Dogged Blog

Stop pickin' on Bo Obama!

 I have no idea why I felt compelled to write about this... but to my surprise, comments on SFGate.com are mostly positive -- for a change!

Some people tore themselves away from their Easter celebrations long enough to rant and rave on a dozen blogs about how the Obamas failed to set a good example for the nation by adopting a shelter dog, while others rejoiced that they'd chosen a reputable breeder instead of a puppy mill or pet store dog.

Yes, everyone has an opinion and everyone wants to prove something, and everyone thinks the Obamas either got it right or got it wrong, and has a thousand reasons for whatever it is he thinks.

And pretty much every single one of them is missing the point.

Read the rest here, and I don't know... comment about how I'm totally brilliant and stuff. My mom reads my comments. And this blog, too... Hi, Mom!

Puppy love: Why all dog lovers should be happy about the Obamas ' new dog

It's hard to believe I once intended to be the only pet columnist in America not to weigh in on what I thought about the Obamas' dog. But the avalanche of press releases yesterday wore me down.



Yes, I know that every time the First Family eats graham crackers, it's news and it says something about them and about America. I get it. And I'm certainly not saying that it doesn't matter where they got their puppy, because if they'd gotten it at a pet store, you'd better believe I'd be out there with my protest sign and clenched fist, baby.



But I still think that the angry hordes who are really really really upset that the Obamas didn't get a shelter or rescue dog are missing the point. And the point isn't, to me, that Bo was a kind of rescue dog; he was in his safety zone from the day he was born until today, and never went into or needed rescuing.



No, the point, to me, is about something else entirely. It's about love.

The Obama girls got to know the Kennedys' dogs. They liked them. Like a million other little kids before them, they wanted a dog not as a symbolic act or political message but because they liked the way he splashed in the ocean, chased a ball and cocked his head when he looked at them.



And their parents liked them, too. So when the Kennedys told them that a littermate of their puppy, Cappy, was driving his current family's older dog crazy with his wild puppy ways and needed a new home, it seemed perfect. The puppies' breeder agreed, and the Obama girls welcomed this happy, clownish little guy as their very own dog.



And everyone in this country who cares about dogs, whether they're in loving homes or shelters or rescue groups or wandering the streets, should rejoice over this. Do you know why?



Because the love of animals is the driving force behind every humane initiative and fundraising drive in the world. It's why people volunteer at shelters and donate pet food to rescue groups. It's why people do breed rescue or fight to end animal cruelty in the first place.



And if they felt that love, that powerful bond, for the first time with a purebred dog, with a dog who reminds them of a family friend's beloved pet, does that really matter? Whatever opens the heart, gets that little hook in there, that's the important thing. That's the transformational force.



That love will get more pets out of shelters than all the nagging lectures in the world. So if you really want to see the Obamas become champions for companion animals, you should be throwing a big "welcome home" party for Bo, not trying to make them feel guilty about how and where they got him.

You can read the rest here. And since I fully expect to have ten million comments telling me I'm an evil money-grubbing dog breeder lobbyist puppy miller horrible bad person, please feel free to comment over there to the contrary. My mom reads those things, yo.

The Obama puppy: Breeder tells the tale

Around three months ago, a reader told me there was a rumor flying around the Portuguese Water Dog community that Art and Martha Stern of Amigo PWDs had sold a puppy to the First Family. I gave Martha a call, and she said it wasn't true.

But as news that the Obamas' new puppy was arriving this weekend leaked out, it looked like maybe I'd gotten a bit of a run-around. So I called again, and we talked for around half an hour. She's 70 years old, knows her breed, her dogs, and her mind -- and shared it all with me in a wonderful Texas accent.

You can read my interview with her over on Pet Connection, but here's a taste:

She thinks ... that things are going to go just fine with the new Obama puppy. But she had one word of warning for Bo’s new family.

“He’s in training right now. He’s going to be a little gentleman, believe me – until he sees that fountain. He’ll be splashing around and saying, ‘Where’s the fish? Where’s the fish?’” She laughed. “We’re expecting great things of that little fellow.”

