Dogged Blog

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.

Conflicts of interest in veterinary medicine

I sat down to read Jennifer Fiala's Veterinary Information Network News Service article on conflicts of interest in veterinary medicine last night. It's a subject in which I'm very interested, and I was a little disappointed at first, when the piece seemed to be veering towards a justification for vet med's even-worse-than-human-medicine attitude towards this prickly subject:

To determine what role, if any, potential conflicts of interest play in veterinary literature, the VNS recently contacted a handful of veterinary medical publications.



All the veterinary journal editors reached by the VNS said that they were aware of ... the growing awareness of the conflicts problem in human medicine. They noted that there is no similar effort underway for veterinary journals.



Nor is there as much of a need, the majority of the editors stated.



Why? Because the large, Big Pharma-sponsored clinical trials that populate human medicine are uncommon in veterinary medicine, they said. In fact, most veterinary-related studies are funded by government entities like the National Institutes of Health, various foundations or not at all. Even when funding comes from grants or industry, the trials tend to be small with less at stake, they added.



What’s more, it is much harder to hide conflicts of interest in veterinary medicine than in human medicine, noted Dr. Kurt J. Matushek, JAVMA's editor-in-chief. Considering the veterinary research community is relatively small, reviewers are usually familiar with authors and their clinics or laboratories.



“It can be self-policing, up to a point,” he said.

Same old, same old... right?



Wrong. Because, yet again, VIN co-founder and president Dr. Paul Pion cuts through the crap and points out that conflicts of interest are far more pernicious than such an analysis allows:

Dr. Paul Pion, a boarded cardiologist, published author and president of VIN (the parent company of VNS), said it is a “crock” to suggest that veterinary research is devoid of potential conflicts. The question, he said, “is not the size or nature of what triggers the potential conflict. What matters is that it exists at all. If there is a potential conflict, it must be disclosed explicitly, no exceptions.”



[....]



Pion continued: “We all believe we are immune from influence. Well, we are not. We are human. We all want to ‘do right’ by those who are nice to us. So, it is up to the profession and especially the journals to do more to help authors recognize potential conflicts of interest to protect authors from criticism for not revealing what others might consider potential conflicts of interest.”



[....]



“We are all human; most of us are honorable and nice people,” Pion explained. “But I also believe that we are all influenced by that mutual niceness and desire to find positive results (investigator bias) that can lead to the subconscious desire to not publish a bad outcome about a drug that we believe works and is produced by a company that has been good to us. This creates a very dangerous situation where we think we are immune from this form of potential conflict of interest and bias. The fact that our colleagues checked 'none' when asked about potential conflicts demonstrates that they don’t recognize the potential for a conflict of interest inherent in this type of gift from the maker of the drug under study.”



[....]



Pion believes that, in general, veterinary medical journals are too cavalier about potential conflict reporting statements. He does not buy the argument that there is not enough money in veterinary research to bias scientists. “We’re not talking intentional cheating or fraud. We’re talking about investigator bias that we all need to work hard to defend against for ourselves and each other.



“We can’t pretend it isn’t a factor” he added. “It doesn’t really matter whether the funding or donation was $5 or $1 million. What matters is how receiving a gift affects us. We are all full of potential conflicts, and we owe it to the profession to acknowledge that fact.”

This is a problem for journalists, too. When Dan Rather gave the keynote address at the South by Southwest conference in Austin in 2007, he talked about the fact that just knowing the name of the grandchild of someone in government can be enough to color our coverage of that person.



It's very true. It's extremely hard to be as tough on someone you've met and come to see as a person with feelings and a family as on a stranger. I'm not talking about going all tabloid and paparazzi on them; I'm saying that it's only human nature to want to soften the way you present something to avoid causing someone pain.



That's why when vets gasp in outrage when I ask them about their conflicts of interest, as if I'm suggesting they're taking money to lie about drug studies, I get incredibly frustrated. Dr. Pion absolutely nailed it: the conflict might be about money, but it doesn't have to be. It's about the effect of a relationship -- even just a simple human connection -- on the work.



Read the rest of Fiala's terrific, lengthy piece here.





And by the way, Dr. Pion; I just put you in the company of Dan Rather. It doesn't get a whole heck of a lot better than that with me.



Photo of Dan Rather at SXSW 2007 by Clint Gilders.

Two divas of vet med address a pet product peeve

Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly over on Dolittler tackled one of my personal pet peeves today, and she brought reinforcements in the form of Dr. Jennifer Koehl, who blogs as VMDiva.



Today's target? So-called "supplements" that claim to combat tear-staining on white fur, but do so using the antitiotic Tylosin. Which in this age of drug-resistant bacteria has got to be one of the worst ideas ever, particularly since tear-staining ain't nothin' but a cosmetic issue:

Sad-eyed pets the world around may not care a whit whether the fur that outlines their snout looks ruddy or not. It certainly doesn’t hurt or signal disease. It just IS. Which is why getting rid of it is a priority for owners whose stress level on the aesthetic thing is higher than others.



To that end, products like Angel Eyes have made their mark on pet store shelves. These powdered food additives remove tear stains with the magic of...daily-dosed antibiotics (tylosin). Not my preferred approach, I can promise you. Nor is it the VMDiva’s.



Dr. Koehler’s most recent blog post reviews the info on this approach. In case you doubt her, here’s another persnickety POV from yours truly. Because if you MUST remove your pet’s tear stains, there are far better approaches than high-priced, repurposed chicken meds. Promise.

Check out Dr. Khuly's tips on what does work -- safely, and consider putting VMDiva on your "must read" list, too.



And Dr. Koehler? Welcome to the fray!

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.

Your Monday puppy fix

You know that thing about a picture being worth a thousand words?



Good thing, because this one, of my future puppy and his littermates at 26 days old, has temporarily removed my ability to speak.

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.

What did liberals do?

Still marathoning West Wing. Still the best. Show. Ever.

What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party? I’ll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

Feral cats and wildlife: Ur doin it wrong

If I had to sum up in one sentence the current battle between feral cat advocates and the conservation groups that filed suit to stop Los Angeles from funding trap-neuter-return programs until an environmental impact review is conducted, it would be this: By all means, let's fight with each other and ignore the real problem.



Birds and other wildlife are not threatened because of feral cats -- certainly not the feral cats of that sylvan wilderland known as the city of Los Angeles. And feral cat colonies don't exist because people wuv kittehs so much they can't bring themselves to control them.



No, wildlife is threatened and feral cat colonies exist for the same reason -- because people screwed up.



I feel a distinct fondness for many members of my own species, but I have to confess, we haven't been the most forward-thinking, big-picture kind of creatures when it comes to development, deforestation, habitat destruction and air and water pollution. And those are the things that have pushed many species of bird and wildlife to and over the edge of extinction.



It's also our lack of big-picture thinking that has allowed the problem of unowned cats to exist in the first place, as we have failed to implement simple and effective programs designed to manage their colonies and reduce their numbers through sterilization.



I understand that to a lot of people on the outside of the feral cat advocacy community, the thought that feral colonies might require some environmental review seems reasonable, even seductively so. Why not study it before funding it? Right?



That might be fine if it was coming from a place of genuine scientific curiousity. It might be fine if there was an actual concern that the best solution be found that enables both wildlife and cats to thrive. It might be fine if the information would be gathered and used to find good, non-lethal solutions for conflicts between two different groups of animals in a given location.



But I just don't buy it.



The groups that brought the lawsuit know perfectly well the city of Los Angeles has no funds and little desire to pay for an EIR. This is, in short, an effective death sentence for those cats, disguised as a reasonable proposal for scientific study.



In fact, the issue of feral cats is always treated like a zero sum game by those who oppose TNR programs. They believe it's a case of "kill cats, or wild creatures will die."



But plenty of feral programs have shown that's not how you do the math. Look at Project Bay Cats in Foster City, Calif., where the local Audubon Society and a feral cat group got together and designed a model feral cat and wildlife management program in 2006:

To protect birds and their habitat and reduce debris along the levee pedway, 10 cat feeding stations were built by Homeless Cat Network and installed along the trail. Appropriate locations for the stations were jointly identified by the three groups, with special consideration given by Sequoia Audubon Society to insure that the stations were placed away from bird habitats. The program’s effectiveness is a result of keeping the cats well-fed and concentrated away from avian nesting sites.



