BOOKS: All My Patients Have Tales

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

All My Patients Have Tales:
Favorite Stories from a Vet’s Practice
by Jeff Wells, DVM
St. Martin’s Press (c/o MacMillan (175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10010), 2009.
240 pages, illustrated. $24.95 hardcover.

“A sharp pain shot up my arm,” Dr. Wells says as he describes
a frantic feline named Henry, one of his first patients. “The
familiar sensation of warm blood washed over my palm.” The unhappy
cat sank his teeth into the vet’s index finger during the examination.
So began Jeff Wells’ intriguing career as a country
veterinarian. A graduate of the Iowa State University College of
Veterinary Medicine, Wells worked first at a private clinic in South
Dakota, and later in Colorado, assisted by a short young woman
named Jenny who appropriately wore overalls and boots to work.

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BOOKS: The Smartest Animals on the Planet

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

The Smartest Animals on the Planet: Extraordinary Tales of the
Natural World’s Cleverest Creatures
by Sally Boysen & Deborah Custance
Firefly Books (P.O. Box 1338, Ellicot Station, Buffalo, NY
14205), 2009. 192 pages, illustrated. $35.00, hardcover.

Ohio State University in February 2006 retired to Primarily
Primates a colony of seven chimpanzees kept since 1983 by researcher
Sally Boysen. Opposing the transfer, Boysen allied herself with
PETA. Ensuing litigation, ended by settlement in August 2009, led
to Friends of Animals annexing Primarily Primates later in 2006, and
appears to have cumulatively cost Primarily Primates, FoA, and PETA
approximately $1 million.
While all this was underway, Boysen was apparently writing
The Smartest Animals on the Planet.

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“One free bite” common law premise is overturned in Ohio & Texas

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
COLUMBUS–Ruling against the centuries-old “one free bite”
presumption of common law, the Ohio Supreme Court on August 26,
2009 upheld the constitutionality of a Youngstown ordinance that
defines a vicious dog as any dog who has “a propensity, tendency or
disposition to attack, to cause injury to or otherwise endanger the
safety of human beings or other domestic animals,” or any dog who
“attacks a human being or another domestic animal without
provocation.”
The Youngstown ordinance breaks from common law in that it
does not require a prior history of dangerous behavior to define a
dog as vicious. The Youngstown ordinance itself is not
breed-specific, but it implements an Ohio state law which defines
pit bull terriers and other fighting breeds as inherently vicious.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the state law in 1991.

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U.S. Marine Corps pit bull, Rottweiler, & wolf hybrid ban is now in effect

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

HEADQUARTERS MARINE CORPS,
Virginia–Residents of U.S. Marine Corps base
housing worldwide have until October 11, 2009 to
meet new requirements for keeping any pit bull
terriers, Rottweilers, or wolf hybrids they
already have. No resident of Marine Corps
housing has been allowed to acquire any new dog
of these breeds since August 11, 2009.
Signed by Major General Edward Usher,
deputy commandant of installations and logistics
worldwide, the Marine Corps order was finalized
nine days after Trista Talton of the Marine Corps
Times published excerpts from a draft version and
predicted that it might take effect in September.

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Southern California sanctuaries survive wildfires

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
LOS ANGELES– Winds gusting over 50 miles per hour drove the
second major wildlife in the Los Angeles area in less than a month
south from Fillmore toward the city of Moorpark as ANIMAL PEOPLE went
to press on September 22, 2009. Evacuations of large animals were
ordered in three areas believed to be in the path of the fire.
Ironically, the animals included some of the more than 600
horses who were moved earlier from the path of the 160,000-acre
Station Fire, east of Los Angeles, a few weeks before. The Station
Fire on September 22 was reportedly 94% controlled, after ravaging
the Angeles National Forest for four weeks, but threatened to blow
up again due to the wind storm.
“Some horses were taken to the Santa Anita racetrack,”
ahead of the Station Fire. “Others were trucked to a community
college in the San Fernando Valley. Others were transported north to
Ventura County. The Los Angeles Equestrian Center, in Burbank,”
accepted 330 evacuated horses, wrote David Finnigan of Agence
France-Presse.

