Dogged Blog

Right-to-lifers who kill: We're missing the point

The justification for killing an abortion provider is that you're trying to prevent abortions. You know, the old, "If only someone had killed Hitler..." rationale.

But here's the thing: If that were truly someone's goal, it seems fairly obvious that the way to do it lies far opposite gunning doctors down in church.

You do it by reducing unwanted pregnancy and giving truly useful alternatives to women who believe they have no choice but to terminate a pregnancy but would prefer not to. You do it by realizing no one actually wants to get an abortion, and would much rather just not get pregnant in the first place. I mean, no one wants to go to the freaking dentist, and getting an abortion is a lot more unpleasant than that.

Which means making contraception affordable, safe, and accessible. It means giving young people comprehensive sex and reproductive education. It means funding programs like Planned Parenthood. It means putting your money where your mouth is and helping provide education, free childcare, and in-home support services for struggling families. It means accepting that teenagers and other unmarried people are going to have sex.

That is how you reduce the number of abortions. Note how it does not involve guns or funerals.

But of course, these self-righteous warriors for the unborn don’t do those things, mostly because very little of their passionate drive comes from the desire to reduce the number of abortions. It comes from a desire to control other people's bodies and sexual behavior, to punish people for doing things of which they don't approve, for being uppity and sexual and out of control. And of course, by "people" I pretty much mean "women."

So called "right-to-lifers" with this mindset can't accept any solution that involves making things easy on sexually active teens and single adult women. Some of them apparently would rather blow a man's brains out in church than teach their sons and daughters how to use condoms and spermicidal foam.

People who are genuinely convinced that what I see as a blob of protoplasm is actually a human life, and who are so moved with reverence for human life that they want to see an end to legal abortion, are not the ones shooting people. I disagree with them but respect their belief. I recognize there is a divide between how they see the world and how I do, and that's something we're all, as a nation, going to have to continue to live with for the foreseeable future.

But the crazed moralistic control freaks? The self-righteous, the violent, the obsessive stalkers? This isn't really about abortion for them. It's about the sickness inside their heads, their desire to force everyone around them to live according to their beliefs – not their beliefs about abortion, but about sex and freedom and right and wrong.

Being able to get a legal, safe abortion after one has fornicated is, in that world view, being allowed to escape your punishment. So is getting free childcare and having someone come in and help you with the laundry and watch your baby while you go out on a job interview.

Because sex is immoral, and pregnancy is the punishment, and that goes double for your little child, too.

One leg of rescue transport needed in Bay Area... can you help?

UPDATE: We've got it covered... thanks to all the wonderful folks in the local Scottish Deerhound community, and to the national club, for their help and support!

A Scottish Deerhound -- and yes, she really is one -- was pulled from a shelter in Stockton, California by the good people at South Bay Purebred Rescue. She's been spayed and had a benign tumor removed, and now she needs a ride to her forever home in Oregon.

We have all legs of this journey covered for this coming Wednesday, except for one. The deerhound is in Prunedale, California, just off US-101 about an hour and 45 minutes south of San Francisco, about 20 minutes south of Gilroy.

We have two options:

1. I can drive down from San Francisco and pick her up in Prunedale and transport her to somewhere en route to a hand-off in Dunningan, CA (which is about 30 miles north of Davis on Highway 5). There are a couple of different routes that would work to get there, so the hand-off could be anywhere convenient -- San Francisco? East Bay? Fremont?

2. OR someone else can get her in Prunedale that morning and hand her off to me somewhere along the route, and I'll take her to Dunnigan to meet someone who is driving down from southern Oregon and then turning around and taking her back up to the next hand-off.

Please feel free to pass this request along to anyone you think might help, promote it on your own blog or social media, anything you think will get this girl a ride - obviously it has to be someone with a vehicle that can carry a dog of this size, and has some kind of connection to or references in the rescue or dog world so we'll know she'll be in good hands!

It's just a very small piece of a very long ride for this girl, who has been through a lot! Please comment here or email me at christiekeith at gmail dot com if you can help.

