Dogged Blog

Just another irresponsible pet owner... right?

Hello, gray matter all over the monitor. Have you missed seeing my head explode?



I often write about how much it annoys me when shelters and animal control agencies blame the death rate of pets in their facilities on the bad, evil, stupid, irresponsible pet owners in their communities instead of on their own policies -- including failing to harness the power of animal lovers in their area.



But if I had sat down to write this story to serve as an example of what I mean, people would have rolled their eyes and sworn such a thing couldn't ever happen in real life.



A dog owner in Charlotte, N.C., put up lost and found flyers -- hundreds of them -- after a phone repair person accidentally let his three-year-old dog, Diesel, out. He checked the website of his local shelter, Mecklenburg County's Animal Care and Control, for found dogs, and went down to the shelter every day, day after day, sometimes twice a day, checking for his dog. He even put one of his fliers up in the shelter hallway.



Well, too bad so sad, because the shelter had his dog all along and then killed him. Diesel was in a kennel for sick or injured dogs that isn't open to the public because he'd been hit by a car, and because this shelter... pardon me, slaughterhouse... has a "no pit bull adoptions rule," they killed Diesel.



Did they say they were sorry, that they regretted not showing him the dogs in the injured kennel, that they didn't lift a finger to see that this dog lived instead of died? From WSOC in Charlotte:

Mark Balestra, the director of Animal Care and Control, told Eyewitness News that Gibson is to blame because he never got a microchip for his dog. He said that’s a responsibility of dog owners and makes it much easier to find dogs.



Gibson said Diesel never had a microchip because he never left the house.



Balestra also said a picture of Diesel was on the website since Feb. 2 and that if Gibson pointed out pictures that could have been Diesel to employees, they would have looked into each one.



State law requires that stray animals be held for 72 hours before they are evaluated to see if they are healthy enough to be adopted. Gibson's dog could have survived his injuries, but he was euthanized because Animal Care and Control has a policy that doesn’t allow pit bulls to be adopted out to the general public.

So, they blamed Diesel's owner for not having had him microchipped, and not pointing out dogs on their website that could have been Diesel and asking them to check on each one individually.



Which I guess he kind of thought he had covered by scouring the stray kennels every day.



And then they killed Diesel because that's what they do to pit bulls.



But by all means, let's keep blaming the uncaring, irresponsible, dirty, rotten, public.



Photo: Cap from the video of the story at the link above -- be sure to watch it.

Dallas radio reporter asks Vick the ' dog question '

From Cindy Steinle at PetHobbyist.com (where I also contribute), news that a Dallas reporter asked Michael Vick about his dogs at a ceremony granting Vick a "key to the city."

A reporter who said he had adopted one of Michael Vick's pit bulls confronted Vick about his dogs at a media event in Dallas last week.



Dallas Councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway awarded Vick the "key to the city" at a ceremony on Feb. 5. A man, who identified himself as Richard Hunter of 1190 AM radio, said he had adopted one of Vick's former fighting dogs and wanted to ask him a couple of questions about the dogs.



Richard Hunter is the name of the man who owns Mel, one of Vick's former dogs.



Vick refused to answer, just looked at Hunter and walked away while one of his security team says, "We don't care about the dog."

We've written about Hunter and Mel here before. Read the rest of Steinle's post, and watch the video of the encounter, here.

Shelter twice refused to help sled dogs

The Canadian press is reporting that the man who killed around 100 sled dogs in what's being called a "slaughter" and a "massacre" twice reached out to the British Columbia SPCA for help with the dogs, and was turned down both times.



From the Vanouver Sun:

The Vancouver Sun has learned the 38-year-old employee of Outdoor Adventures who killed 100 sled dogs in Whistler approached the BC SPCA on two separate occasions asking for its help in finding adoptive homes for some of the company’s dogs.



Both times he was rebuffed.



Officials at the animal protection agency said they didn’t realize the dogs would be brutally slaughtered. But they said they told the man the dogs would not make good pets and were not adoptable.

How did the folks at the British Columbia SPCA make this determination? Senior animal protection officer Eileen Drever had this to say, quoted in Canada's National Post:

“(The employee) didn’t advise me he was going to kill any dogs. He was looking to find homes. I spoke to an animal behaviourist who is also a vet and she spoke with an expert in the (United) States who said they weren’t adoptable,” said Ms. Drever.