While we were talking, her husband was on the other line with the Washington Post. I asked how she felt about the media attention, and if she had any concerns about it. “It’s been good and bad, but overall I’m glad it gives me a chance to talk about the most important thing.” She laughed again. “They gave me a list of talking points, and I was, hell, I know what I can say. I’m 70 years old; I know the point I want to make, and it’s this: Responsible breeders are responsible for the dogs they place for life.”

Read the rest here.

The Obama puppy: The breeder tells the tale

Texas Portuguese Water Dog breeder Martha Stern is no stranger to placing her puppies with the famous and powerful. She bred Sen. Ted Kennedy's beloved dogs Splash, Sunny and Cappy. And now it turns out she and her husband, Art, are also the breeders of the new First Dog, Bo -- or Amigo's New Hope, his registered name.



The news started leaking two days ago, when gossip site TMZ published a story that Sen. Kennedy would be giving the Obama girls the puppy their father had promised them when he was on the campaign trail. The breeder wasn't identified, but the puppy was said to be of the "same lineage" of the Kennedy dogs.



I'd spoken to Stern a couple of months earlier, when rumors were flying that she'd sold a puppy to the Obamas. The basis for the rumor seemed to be not much more than the fact that she was the breeder of the Kennedy's dogs, the Obamas had expressed an interest in the breed, and there was a puppy in the same litter from which Sen. Kennedy had gotten his newest puppy with the registered name of "Amigo's Change to Believe In."



At the time she said the rumor wasn't true. "I did have what I called my 'Hope' litter, and all of them are named Hope or Change, or something like that, but no, they did not..." she told me then. "I would have loved to place a puppy with them. I think." She paused, then laughed. "I'm not sure. Let me ponder on it a little bit."



I left her a message yesterday, wanting to find out what the story was now. When I heard back from her this morning, she told me this had all transpired after we talked.



"Yeah, I called the girl who has Amigo's Change to Believe In, and she laughed and laughed," Stern said. "She's been a huge Obama supporter from the beginning. She said she made 1500 phone calls for him during the campaign. She told me, 'He can have my money, but he can't have my dog.'"



While the Obamas had wanted to adopt a rescue or shelter dog, they also had their hearts set on a Portuguese Water Dog. This was partly because they fell in love with the Kennedy's dogs, and partly because Malia Obama suffers from allergies.



Portuguese Water Dogs, like their Poodle relatives and a few other breeds, have what's known as a "single" coat. These coats shed less than the more common canine double coat, and so less dander gets deposited in the environment. This sometimes makes them less of a problem for people with allergies.



It was Sen. Kennedy's wife, Vicki, who heard about a littermate of Cappy's in Washington DC who was probably going to be needing a new home. The family had two older Portuguese Water Dogs, and when one of them died, they got a puppy to keep their remaining dog company.



"Usually that works out all right," said Stern. "But not this time. This little puppy was quite rambunctious, and I think he kind of barreled in there and tried to nurse off the older dog when he first got there. And she said, 'You've got to be kidding.' She did not understand this at all, and just lay around growling at him."



Around two months ago, the owners made the decision to let the older dog have her peace and quiet back. "Vicki Kennedy found out about it, and she said, 'This is a perfect situation, Martha.' And after I thought about it, I had to agree."



Stern respects the desire to give a shelter or rescue dog a home, but feels the Obamas also have the right to get the dog they want for their family. She said it would have been difficult for them to get a PWD from a rescue or shelter because the national breed club takes a very strong stand on breeder responsibility.



"We don't want any of our dogs to end up homeless. And the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America, that we belong to, requires that their breeders take back their dogs if for any reason, any reason at all, the people can't care for the dog. That's what responsible breeders do, always.



"Things happen; people die, people get divorced, people lose their jobs, lose their homes. But the one thing that's always constant is that the dog is a family member, and deserves a loving home."



Does she think Bo's fame will bring the curse of popularity -- puppies being bred and sold for profit by people wanting to cash in on the latest craze -- down on the breed?



"I'm sure it will be a problem to some extent, but we have been so careful keeping our dogs out of puppy mills. There are some out there, unfortunately, but if you go to the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America website, and contact a breeder listed there, you'll be in good hands. If they don't have a puppy, they'll refer you to someone who does. They'll help educate you, and that site has tons of information about the breed.