The great big, really huge, absolutely essential story about canine vaccinations

Do you have vaccine questions? I mean, these days, who doesn't? Just a few short years ago annual vaccinations were the very hallmark of the responsible pet owner, and now we're hearing that vaccines last for three years, or seven, or the life of the pet -- even while many of our vets are insisting on continuing to give every vaccine every year.



It's not just veterinarians, either. Boarding kennels, groomers, training classes -- all have their own requirements and regulations, which typically follow the old-school recommendation that annual "booster shots" be given for common canine diseases.



Let's set aside the insanity of letting groomers, boarding kennel owners and dog trainers tell us how to treat our pets medically in the first place. What's up with the vets? Why are some of them still clinging to those outdated and potentially harmful protocols, and what can we do about it?



We can start by educating ourselves about how vaccines work, how they fail, and what the consequences of unnecessary or inappropriate vaccination are. It's not true that vaccines "can't hurt"; they can.



Of course, who the hell am I to tell you that? I'm railing against listening to groomers and dog trainers, and here I am, a pet blogger, doing the same thing. So don't listen to me.



Instead, listen to Dr. Ronald Schultz, one of the world's leading canine vaccine researchers. He holds a PhD in Immunology and Veterinary Pathobiology, and established the first veterinary clinical immunology laboratory in the country while he was at Cornell.



He's currently Chair of the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison and an honorary diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists.



He's also on the AAHA Canine Vaccine Task Force, the AAFP Feline Vaccine Task Force, and the Vaccine Guideline Group for the World Small Animal Veterinary Association.



He was the first president of the American Association of Veterinary Immunologists and has published more than 200 papers on the immunology and microbiology of animal disease, clinical immunology and vaccinology.



In a presentation made in October of 2007 to the National Parent Club Canine Health Conference, Dr. Schultz said that some veterinarians, even those who are aware of new protocols, are sticking with annual shots because they use them as what he calls a "practice management" tool: the annual vaccines get the pets into the office for a wellness check:

A "more is better" philosophy prevails with regard to pet vaccines. On many occasions practitioners say that "I know many of the vaccines I administer probably aren't needed but it won't hurt to give them and who knows the animal may need them some time during their life because of unknown risk."



I have also been told by many practitioners that "I believe the duration of immunity for some vaccines like distemper, parvovirus and hepatitis is many years, but until I find another way to get the client into my office on a regular basis I'm going to keep recommending vaccines annually."



Annual vaccination has been and remains the single most important reason why most pet owners bring their pets for an annual or more often "wellness visit." The importance of these visits for the health of the pet is exceptional. Therefore, dog owners must understand the vaccines are not the reason why their dog needs an annual wellness visit.

I've long noticed that manipulating pet owners into the office with unnecessary annual vaccines that might hurt a pet and won't help leads to the ultimate irony: shot clinics. Pet owners come in every year for those all-important shots, but they do it at a clinic where there is no exam. So I agree with Dr. Schultz: be honest with your clients and sell them on the wellness exam, and stop using annual vaccines to get them in the door. It's just going to backfire.



But wanting to get clients' pets into the clinic every year isn't the only reason some veterinarians use outmoded vaccine protocols:

Another reason for the reluctance to change current vaccination programs is many practitioners really don't understand the principles of vaccinal immunity. A significant number of practitioners believe:



1) the annual revaccination recommendation on the vaccine label is evidence the product provides immunity for (only) one year. — Not True



2) that they are legally required to vaccinate annually and if they don't they will not be covered by AVMA liability insurance if the animal develops a vaccine preventable disease - Not True. Furthermore, certain companies will not provide assistance if practitioners don't vaccinate annually with core vaccines. Not True — In fact most of the companies have now demonstrated their core products provide at least 3 years of immunity.



3) that not revaccinating will cause the animal to become susceptible soon (days or a few weeks) after the one year. — Not True



4) if the animal is not revaccinated at or before one year the "whole vaccination program needs to be started again". — Not True



5) if they don't continue to revaccinate annually, diseases like canine distemper, canine parvovirus and infectious canine hepatitis (CAV-1) will "reappear and cause widespread disease similar to what was seen prior to the development of vaccines for these diseases." — Not True



6) that if the revaccination "doesn't help, it won't hurt." — Not True

I can't include every busted myth Dr. Schultz covers; this thing is 17 very dense pages long. But it's worth the read -- especially if you're faced with the crazy vaccination requirements of some boarding kennels:

"Because boarding kennels require annual or more often (kennel cough every 3 to 6 months) vaccination, practitioners must continue vaccinating annually with all vaccines." — Not True — help change the kennel rules through education and just use the vaccines that need to be given (eg Kennel Cough.)