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Disasters strike abroad

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
An electrical fire razed the Qatar Animal Welfare Society on
September 3. The founders evacuated more than 100 animals, but 35
dogs, cats, rabbits, and a possum were killed. “All QAWS now has
is the surviving animals and the collars they were wearing,” said an
appeal e-mailed to supporters. Updates were posted at <www.qaws.org>.
Torrential rains meanwhile inundated much of the Istanbul
region of Turkey. “Besides human casualties, there are many animal
casualties,” reported Linda Taal of the Dutch-based organization
Actiezwerfhonden (Action for Dogs), which assists several Turkish
animal aid projects.
“The dogs in the forest shelter are doing okay,” Taal
continued, referring to the facility at the Kemerburgaz landfill
that ANIMAL PEOPLE profiled in July/August 2001, “but thousands of
strays were drowned, and one shelter was flooded, with at least 130
animals killed. Flooding at a vet clinic killed 40 animals.”
Earlier, Typhoon Morakot damaged 10 animal shelters in two
counties of Taiwan, which among them housed about 1,000 dogs. About
100 dogs were drowned or were missing, the Central News Agency said
on August 10.

Dogs unchained by the book this time

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
TIPTON, Pa.–Three years after seizing a chained dog without
a warrant, and paying a high price for it, Dogs Deserve Better
founder Tammy Ci Thayne on September 6, 2009 freed four dogs from
chains and did it all by the book.
Receiving an anonymous tip that “at least two starved,
chained German shepherds were abandoned at a property in Centre
County near Tyrone, Pennsylvania,” Ci Thayne recounted, she
“journeyed to the location to assess the situation and document the
neglect” on September 5, “armed with camera, food, and water.” She
found not only the two German shepherds, “covered in fleas, with fly
strike on their ears and lacking food and water,” but also “one
blind and deaf Pomeranian in a pen with only a crate for shelter,
and a chained black Lab/border collie mix.”

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1990s HFA campaign still bringing vealer convictions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:
MILWAUKEE–Brown Packing Company, a leading U.S. veal
producer, on August 10, 2009 agreed to plead guilty to felony
conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, and to pay a fine of
$2 million for illegally giving hormones and steroids to veal calves
between 1997 and 2004, while marketing the meat as “all natural.”
The case was the latest of a 15-year series of successful
prosections of major players in the veal industry for misuse of
hormones and steroids. An informant tipped the Food & Drug
Administration to the violations in 1989, but serious
investigation did not start until February 1994, after an outbreak
of poisoning caused by the synthetic steroid clenbuterol hit at least
140 people who ate contaminated veal in an unrelated case in Spain.
Pressured by the Humane Farming Association, the U.S. Department of
Justice eventually won convictions of at least eight executives of
leading veal firms. Among them were the Dutch entrepreneurs who
brought the crated veal industry to the U.S. in the first place,
circa 1962.

Philippine opponents win a “hold” on greyhound racing with help of Massachusetts allies

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

MANILA–The Philippine House of Representatives on September
7, 2009 “agreed to hold in abeyance its approval of a second
franchise for greyhound dog racing after animal protection groups
prevailed upon the Senate to defer action on the first franchise,”
reported Gil C. Cabacungan Jr. of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Romblon representative Eleandro Jesus Madrona “said the House
was forced to make the move after seven senators vowed to block the
introduction of greyhound racing in the country because it is
‘immoral’ and ‘cruel to animals,'” Cabacungan wrote. The Philippine
House approved the nation’s first greyhound racing franchise in
December 2008.
Actually, “Thirteen Senators sent pledges to vote no to the
introduction of greyhound racing in the Philippines,” e-mailed Anna
Nieves Cabrera of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society. Cabrera
added special thanks to Senator Jamby Madrigal and Cardinal Ricardo
J.Vidal of Cebu for helping to lead the campaign, and to the
Massachusetts-based anti-greyhound racing organization Grey 2K, for
rallying supprt beyond the Philippines.

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