And it gets even worse. The Sun reports that after the killings, Fawcett contacted the SPCA again, writing:

“I understood from Joey (the owner of the sled dog tour company) that there were to be some dogs going to you for adoption? Is that indeed happening? Or should I just show up with a truck full so they can get off the chain and get some attention, exercise, stop fighting, etc....I am happy to bring some down to stop cruelty they are going through here.



“This is me as a bystander (I am off due to injury to both arms). I am the only one who has made any effort to move dogs. We still have almost 60 dogs too many, and a new litter of pups to be given away. Can you please give me a call so I know something can be done. It’s breaking my heart.”

Five days later, Drever replied to him, saying, "I just informed Joey that after consulting with an animal behaviourist/veterinarian we have reached the decision these dogs are not adoptable. I will however conduct an inspection of the facility."



The Sun states she did not investigate the facility at that time.



The SPCA's response? Again, from the same Sun article:

BC SPCA head of animal cruelty Marcie Moriarty said the SPCA would have acted had it known the dogs were going to be slaughtered.



But she added it’s not the SPCA’s responsibility “to take on their issues ... to suddenly make a phone call and say, ‘I have 100 dogs that need placing;’ that’s not an answer to their business operation’s issues,” said Moriarty.



“If we had any indication they would have been executed we absolutely would have done something.” But she added it’s likely they would have still been euthanized.

Why might that be? Because apparently, like pit bulls, sled dogs aren't individuals who deserve and should receive individual evaluation. Moriarty continued:

“What people have to realize because of the way they’re raised they’re not highly adoptable animals. Maybe a few could have been adopted but these dogs are on tethers 90 per cent of their lives. Is it fair [Outdoor Adventures] profits — get thousands of dollars from tourists and not have a retirement plan? Is it fair they would dump them on the SPCA and then we’d have the pain of that euthanization?”

It was crap in Wilkes County, N.C., when 145 dogs "rescued" from a fighting ring were killed by animal control authorities without evaluation -- even nursing puppies. It was crap when it was said about the Vick dogs. And it's crap here.



Moriarty did refute one element of the Sun's account, saying that Fawcett didn't reach out to them until after the killings, about other dogs. But whether he contacted them before or after the initial slaughter doesn't change the story all that much. They were asked to help these dogs, either the 100 who were killed, or the others. They didn't.



How's that for "prevention of cruelty to animals"?



Photo: A dog from the sled dog company that owned the dogs who were killed and employed Fawcett. Photo by Claudia Kwan/Vancouver Sun.

BAD RAP: Let ' s send the Obamas this book

If, like me, your head nearly exploded when reports came out that President Obama had thanked Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie for giving Michael Vick a second chance, Donna Reynolds over on the BAD RAP blog has a suggestion.



She made it after reading my column about the issue and about Jim Gorant's book "The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption" on SFGate.com today. In it, I wrote:

The Philadelphia Eagles must be happy they took the chance on signing convicted dog fighter Michael Vick. Protests and boycotts by animal lovers never gained much traction. Just last week, President Obama personally thanked team owner Jeff Lurie for giving Vick a second chance.When Vick told an Atlanta newspaper that he wanted to get a dog, the head of the country's largest animal welfare organization said he thought that might be a good idea.



And, of course, he's doing a great job on the field, which I guess is what a lot of people mean when they say he's redeemed himself for his past crimes. I don't know, because I don't care about Michael Vick's second chance, no matter how many football games he wins. And here's why:



"As that dog lay on the ground, fighting for air, Quanis Phillips grabbed its front legs and Michael Vick grabbed its back legs. They swung the dog over their head like a jump rope then slammed it to the ground. The first impact didn't kill it. So, Phillips and Vick slammed it again. The two men kept at it, alternating back and forth, pounding the creature against the ground until, at last, the little red dog was dead."



Those words were written by Sports Illustrated editor Jim Gorant in "The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption," the best and most important book about animals written in 2010.



[....]



I'm neither a sports fan nor a social worker, and I freely admit that that I care more about his victims than I do about Michael Vick.



But unlike many dog advocates, I don't want to see him put back in prison, denied his right to vote, kicked out of the NFL, beaten, kicked or bashed in the head. I certainly don't think he should be executed, as right wing pundit Tucker Carlson suggested on Fox News recently.



I just think his defenders should read this book before deciding what they think about Michael Vick's big comeback.

Which gave Donna an idea: Why don't we all send a copy of Gorant's incredible book to the Obamas?