"When I first got the breed, the man told me, this dog is not for everybody. And I thought, you fool, this dog is the most versatile dog I've ever seen. But I've come to realize he was right.



"As a breeder it's my responsibility to help people find the right puppy for them. So I make them come here and meet me, look over their children, see if the dog will be in a good home. We evaluate the dogs with another breeder at 7 and a half weeks, and we look at the families we have, and we assign the puppy to a family. And if they don't want that puppy, I'll find that puppy another good home."



I asked her if the Obamas would have made the cut even if they weren't the FIrst Family. She laughed. "If he was not the president, they'd still be high on my list. Their children are treated as little adults. They have very good manners. I heard from Vicki that Michelle said she was going to be responsible for this dog. That's what you want to hear, not that parents will hand the dog over to the children. It's going to be their dog, and the children can play with it. That's what you have to insist on.



"They have a very well-rounded family and shouldn't have any problems with the new puppy." She laughed again. "Grandma did a really good job raising her kids, too. She has a son who's a head coach for some basketball team up there, and Michelle is the wife of the President and an accomplished lawyer. This family, they don't fail. Those kind of families, they do their research."



She thinks the research is going to pay off, and that things are going to go just fine with the new Obama puppy. But she had one word of warning for Bo's new family.



"He's in training right now. He's going to be a little gentleman, believe me – until he sees that fountain. He'll be splashing around and saying, 'Where's the fish? Where's the fish?'" She laughed. "We're expecting great things of that little fellow."



While we were talking, her husband was on the other line with the Washington Post. I asked how she felt about the media attention, and if she had any concerns about it. "It's been good and bad, but overall I'm glad it gives me a chance to talk about the most important thing." She laughed again. "They gave me a list of talking points, and I was, hell, I know what I can say. I'm 70 years old; I know the point I want to make, and it's this: Responsible breeders are responsible for the dogs they place for life."

Evil green alien eye invades my bedroom

A lot of my friends, and even I, joke that I hate change. But I don't. When there's a new technology, I tend to be an early adopter. I love being able to do things I couldn't do before.

What I don't like is change that takes away functionality that I find valuable in the name of giving me something I don't give a shit about -- or, usually, to accomplish some goal related to the service provider or product manufacturer (I'm looking at you, Microsoft) rather than the consumer/user.

Last month it was Facebook, which "improved" itself by taking away our ability to edit or hide applications. I had forty bazillion easter eggs and hugs and quizzes all over my friends page, and there was no way to hide them other than to hide or remove the friend -- or beg them not to use those things. But why should my friends restrict themselves from using an application they enjoyed, just to avoid annoying me? The day before the change, I could hide those things permanently. Now I couldn't. This was Facebook's problem.

Obviously Facebook agreed, because they gave us back that functionality a week or two later. Yay.

Today, it's Comcast, or I guess, all cable providers. The television in my bedroom, which I use once or twice a week to watch an episode of House Hunters or a few minutes of Animal Planet while I fall asleep, stopped working. Although it turned out to be a damaged cable, the tech told me that in June, I'd no longer be able to view anything other than the local broadcast channels without a box on my TV set, due to some new FCC regulations.

The box is free, and so is the service call to install it. But the box is ugly. It's electronic, which means it has lights and cords and it's ugly and it makes a little buzzing sound and as I may have mentioned, it's ugly. I already keep my DVD player in a drawer and only hook it up if I want to watch something, so I hoped I could do that with this, but it's too complicated to hook up and you have to call the cable company to re-set it every time you disconnect it.

It also requires its own remote control, which means I now have three for a television I watch for around two hours a week, if that.

I had what I wanted: My TV set in my bedroom. And it played Animal Planet and HGTV.

Now I have a little always-on green light, ugly cords running all over the place, a hideous little black box staring at me, and a receiver stuck to the front of it with a wire running to the box. I also have a new remote control and functionality that means nothing to me -- wow, I can now watch 20 more channels that I don't want to watch. Yay.

