On the Internet, everyone helps your dog

Crossposted at Pet Connection.

I first "met" Suzie, or at least heard her story, on a canine nutrition email list I co-moderate. A member who volunteers at a shelter in Ontario, Canada, was wondering if there was a nutritional therapy that might help a little dog in the shelter who was dribbling bloody urine and not getting better on antibiotics.

I'm a bit of a fanatic on the subject of properly treating and diagnosing canine bladder infections, so I told her to sign the dog out of the shelter and I'd pay for a visit to her veterinarian for some essential diagnostic tests.

It turned out Suzie needed quite a bit more help than we'd thought. She had a bladder infection, but the real problem was a bladder stone around a third the size of her bladder. From my column this week at SFGate.com:

What followed next will be familiar to anyone who watched Barack Obama's masterful use of social media to drive the best-funded, most grassroots-powered political campaign in history. Dozens of people took advantage of blogs, secure instant fundraising sites, PayPal, Facebook and e-mail lists to spread the word about Suzie.

In less than five hours, contributors from five countries raised over $1,100, more than enough to cover Suzie's medical bills. A few days later she had surgery, received some new, more effective antibiotics and even had her teeth cleaned. And instead of being euthanized, she's romping in the Canadian snow with her foster mom's other dogs, healthy and happy.

There's probably been no more empowering revolution in the animal welfare world than the rise of the Internet and social media. With a single blog post, email, tweet, or Facebook status update, animal lovers can find about about dogs of their favorite breed who end up in shelters half a continent away, bring home the pets of soldiers in Iraq, adopt a pet from a shelter, and get help with their veterinary bills.

They can also find out what's going on -- information that can save their pets' lives, or the lives of animals they've never even met:

During the 2007 pet food recall, the FDA's phone lines were completely overwhelmed. Even veterinarians weren't able to get information that might have saved the lives of their patients. Meanwhile, people bought pet food that had already been recalled because they didn't know better.

If only they'd gone to the Internet they would have found several pet sites and bloggers who were providing updated recall information that was days, and sometimes weeks, ahead of any other source.

Pulitzer-winning reporter Abigail Goldman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "Bloggers and owners of sites such as Itchmo, Pet Connection, Howl 911, The Pet Food List and Pet Food Tracker have been deluged by millions of pet owners who are grieving or railing or both -- and digging for answers. Their online barking is being heard in Washington's halls of power, including the Food and Drug Administration and Capitol Hill."

Goldman was right.In a congressional hearing on April 12, 2007, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) asked why pet websites and bloggers were able to keep up with the information flow, but the FDA couldn't.

Today, they can. In the latest series of recalls of both human and pet foods made with salmonella-tainted peanut products, the FDA launched a Twitter feed and real-time updating blog widgets, all designed to use communications technology to inform consumers about important health issues for people and their pets.

Sometimes they find out about animals whose lives weren't saved... but should have been:

Earlier this year, when 146 dogs were killed in Wilkes County, N.C., after being "saved" from a dog fighting ring, it was only a few hours before Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls (BADRAP), a rescue group for pit bulls, observed on its blog that the Internet was "on fire" about the killings.

And it was. Hundreds of blogs, forums and e-mail lists began protesting not just the killings themselves, but the Humane Society of the United States' apparent support of those killings despite the fact that none of the dogs, not even the puppies born after the bust, was evaluated for temperament or behavior.

The outrage was such that later that night, the Humane Society agreed to meet with Best Friends Animal Society, the organization giving sanctuary to some of the Vick dogs, and other animal welfare groups to discuss its policy on pit bulls. They also issued a statement that pit bulls seized from fighting situations needed to be evaluated on an individual basis before a decision is made about their future.

I'm sure the pet haters will be out in force in the comments section over at SFGate; beats me why pet haters read a pet column, but they do. So please come by and share your thoughts -- and prove the power of pet bloggers one more time.

Full story here.

Comments

[pitbull friend]

Thanks, Christie, for your lovely article. Looks like the comments are running strongly pro. Maybe the folks who hate good news are taking the week off. I have saved dozens of dogs by transporting them, fostering them, and listing them on websites. I don't think I could have gotten one-tenth as much done without the Internet, and I am so grateful for that. When I feel like modern life is completely lousy, this is one of the examples I turn to for telling myself that there are some mighty good things, too.

[Anne Good]

I think we are just scratching the surface at what social media can do to spread the message of responsible pet ownership and adoption.