"There are fewer cats on the Foster City Bay Trail now, and those that remain appear healthier," says Robin Winslow Smith, Conservation Committee Chairperson of the Sequoia Audubon Society. "Thanks to the feeding stations and the spay/neuter effort, the cats seemed to have settled into the program and don't need to hunt for dinner since they have it in their feeding stations." As further evidence of the program’s effectiveness, Sequoia Audubon Society recently found that the endangered California Clapper Rail, which lives in a marsh on the border between Foster City and San Mateo, is thriving and is not impacted by the cats. In fact, the Rails are quite easily seen and heard there at high tide.

Alley Cat Allies has been organizing against the Los Angeles court ruling that not only stopped the city from funding sterilization for feral cats in some very ugly and egregious ways (including forcing rescuers or Good Samaritans to "prove" a cat being brought to a spay/neuter clinic is really theirs -- this, in a city with a mandatory spay/neuter law!), but stopped the city from even telling rescuers about sources of private s/n funding.



Yeah, that'll cut the feral population down. Well played, conservation groups. Well played.



They apparently don't care, because they want the cats killed anyway. Because wow, no one's ever tried that before! I mean, if groups hadn't gone in there and started sterilizing those cats, they'd all be gone now. Because that's just how it works.



Yeah.



It's idiotic for wildlife advocates and feral advocates to fight like this. Our communities are huge wrecks of poverty, fast food and non-sustainability. Many kids never eat a piece of fruit in their lives. Urban sprawl spun out and is now painfully contracting, leaving wastelands of concrete and stripped-down abandoned suburban neighborhoods behind. And the corporations are using the current economic meltdown as an excuse to weaken environmental regulation on all kinds of industries.



We need to stop fighting and find ways to work together, as the two groups did in Foster City, and make it work. Neither has to die -- not the ferals and not wildlife. We have these big frontal lobes and opposable thumbs. I think we can figure this out if we try.



And then we can focus on the real issues. Because that's what's going to kill wildlife, and cats, and us.

Puppies can even solve the feral cat problem (sort of)

I'm trying to write a brilliant analysis of the feral cat situation in Los Angeles since the city got sued and forced to pull its funding for trap-neuter-release programs, and apparently even forced to stop referring rescuers to private sources of funding.



There are a lot of issues involved here, although most of them, in my view, are just a big smokescreen for a very ugly anti-cat agenda, but hey, if I didn't have an opinion, would you read what I write? I think not.



So, while I'm trying to wrap my brain around this issue and figure out just what I want to say, my future puppy's breeder, as if she could read my mind all the way from Michigan, sends magical sleepy puppy picture email to me!



I can't pretend it made me smarter, or this issue less cantankerous, but it definitely made me smile and coo and use words like "puppers" and you know, in general make a complete fool of myself.



Which is, I believe, the official function of puppies, is it not?



Those little 3-week-old mergatroyds (don't ask; it's just what my mom and I always called male deerhound puppies, I have no idea why) look like they just woke up. Barely. I think they're leaning on each other so they don't fall down in a heap.



Can I survive until the end of March?



Okay, back to reading lawsuits and scientific studies and making my head hurt.



But first, just one more look at the pictures...

Catch me on Live from the Left Coast this afternoon!

The wondrous Angie Coiro is back from her post-holiday hiatus today, and she asked me to join her at 4:30 pm Pacific Time this afternoon on her radio show "Live from the Left Coast" to welcome in the New Year and bring everyone up to speed on the ketamine recall, pet rescue efforts in Haiti (I'll be mentioning the incredible work being done by search and rescue dogs, too!), and of course, Michael Vick, the Ed Block Courage Award, and his new reality TV show.

You can listen to it streaming here, and they also run an online chat so listeners can talk with each other via text while the show is airing. I usually hang out there for a while before and after I'm on the air.

Hope you'll listen in!

NOTE: A power outage in Redwood City, CA, due to the winter storm we've been having since last night seems to have knocked the show off the air. Will keep you posted!

NOTE 2: And we're back!