/whineage

Best Friends, HSUS announce new policy on fight bust dogs

The first report out of the Las Vegas meeting between Best Friends, HSUS, BAD RAP, Maddie's Fund, and several other organizations appeared this afternoon on the Best Friends website, which said that among the outcomes of the meeting were the following:

• The HSUS has a new policy of recommending that all dogs seized from fighting operations be professionally evaluated, according to agreed upon standards, to determine whether they are suitable candidates for adoption. Dogs deemed suitable for placement should be offered as appropriate to adopters or to approved rescue organizations. The HSUS will update its law enforcement training manual and other materials to reflect this change in policy.



• The groups agree that all dogs should be treated as individuals, and they are the true victims of this organized crime. They also agree to support law enforcement and animal control agencies when decisions must be made regarding the dogs deemed unsuitable for adoption and in cases when rescue organizations and adopters are unable, within a reasonable timeframe, to accept dogs from such raids that have been offered for adoption.



• The organizations will form a working group to develop future protocols for cooperation in addressing the needs of dogs seized in raids, such as how to assist with the housing of fighting dogs, how to conduct professional evaluations, and how to screen potential adopters.

HSUS head Wayne Pacelle had this to say on his blog:

In the past, animals seized from these operations have been routinely euthanized.  This may still be the outcome for the animal victims of dogfighters, but we agreed as a number of groups that all of us should do our best to evaluate dogs seized from these operations and adopt those dogs who can be saved.

He went on to reproduce the entire announcement as it was posted on the Best Friends site, and called it a "joint announcement" of HSUS and Best Friends. (Read it here.) Best Friends is one of the groups that was highly critical of HSUS's involvement in the killing of 176 pit bulls after a fight ring bust earlier this year -- even nursing puppies born after the bust.



Pet Connection BFF YesBiscuit! said:

My initial impression of the new HSUS policy on bust dogs is positive BUT (everyone I know has a big BUT), it's in my nature to ask questions. Lots of questions.

You can read those questions here.



BAD RAP, probably the single group most responsible for keeping this issue alive and rehabbing the image of pit bulls in general and fight bust dogs in particular, didn't say much, but was cautiously optimistic and said they were waiting to see the statement that hadn't yet been released. They were happy about one thing:

(W)e DID notice that someone at HSUS has removed a provocative webpage from their Animal Sheltering website, once entitled, "Explaining Your Policy of Not Placing Fighting Dogs Up for Adoption."



This now-defunct position statement has driven us crazy for years: "Once dogs have been bred and trained to fight, they may become dangerous at any time in the future, killing or injuring another dog, cat, or even human. The cruel training inflicted upon these animals makes them unpredictable—and unsuitable for placement into new homes." But apparently, it's gone -- and good riddance.

What do I think?



Like YesBiscuit, I still have questions. Like Best Friends and BAD RAP, I'm cautiously optimistic. I think HSUS and the other organizations present at this meeting -- which included the National Animal Control Association -- know there's a new zeitgeist, and the days of kneejerk killing of fight bust dogs are over. (I hope the days of killing any healthy and treatable animal are over, actually. But that's another post for another day.)



I think this will turn out to be a good day for the pibbles. Let's hope I'm right.



Update: BAD RAP is calling it a victory, and sums up the main points here:

In order to help end the unnecessary deaths of sound American Pit Bull Terriers, the HSUS has officially agreed to change their policy of recommending mass euthanasia of all pit bulls from confirmed and/or suspected fighting operations and is finally in favor of the evaluation and rescue of these same dogs.





They will update their law enforcement training manual, websites and other materials to reflect this change in policy.





The groups involved in the meeting agreed that canine victims of cruelty suffer from the actions of humans and deserve to be treated humanely while in the custody of law enforcement or animal control agencies.  The groups will support law enforcement and animal control agencies in their decisions to euthanize dogs when there are no reputable rescue or sanctuary resources available to absorb them.





The organizations will form a Working Group to develop future protocols for cooperation in meeting the needs of dogs seized in raids, including how to improve the standard of care of dogs held in custody, how to conduct professional evaluations, and how to council shelters in selecting appropriate homes.