Note: There are kennels that require every licensed vaccine and the vaccines must have been given within 1 year or less prior to admission — help change these rules! Those kennels that are members of the American Kennel Association should be following the AAHA Guidelines, but many kennels do not belong to this association.



It will be necessary to correct many of these and additional misunderstandings by providing education to veterinary practitioners, kennel owners and pet owners before significant changes in vaccination programs can or will occur to reduce the over-vaccination of both cats and dogs.

He doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, however. He cautions that appropriate, scientifically-based vaccination protocols protect dogs and cats from illness and death very effectively:

[I]t is equally important that we don't, in our efforts to prevent over-vaccination, fail to vaccinate often enough, fail to vaccinate all or as many pups with the core vaccines, fail to use products that are necessary, or to use products that don't provide protection in our pets.

He goes on to list give extremely detailed vaccination recommendations, backed with good science and based on a theory of giving only the vaccines that are necessary only as frequently as needed, and no more. Which if you think about it, is the only rational way to do it.



So dig out your reading glasses and check it out -- it might save your pet's life, prevent serious or even fatal vaccine reactions, convince your groomer, boarding kennel operator or dog trainer to stop practicing veterinary medicine -- and maybe even get your veterinarian to finally break the annual vaccine habit. You'll find it here. (PDF)

Another chance for Denver ' s pit bulls?

One of the nastiest pit bull bans in the nation is the law in Denver, which has killed over a thousand dogs and driven countless owners out of the city to save their dogs' lives. It's been fought a number of times in court, so far without success, but its opponents haven't given up. Now they may get yet another chance to tell it to the judge. From Colorado Wire:

Opponents of a Denver ordinance that calls for euthanizing pit bulls found living in city limits have another chance at challenging the law in court.



The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday revived a lawsuit filed by three former Denver residents who moved out the city to avoid losing their dogs. A federal judge had dismissed their lawsuit in March 2008.



Denver banned pit bulls in 1989 after dogs mauled a minister and killed a boy in separate attacks. After years of legal challenges, the city began enforcing the law in May 2005.



A three-judge panel of the appellate court said the residents could proceed on their claim that Denver's breed-specific prohibition is irrational.



Opponents of the ban claim Denver lacks evidence that pit bulls pose a threat to public safety or constitute a public nuisance. They argue that the same canine organizations used to set standards for establishing whether a dog is a pit bull also describe the breeds as stable, friendly and good with children.



A message left at the Denver's city attorney's office was not immediately returned.



''The vast majority of dogs killed under this law haven't done anything wrong,'' said Karen Breslin, an attorney who argued on behalf of the former residents. ''There are dogs out there that do pose a danger, but killing dogs just for how they look? How stupid is that?''

Pretty stupid, we'd say.



Read the whole story here.

Veterinarians taking a stand on Bulldog health

If you were giving out prizes for the sweetest dogs, the Bulldog might well win it. He might get "most lovable" and "best sense of humor," too.



Unfortunately, when it comes to health, the Bulldog isn't going to win any prizes, except "breed that makes more veterinarians rich than any other." Which you'd think would be just fine with the vets, right? Wrong. From the VIN News Service:

When three Bulldogs came in to her emergency clinic in respiratory distress in just two weeks, Dr. Meredith Kennedy decided she had finally had enough. Two of those dogs died.



Kennedy, who practices in Arroyo Grande on California's central coast, intends to start a Web site with the help of other veterinarians to warn prospective pet owners about potential health problems linked to English Bulldogs.



It's not that no one should own the breed, she says. It's just that those thinking of acquiring a purebred Bulldog should know that a dog with such a flat, wrinkled face might have trouble breathing, particularly if it becomes overweight. Also, joint problems like arthritis are common as well as reproductive issues. It seems that English Bulldogs often cannot be bred without artificial assistance and surgical delivery of the puppies.



