 2013 to Fairbanks musher Paige Drobny for alleging in web postings and media statements that one of her dogs died during the Iditarod trail race due to her negligence. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2013:
Dogs of Courage: The heroism and heart of working dogs around the world by Lisa Rogak Thomas Dunne Books (175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010), 2012. 269 pages, paperback. $14.99.
Dogs of Courage: The heroism and heart of working dogs around the world begins with Ebony, a hyperactive giant schnauzer. Mike and Melenda Lanius, who own a cleaning business called MoldBlasters, send Ebony to a training academy to learn to sniff out mold. Ebony now works for a living, no longer bored or hyper. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2012: (Actually published on November 1, 2012.)
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2012:
CHATTANOOGA–U.S. District Judge Harry S. Mattice on September 19, 2012 fined Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration Hall of Fame trainer Jackie McConnell $75,000, three years on supervised probation, and 300 hours of community service to be done for the USDA.
“It’s the stiffest sentence ever handed down under the 1970 Horse Protection Act,” exulted Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle. “McConnell in 2011 was captured on tape by a Humane Society of the U.S. undercover investigator intentionally injuring the animals under his charge in order to get them to step higher and win ribbons at horse shows,” Pacelle elaborated. “McConnell still faces 15 charges of violating Tennessee’s cruelty to animals statute in a pending case, and his guilty plea in federal court virtually guarantees the charges will stick.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2012:
CHICAGO–Anthony Hensley, 37, on April 14, 2012 drowned at the Bay Colony Drive condominium complex in an unincorporated part of Cook County, Illinois, near Des Plaines, west of Chicago.
Employed for about 10 years by Knox Swan & Dog LLC, a Great Barrington firm that deploys mute swans and dogs to deter nonmigratory Canada geese, Hensley was rushed by a mute swan while making a routine check on the swans in his care. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2012:
Progress in equine contraception
BILLINGS–The American SPCA on April 16, 2012 granted $100,000 to the Science & Conservation Center in Billings, Montana, maker of the contraceptive vaccine ZonaStat-H. The grant is separate from an ongoing ASPCA subsidy of $50,000 per year for three years to help advance the center’s work. “The center, on the ZooMontana grounds, will more than double the size of its training facility,” reported Zach Benoit of the Billings Gazette. Read more