Photo of Meryl, one of the Michael Vick fight bust dogs rescued and given sanctuary by Best Friends Animal Society.

Proposed federal law: Prove your pets are safe, or we ' ll ban them

Once upon a time, I had no idea why people owned un-fluffy pets. I thought my friends who kept fish tanks or turtles or rats were out of their minds. And why anyone would want, say, a pet python was completely beyond me.



After all, weren't some of those pets kind of dangerous? And even the ones that posed no threat to humans, like angel fish -- it's not like they liked you, or really, even knew you were alive. What was the point?



But just like the folks who "know" things about pit bulls or feral cats, most of what I "knew" about unusual and exotic pets was wrong.



People are drawn to all kinds of pets less common than dogs and cats, for all kinds of reasons. Some of them may be bad reasons, but that's no different from the fact that some people are drawn to Persian cats because they think they're a status symbol, and others to Rottweilers because they think they're macho.



Just like those of us who keep dogs and cats, people who keep pocket pets, tropical fish, birds, snakes and other exotic and unusual animals do so because they're intrigued with them, care about them, and get something valuable out of the relationship.



The first stage of my enlightenment on this issue came when I lived with a woman who had a dozen or so rescued parrots. (She was a professional animal trainer and worked at a humane society, and we had a huge barn and outdoor aviary set-up for them -- she was no kind of bird hoarder.) Before living with her, I'd have said that any birds as prone to biting as her rescued parrots shouldn't be kept as pets, but she loved them madly, and they loved her.



I began to understand then that the human-animal bond can blossom between people and the most unlikely, and even apparently unloveable, of animals.



But my conversion was complete when I came to work for PetHobbyist.com, the parent website for kingsnake.com, the oldest and largest reptile and amphibian website in the world. That's where I finally broke my last personal taboo: snakes and lizards, frogs and turtles. You know -- creepy crawlies.



As I got to know people who kept herps, especially snakes, I realized that what moves them about their pets is not affection or companionship, but wonder. These people were the grown-up versions of the kid lying on her belly in the grass watching a garter snake slither by, or a little boy crouching for long minutes by a creek, waiting to catch a frog in his hands.



And once I got exposed to that wonder, I started to see it all around me. I picked up my nephew from day care, and saw they had a bearded dragon in the classroom. Friends read an article I wrote about snakes as pets for SFGate.com, and told me they'd grown up with corn snakes or little native boas, or even today kept lizards. I sat watching that same little nephew enthralled with a DVD called "Microcosmos," an amazing film about the hidden insect life in a French meadow.



And I read books like field biologist Kate Jackson's Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, science and survival in the Congo, and realized just how many of those little kids who start out on their bellies in the grass end up running science programs at the Smithsonian, or teaching children about the wonders of the natural world in a grammar school science class.



That's fine, you say, petting your purring cat. People who have snakes have the right to have them, and yeah, my kid brother had a turtle, and we did have hamsters in our grade school science class. Nature's good. We get it. What's the problem?



The problem is a well-intentioned but absolutely clueless law in front of Congress right now. The bill, HR 669, the "Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act," would create a "guilty until proven innocent" list of animals that can't be kept as pets in the United States without extensive and expensive scientific proof that those animals are safe and pose no risk to the environment.



The law targets all non-native animals -- like most aquarium fish, nearly all species of pet bird, and even common pets like hamsters and guinea pigs. Dogs and cats are, in effect, grandfathered in, but if they weren't, it's worth noting they could never pass such a test. (Nor, for that matter, could human beings.)



Yes, of course there are dangerous animals being kept as pets; I'm not talking about pet tigers here. I'm talking about things like hamsters and cockatoos and corn snakes.



And I also agree that invasive non-native species -- plant or animal -- can be a risk to local eco-systems. But the same snake or tropical fish that's a danger in Florida is no risk at all in Colorado. My friend's cute little ferret is no more risk here in California, where he's already illegal, than he is in Michigan, where he's not. Your nephew's hamster or gerbil? Gina's parrot? The gecko your daughter finally persuaded you to buy her for her birthday?



We've had these pets in the United States for generations. "Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails" are an American tradition of childhood. And yet all of them (well, not the puppy dogs) are on that "show me you're innocent" list.