Sure, it might be better if we sent the fifteen bucks to a pit bull rescue group. But consider this: Not only will Gorant make some money (a nice way to support his many efforts to keep the focus not on Vick and his magical football-playing ways, but on his victims), but, if you use this link, so will BAD RAP, which was responsible for evaluating and rehabbing many of the surviving Vick dogs.



And if we all get out there and spread the word, and enough people hear about this, and enough books pile up, and my colleagues in the media pick up on it... maybe, just maybe, the President might make a little statement thanking all the hardworking rescuers out there for giving Vick's dogs a second chance, too.



Hey, a girl can dream, right?



Here's the link to buy the book and give a portion of the proceeds to BAD RAP: The Lost Dogs



Here's the address and phone number for gifts to the Obamas:



Mr. President and First Lady Obama

THE WHITE HOUSE

1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE NW

WASHINGTON, DC 20500-0004

United States

202-456-1414



Amazon's system wants the "DC" in the box for "state or province." Just FYI.



So go buy a book, then drop by the BAD RAP blog and let them know you did.



Tell your friends. And, you know... everyone else, too.

No forgiveness for Vick, says sportswriter

There are plenty of dog lovers who don't care how great a football player Michael Vick is; he's never going to get a pass for what he did to his dogs. And there are plenty of football fans who really don't get why we still care, and some who don't know why we ever did.



Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke isn't one of them.



Plaschke is a National Sports Columnist of the Year, a Big Brothers/Big Sisters Man of the Year, and an Olympic torchbearer. He's also a panelist on the daily ESPN talk show, "Around the Horn." But his column yesterday wasn't about a pro sports team, or a big game; it was about a little dog named Mel:

While Michael Vick was running for glory, Mel was cowering toward a wall.



Every time the 4-year-old dog meets a stranger, he goes into convulsions. He staggers back into a wall for protection. He lowers his face and tries to hide. New faces are not new friends, but old terrors.



While Michael Vick was officially outracing his past Monday night, one of the dogs he abused cannot.



"Some people wonder, are we ever going to let Michael Vick get beyond all this?" said Richard Hunter, who owns Mel. "I tell them, let's let Mel decide that. When he stops shaking, maybe then we can talk."



[....]



Hunter and his wife quickly saw Mel's scars. The dog wouldn't bark, wouldn't show affection, and would spend nearly an hour shaking with each new person who tried to touch him.



It turns out that Mel had been a bait dog, thrown into the ring as a sort of sparring partner for the tougher dogs, sometimes even muzzled so he wouldn't fight back, beaten daily to sap his will. Mel was under constant attack, and couldn't fight back, and the deep cuts were visible on more than just his fur.



"You could see that Michael Vick went to a lot of trouble to make Mel this way," Hunter said. "When people pet him, I tell them, pet him from under his chin, not over his head. He lives in fear of someone putting their hand over his head."

I'm not sure that the dog at the top of this post is Mel, but I think it is. I got that photo from Donna Reynolds at Bad Rap, and she said she wasn't sure what had happened to that individual dog, but that his eyes haunted her. They haunted me, too, and I've used that photo on many of my articles, posts and columns about Vick.



Compare the photo from Plaschke's column, taken by photographer Richard Hunter, at right. It shows Mel hiding behind his new family's other dog, Pumpkin.



As much as my heart breaks at the fear and sorrow that still live in those eyes, I like to think the two dogs are the same, and that some of his scars are aching less these days.



And yeah, don't sign me up for the Michael Vick Comeback Express any time soon.



Or ever.



Plaschke says thatVick's success -- and as he points out, his performance on the field might send his team to the Super Bowl -- "is raising one of the most potentially costly and difficult perceptual questions in the history of American sports."



It's a question his column does a pretty damn fine job of answering. Read it.

Good news in the pit bull wars

Aren't we all tired of dogs seized in fighting busts being treated as dangerous ravening beasts instead of victims of cruelty who deserve, at the very least, to be evaluated as individuals? Bad Rap is reporting that the Kent County Humane Society in Michigan got tired of it, too -- and decided to go to court about it:

A federal prosecutor in Michigan tried to convince a federal judge to order the euthanasia all dogs swept up in a cruelty case this past summer. The problem is, Kent County Humane Society has been housing several of the dogs for months and believes that they're adoptable.



The solution? Kent County hired a lawyer and filed an affidavit to argue in favor of letting the adoptable dogs live.



Guess what? They won the case today for 11 dogs in their facility, and they also won the right to evaluate four dogs that have been housed in a different facility.