“Bulldog owners are sometimes shocked and dismayed at how high-maintenance these dogs are, and they are not prepared for the high cost of corrective surgeries and ongoing medication and health care,” Kennedy says.



[....]



Kennedy intends to make it clear that her Web site is produced by veterinarians, a distinction she considers to be highly persuasive because it is not often that the professionals who stand to make a living from something seek to dissuade potential customers.



“It means really that the problems are so significant and serious that I, as a veterinarian, am declining to make money off of it,” she says in an interview with the VIN News Service. “I am telling you not to do this thing, even though I stand to make a lot of money.”

What do Bulldog breeders -- and other veterinarians -- think? Read the full story here.

The dogs of equality, San Francisco-style

I was at San Francisco's Civic Center yesterday protesting and marching and why yes, my feet are still hurting thank you very much, and I noticed how many dogs were rallying, protesting, and marching with us -- especially pit bulls, who, after all, know a thing or two about second class citizenship.



So of course I got out my camera and started taking pictures... and here's my slideshow of the Dogs of Equality. Enjoy!

Hey, Equality California: Voting on rights is wrong

A sincere and very patient young woman named Erica just called from the office of Equality California. She wanted to know if I would volunteer to go door to door in a nearby town, talking to voters about marriage equality.

"It's the only way we'll win our rights," she read earnestly from her script, "by changing hearts and minds. Will you join us?"

"I don't think you want me," I told her. "I'm not thinking it's a good idea to go around begging people to give me what should be mine by right. And I'm really, really angry now, and I don't think you want me talking to people about this."

She understood, she said. They were all upset, too. Maybe I'd consider driving other volunteers down there, instead?

I told her I didn't think so, that I wasn't sure I thought we should go back to the ballot on this at all. I said I thought voting on people's rights was wrong, even if we won. Even though I think we probably would win.

"Thanks for your time," she said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," I told her. "And good luck."

The dogs of equality

Yesterday at the "Day of Decision" rally for marriage equality in San Francisco, I noticed what an extraordinary number of dogs were there standing in solidarity with the lesbian and gay community on this important civil rights issue.

I've long been grateful to our straight allies, but this support, cutting as it does across the species line, means the world to me. I particularly welcome the support of the pit bulls, who, one must acknowledge, know a thing or two about second class citizenship.

Thank you, dogs of equality! Believe me, I'll be there to stand for your rights, too!

When it comes to spay/neuter rates for cats, owner income tells the story

A study conducted by Harris Interactive for Alley Cat Allies came up with some interesting data. To start with, nearly all pets cats in America -- more than 80 percent -- are already spayed and neutered. And the ones that aren't didn't have the misfortune of being owned by deadbeat, idiotic, irresponsible or callous people. No, they're owned by poor people.



In fact, the single most influential predictor of whether or not a cat is altered is the income level of his or her owner.

Eighty percent of cats in U.S. households are neutered, according to a new, nationally representative study conducted by Alley Cat Allies and published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal.



The study, “Population characteristics and neuter status of cats living in households in the United States,” found that family income was the single strongest predictor of whether pet cats living in households are neutered. Over 90% of cats in households earning $35,000 or more per year were neutered, compared to 51% of cats in households earning less than $35,000.

As the study points out, it's not pet cats (the only ones who would be affected by a mandatory spay/neuter law) who aren't being altered; it's unowned strays. And cats represent the largest group of animals being killed in shelters.



So if you really want to cut down on shelter deaths, how about proposing a law funding  trap-neuter-release (TNR) programs and mandatory assistance to low income pet owners to go along with this obsession with mandatory spay/neuter laws. Anyone? Bueller?



Read more here from Alley Cat Allies -- and graphs? Dey haz them.

From Harvey Milk Plaza

The rainbow flag flying at half mast over Harvey Milk Plaza today.

 

“To discriminate against our sisters and brothers who are lesbian or gay on grounds of their sexual orientation for me is as totally unacceptable and unjust as Apartheid ever was.” ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu