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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Thai coup may hit wildlife traffic

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
BANGKOK–The September 20, 2006 Thai
military coup postponed for six days the already
long delayed return of 41 smuggled orangutans
from Thailand to Indonesia. Still, Wildlife
Friends Found-ation Thailand founder Edwin Wiek
told members of the Asian Animal Protection
Network, “We believe that under the new rule the
conservation of wildlife will improve.”
The repatriation flight, orginally set
for September 23, was rescheduled for September
29.
Another seven orangutans are suffering
from hepatitis, the Jakarta Post reported on
September 16. Indonesia has refused to accept
them, at least until after they recover.
“The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
and Wildlife Friends, who were to facilitate the
repatriation for the Indonesian government, were
told that the Indonesian Navy plane that was to
pick up the apes could not land in Thailand until
further notice,” Wiek said earlier.

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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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BOOKS: Around the Next Corner

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Around the Next Corner by Elizabeth Wrenn
New American Library (c/o Penguin, 375 Hudson St.,
New York, NY 10014), 2006. 320 pages, paperback. $12.95.

Deena, a mother of three, married for what seems to be
forever, overweight, insecure and suffering all the emotions
involved with “midlife invisibility,” is locked into a marriage that
has become stale.
With one child away at college, two bored and selfish
teenagers, and a husband so busy at work that she rarely sees him,
Deena feels a void in her life as a wife and mother. Desperately
seeking to add meaning to her life of drudgery, Deena decides to
raise a puppy for K-9 Eyes for the Blind.

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Human obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Linda Howard, 39, unexpectedly shot herself on July 27,
2006, after a domestic dispute at her home in San Antonio, Texas.
A computer systems analyst by trade, Howard was by avocation a
humane investigator, animal rights organizer, and behind-the-scenes
communicator and facilitator, who for more than 15 years helped to
bring wildlife traffickers and abusers to justice, organized the
coast-to-coast Primate Freedom Tour in 1999, brokered exotic animal
rescues and relocations worldwide by telephone and Internet, and
helped to research more than fifty articles for ANIMAL PEOPLE,
mostly declining public credit for her contributions. Briefly
employed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Friends of
Animals, Howard preferred to volunteer, assisting dozens of
organizations as opportunity permitted. “Primates never had a better
friend and primate abusers never had a more formidable foe,”
recalled International Primate Protection League founder Shirley
McGreal. “Despite her years of selfless struggle on behalf of our
primate cousins, Linda had never seen a wild monkey. I invited her
to come with me to the International Primatolog-ical Society Congress
held in Entebbe, Uganda, in late June 2006, and to travel with me
afterwards to Murchison Falls National Park in northern Uganda. On
the drive up we saw many baboons and every time Linda would insist
the driver stop and we would watch the troop until the baboons
disappeared from view. We went on to Jacana Lodge in the forested
area of Queen Elizabeth Park. The trees were full of exquisite
colobus monkeys and the more elusive redtail guenons. One night I
was in the lodge reception area and Linda stayed in the room. There
was a knock on the door. Linda opened the door and there stood a
mother and baby baboon. It was as if they somehow knew there was a
friend behind that door. The baboons made no effort to enter. They
just stood there briefly, and left. Linda was overjoyed.”

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Animal obituaries

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Whitey, a street dog brought to the Compassionate Crusaders
Trust in Kolkatta, India, in 1996 by rescuer Uma Rao, died on June
11, 2006. Rao picked him up after “a tram had run over his paw,”
recalled Com-passionate Crusaders founder Debasis Chakra-barti. “He
was just a puppy, foolish enough to think that all humans are kind
and considerate. He did not lose his trust even after his right
front paw had to be amputated. Whitey was loved all his life,” said
Chakrabarti, “because he gave love so lavishly.”

Tas, a kelpie cross kept by Ross Clissold of Woodburn, “was
shot on August 15, 2006 in the Double Duke State Forest on the North
Coast” of Australia “by a recreational shooter licensed by the Game
Council of New South Wales,” wrote Sydney Morning Herald regional
reporter Daniel Lewis. Lewis called Tas a victim of “the state
government’s controversial decision to allow the hunting of feral
animals on public land.” The policy was introduced in March 2006.
“Since then more than 1000 feral animals have been killed by licensed
hunters, who now have access to 142 state forests,” Lewis reported.
Clissold was chainsawing wood about 40 meters away when Tas was
shotgunned, Clissold said. The hunter claimed he didn’t hear
Clissold’s chainsaw or see the dog’s collar.

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BOOKS: For The Love Of A Dog

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

For The Love Of A Dog
by Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D.
Ballantine Books, Random House,
1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
322 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

McConnell, a zoology teacher at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, wrote The Other End of the Leash, which we
reviewed for Animal People in 2004.
For The Love Of A Dog further draws upon her considerable
experience in dog training and treating canine aggression to offer
insights into the canine mind.
This is not a manual on dog training, although McConnell
presents comparisons of dog and human thought processes which could
make dog training much easier. Nor is it a scientific treatise on
anthropomorphism. McConnell’s goal to make canine behavioral
research more accessible to the public. She explains the biology of
emotions, then focuses on fear, anger, joy and love, teaching the
reader how to identify each of these emotions in dogs from their
expressions, postures, and activity.
A particularly helpful section of photographs at the end of
the book illustrates vividly dogs’ facial expressions as they express
their emotions.
McConnell concludes that, notwithstanding the scientistic tradition
of denying animal consciousness, and of deriding those who argue
that animals have complex mental capacity, dogs do have a rich and
complex emotional life. –Chris Mercer

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