Bad Rap's verdict?

We were keeping our eye on this case since we first learned of the dogs' plight and, and are just jumping up and down around here with the good news. We salute Kent County Humane for their MAJOR CAJONES tonight and are celebrating this victory for the dogs.

Read the story here.



Photo: Froggy, one of the dogs involved in the case, who will now get a chance to be adopted.

Oreo ' s abuser given probation and job training

We can fight forever about whether the ASPCA was right or wrong in its judgment of whether or not Oreo was savable. We can debate how we feel about sanctuaries for aggressive dogs, about the rights of rescue groups to access animals in shelters, and about Oreo's Law.



But one thing you'd think we're all on the same page about is that Fabian Henderson, the guy who threw her off the roof of his six-story building in the first place, should get something more than a slap on the wrist.



You'd think wrong, at least, if you were thinking about the judge in the case. From the Facebook page supporting Oreo's Law:

Fabian Henderson (Oreo's abuser) was sentenced today. He got 6 months probation and some sort of treatment program for finding a job! He is not allowed to have animals but is allowed to be around his mom so therefore around his mom's dog. Shame on the justice system!



Defendant: Fabian Henderson

Case #: 06995-2009

Charge: Felony Animal Cruelty

Judge: Hon. Dineen Riviezzo

Unbelievable.

Laws about animals: Ur doin it wrong

Toledo, Ohio municipal judge Michael Goulding sent a little love note recently to the city of  Toledo, informing them that their current policy of seizing and killing any dog who could, if you squinted your eyes and drank a bucket of stoopid, vaguely resemble a pit bull, was unconstitutional.



Brent Toellner at KCDogBlog, who keeps an eagle eye on all things dog-law related, made an interesting connection between that decision and Lucas County's infamous puppy-murdering ex-dog warden, Tom Skeldon, after reading an article about the court case in the Toledo Blade:

The city of Toledo has a contract with the county dog warden to enforce its local laws. Last year the contract was for up to $146,882. The contract calls for the city to pay the dog warden's office $100 for every citation issued against a “pit bull” or “pit bull” mix dog.



So, in other words, Toledo was providing an incentive to Lucas County's dog wardens to pick up 'pit bulls' and kill them in the shelter (the shelter has a well-known policy against adopting out 'pit bull type' dogs). Last year, Lucas County took in and killed over 1000 'pit bulls' -- which could have meant up to $100,000 in incremental revenue for the dog warden's office based on the city incentive to do so. No wonder Skeldon and his crew were so focused on 'pit bulls', allowing dog bites to increase and shelter kill rates to hover around 77%. Their incentive was to capture, and kill, 'pit bulls'.



Hopefully the city of Toledo will not only re-write their law to not include breed specific language (which was ruled to be unconstitutional by the court), but also rewrite their contract with the Lucas County Dog Warden's office to incent activities that are good for citizens and for dogs -- like maybe declining bite rates, decreased shelter killing, better return-to-owner rates, etc. Now THAT would be real success.

Then there are the crazy-ass folks in Chicago who are actually, get this, requiring their shelter volunteers to be fingerprinted before being allowed to volunteer. Not just background checked, folks: fingerprinted. From Dancing Dog Blog:

City budgets have sliced the life out of dollars allotted to Animal Care and Control (ACC) agencies across the US.  Skeleton crews work the problems of caring for and tending to the needs of dogs and cats. Those needs would not be met by most measures if volunteers did not step in to fill the gaps.



In Chicago, cutbacks forced ACC to reduce adoption hours from 49 per week to 17, closing for adoption on Sundays.  Volunteers revolted, the Sun-Times reported it, and a semblance of sanity was restored to the program’s hours.  Volunteers and the work they do should be respected. They are the life’s blood of many organizations.  I don’t think many would disagree, so this news comes as a surprise.



According to Fran Spielman, City Hall reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, the city “overlooked” the fact that Animal Care and Control volunteers (more than 250) have not been subject to what is said to have been policy since 2008. All 110 other volunteers for city departments have provided and allowed: social security numbers, background checks, and fingerprints.



That last was not a typo. Fingerprints are required of volunteers just as if they were applying for a civil service or federal job. To do work no one else will do in a noisy, stressful environment and all without a paycheck, you now have to be subjected to jumping through more hoops than if you were actually getting hired by a corporation.

Check out the comments section -- it's insanity. It's all part of the same mentality that would rather see animals dead than adopted out to the evil irresponsible public, justified by the animal world's version of Godwin's Law, "It's all about the people who would sell pit bulls into fighting rings."