Yeah, there are some folks opposing HR 669 that I have some problems with. PIJAC, for one, the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, which is also a major apologist for and defender of the commercial puppy trade. But the issue should be judged on its merits, not in a knee-jerk rejection of the agenda of some of its opponents.



There are plenty of wonderful animals whose owners are very scared about this law and the impact it will have on their right to keep the pets they love. Aquarium fish, parrots, ferrets, hamsters, and an endless list of harmless and beloved snakes, lizards, birds, and other critters are on that "black list." There's virtually no chance most of them will be "proven safe," because such proof is very costly and time-consuming.



Certainly there are animals that don't belong in the pet trade because they're dangerous or unsuitable. But a lot of people feel that way about pet cats -- believe me, I see them commenting on my SFGate.com column all the time -- and certainly about pit bulls and many other dog breeds. I'm not saying a line can't be drawn somewhere, but this law draws it so far in the wrong direction it's hard to believe anyone can be serious about it.



Take a bunch of animals kept by millions of American kids and say, "Prove they're safe"? On a national level? If there's a problem and you have evidence to demonstrate it, tackle it with local regulation and legislation. Even if an animal is a genuine threat nation-wide, which I find hard to imagine happens too often, the solutions to that problem would vary greatly from rural to urban, warm to cold, or northern to southern regions. Does one-size-fits-all, draconian national legislation make any kind of sense?



This law is bad for animals, it's bad for the people who love them, and it's just plain bad law.



So please, however you feel about slithery critters or the people who keep them, contact your Congress people and tell them you oppose HR 669. Particularly contact those on the Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife of the House Natural Resources Committee, which will be holding a hearing on it on April 23. I'm by no means endorsing PIJAC as an organization, but they have a good overview of the provisions of the bill and contact information for the committee members here (PDF). (Update: Another easy summary and contact site, including a "one click" way to email members of Congress, here.)



Even if your dogs and cats aren't threatened directly by this law, contact them on behalf of tomorrow's field biologists and science teachers, or just the guy down the street with a tankful of tropical fish.



Tell Congress to leave our pets alone.

A no-kill America? Yes, we can -- and so can Australia

I spent all day yesterday in Las Vegas at Maddie's Fund's day-long seminar on no-kill sheltering. There were over 200 people there. The list of speakers included some of the nation's top shelter directors, from all kinds of shelters -- open admission animal control shelters, private shelters that partner with their local animal control agency to find homes for their dogs and cats, and private shelters operating independently in their communities.



While this talented group of animal welfare leaders had a lot of specific advice, most of what they said can be summed up as follows:

• Believe you can do it



• Inspire your staff to believe it, too -- and if you can't, let them go



• Work your ass off



• Try anything



• Eliminate the phrases "We can't because..." or "It won't work because..." from your lexicon

I've felt for a while that this is going to be a sea-change year in the effort to end population control killing in American shelters, and the energy and enthusiasm -- the sheer hunger -- for this change that the more than 200 attendees showed just reinforced that feeling.



So it's ironic that the first news story I read this morning when I dragged my exhausted butt out of bed and was sipping my first cup of coffee was this new story, from Australia's Sydney Morning Herald:

(H)eads are shaking as to whether a no-kill policy could work in Australia. While neutering animals before adoption is now widespread, and in the past 20 years the numbers of unwanted dogs have dropped, the country is still overwhelmed by unwanted cats.



The chief executive of the RSPCA in NSW, Steve Coleman, said the organisation's policy was not to reject any animal, including those which it would be cruel to keep alive.



"Often organisations encourage people to take animals they cannot deal with to the RSPCA," he said. "Our staff have to deal with them on a day-to-day basis. It is one of our biggest challenges to keep our staff objective and balanced when people surrender animals that have become a nuisance to them. But even then, we don't want to see these animals dumped on the side of a road or abandoned somewhere."



But he said the continuing influx of animals meant there was simply no room to accommodate them, and tough decisions would have to be made.



"This no-kill policy just cannot be. I know there have been a number of books written and a number of organisations in the states advocating it.