I wouldn't allow the government to fingerprint me in order to volunteer at an animal shelter. So, good work at screening me out of your volunteer program, Chicago! Wouldn't want someone who has actually read and cherishes the constitution scooping poop in your kennel runs!



Update: Bad Rap weighs in on Toledo.

Do animals need laws protecting them from shelters?

I was a little reluctant to tackle the topic of Oreo's Law in my SFGate.com column this week. The debate tends to descend into a battle about whether the ASPCA was right or wrong about Oreo, and whether Pets Alive would have been a good place for her, and really, given that Oreo's dead, I'm not sure how much any of that matters.



What does matter is the fate of other dogs and cats in shelters not just in New York, but everywhere. Because I firmly believe that no shelter or animal control agency should kill any pet if a qualified rescue group or shelter is willing to take him.



That's been the law here in California for nearly 12 years now, and amazingly, all the horrific things predicted by opponents of that law when it was first proposed have not come to pass. Nor have we reached nirvanah; there are places where the law is ignored or only spottily applied, and there aren't always rescue safety nets for all the shelter dogs and cats who run out of time in the state's shelters.



But the law exists, and it's often used to prevent the kinds of abuses that are so sadly common in other parts of the country. From my column today:

I support Oreo's Law, and this is why: All over New York, indeed, all over the United States, there are shelters right now killing dogs and cats who could be saved if only they'd let qualified local rescue groups and foster volunteers take animals out of their facilities.



That's true in Toledo, Ohio, where animal control warden Tom Skeldon was recently forced to resign over his unwillingness to let even puppies go to another humane society or rescue group, and insisted on killing them instead.



It's true in Dallas, N.C., where rescuers begged and pleaded fruitlessly to be allowed to take sick dogs for veterinary care and potential adoption, instead of seeing them killed in the animal control facility's antiquated gas chamber.



It's true in Rochester, N.Y., where Kellner told me that qualified rescue groups are prevented from taking pit bulls out of the city shelter, because the agency doesn't allow pit bulls, not even puppies, to leave its facility alive.



It's true in a thousand places, where volunteers keep silent about abuses out of fear of being prevented from transferring animals to rescue groups or even providing basic care to animals.



Oreo's Law is not for Oreo, and it's not aimed at the ASPCA. It's for the animals in every shelter and animal control facility in New York state.

I interview New York State Assembly Member Micah Kellner, the co-author of Oreo's Law. We discuss his proposed amendments to the law, intended to address some of the concerns of its opponents. We also talked about why he feels the law will help New York's animals and its shelters, and what kind of support it's getting (here's a hint: it's massive).



The full story is here.



Photo: New York State Assembly Member Micah Kellner and his dog, Nina.

AKC asks Eagles, Ed Block Foundation to deny Vick the Courage Award

I criticize the American Kennel Club from time to time... ahem... but allow me to give credit where it's due. Via my colleague Cheryl Cooper at PetHobbyist.com, news of a letter (PDF) that went out from AKC chairman Ronald Menacker and president/CEO Dennis Sprung to Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie, with a copy to the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation, carefully connecting the dots between animal abuse and that of children:

On behalf of the American Kennel Club, our 5,000 clubs nationwide, and the millions of responsible dog owners we represent, we are writing to ask you to withdraw Michael Vick as the Philadelphia Eagles’ recipient of the Ed Block Courage Award.



We understand that his teammates selected Mr. Vick for this honor, but in doing so they are demonstrating a lack of understanding about the nature of both animal and child abuse, and are trivializing Mr. Vick’s heinous actions. Michael Vick horrified the world, and especially those of us who devote our lives to promoting the health and welfare of dogs, with his engagement in dog fighting. In addition to the bloody fighting contests, reports indicate that many dogs were electrocuted, drowned or hung for underperformance.



A man who has been convicted of these atrocities should not be held up as a role model of sportsmanship and courage. Further, Ed Block, the award’s namesake, dedicated his life to ending the vicious cycle of pain and despair suffered by children at the hands of their abusers. It is unconscionable that a man who tortured and abused helpless animals be honored by an organization dedicated to ending abuse.



Please take a stand against ALL forms of abuse by selecting another player to represent the Philadelphia Eagles at the 32nd Annual Ed Block Courage Awards.

No comment from me today, other than: Bravo, AKC.



Photo: One of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick's dogfighting operation, courtesy of Bad Rap.