"We would love to be in the position of no-kill of healthy animals [but] animals keep coming in, and there are not enough homes to go around."

All the same myths, nay-saying, and gloom-mongering: Too many pets, not enough homes. It might work there, but it won't work here. "No-kill" means letting untreatably injured or sick animals live, because if you euthanize them it means you're not no-kill. If we don't kill them, they'll just be warehoused here and we'll have to close our doors to people wanting to surrender their pets, and then their rotten owners will dump them by the side of the road. We have problems those other places don't have. It can't happen here, we can't do it, and not only that, but it can't be done.



It exhausts me just to type that. It must be incredibly demoralizing to live with it inside your head.



Mr. Coleman, take heart. Every single community in America that has ended population control killing started out thinking and feeling exactly as you do.



And every community that rejected the inevitability of killing animals to control their numbers did so pretty much the same way: by deciding to do it, by making allies of their communities instead of enemies, by implementing a set of programs that targeted the source of unwanted pets in their communities -- feral cats, unplanned litters, etc. -- such as trap/neuter/release or low cost accessible spay/neuter, and then a companion set of programs that increase adoptions: satellite adoptions, advertising and marketing, convenient shelter hours, good customer service.



I not only believe American can and will do this, but that it already is. And if Australia wants to do this, it can. But not if its leaders start out with the assumption that it's not possible.



(Note: I was covering the seminar for an article I'll be writing for Maddie's Fund, for whom I've been doing some editorial consulting recently.)

Girl meets shoe store

I was walking down Haight Street the other day, and stopped into the John Fluevog shoe store. I've ogled their shoes before on Zappos.com, and even ordered a couple of pairs, only to find them not true to size. (Fortunately Zappos' free no questions asked returns made that no big deal.)

I told the sales guy that, and he and one of his colleagues took me on a tour of their lines, pointing out which ran large, which ran small, and which ran true. They let me try on a few pairs, and then called every Fluevog store in the country to tray to track down one pair of the shoes in the photo in my size -- but no luck.

I sobbed about this on Facebook and someone found me a pair at the Fluevog store in Vancouver -- OMG I love FB -- so this story has a happy ending. I also bought a pair of "Supervog" shoes, so comfortable I'm wearing them to Vegas tomorrow -- Las Vegas, home of the country's worst and most inconvenient airport, which means miles and miles of tromping around.

Fluevog shoes, by the way, are both socially responsible and open source. Yes, really.

And yeah, I know I sound like I'm shilling for either Fluevog shoes or Zappos, but I'm not. I just love them. I hope you're touched.

Maddie's Fund's history-making No Kill seminar at HSUS Animal Care Expo

On Monday, I'm going to be attending the first day of the HSUS Animal Care Expo in Las Vegas, to see Maddie's Fund's day-long seminar on no-kill sheltering.

Many of the nation's most progressive shelter directors will be speaking -- including Susanne Kogut of the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA, an open admission animal control no-kill shelter (which we're told don't exist, although several of them do), and Bonney Brown of the Nevada Humane Society, which along with its partner, Washoe County Regional Animal Services, has made their county one of the safest places in the nation for homeless dogs and cats; they save the lives of just a fraction under 90 percent of them county-wide. And this is the county that includes Reno, one of the regions hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis and economic downturn.

Also speaking will be Betsy Saul, founder of PetFinder.com, a website, community and searchable database of pets in shelters and rescue groups across the country. It was responsible for over a million adoptions in the last year.

I had the honor and pleasure of being asked by Maddies's Fund to help these three extraordinary leaders -- all of whom I've interviewed in the past -- and their fellow speakers prepare for this event. There are around 200 folks from the shelter world already signed up, and more expected.

So I'll be listening to those who are out there every single day in the trenches of our animal shelters and our communities doing the hard work to make a No Kill Nation a reality stand up in front of hundreds of their peers at an event presented by HSUS and tell them this: Despite everything you've heard and been told, yes, guaranteeing adoption for every treatable or healthy dog and cat in your community actually is possible.

I think that's  worth putting up with casinos, the country's worst airport, smoking allowed in public places, and the general flash and sleeze of Vegas for a day.