Dogged Blog

On not watching the Oscars

There's a certain cachet to not watching the Super Bowl, right? It just makes you look incredibly cool, that your life is so full of hip and meaningful pastimes and commitments that a bunch of guys in padded suits ramming into each other for money is just too, too banal for you to care about.

I don't think that's why I don't like watching it, though. Because I feel the same sense of, "Oh, good, I won't have to wait to get seated at a restaurant tonight!" about the Academy Awards as I do about the Super Bowl.

Most years, I've not even seen one of the nominated films. It happens that this year, I have. Like the hopeless geek I am, I saw "The Social Network" the weekend it opened. Of course I did. But that's it. I haven't even heard of most of the others, and the only one I want to see, "The King's Speech," has been playing at a theater within walking distance of my house since December, and I still haven't seen it yet.

But I'm not sure I'd want to watch the Academy Awards even if I'd seen all the films, and even if I cared who won. I didn't watch the Golden Globes, either, and I'm a big fan of "Glee," right?

I just don't seem to like to watch big television events. I like to follow them on Twitter, but not watch them myself. I don't know if this is a sign that I've become hopelessly meta and completely out of touch with real life, or that at least you can Tweet from the dog park instead of being chained to a TV set.

And yes, I do believe this post marks the return of my long-abandoned "Sunday bloviation" series!

Photo: Me holding an Academy Award, just to show that there was a time when I wasn't remotely as disinterested in the Oscars as I am now. That's Rob Epstein with me, and the award was for the 1989 best documentary, for his film "Common Threads," about the AIDS quilt.

CNN: Wisconsin? Never heard of it. Charlie Sheen? We're all over it.

CNN is covering the second anniversary of the "Tea Party," how to make rotisserie chicken, and Charlie Sheen's breakdown.

But the 100,000 people in Madison protesting for their rights? The fact that the police refused to shut down the protest in the capitol and instead, went and slept with the protesters?

Ten seconds and cut. "Liberal media" my ass.

From somewhere I never expected to be getting my national political news, Boing Boing:

Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: "We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what's right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!'

Full story here, with video.

Snow in San Francisco? Not so's you'd notice

No, it didn't snow in San Francisco. The news reporters couldn't let go of it... when the storm fizzled out Thursday night/Friday morning, they seemed so let down, and then when they started saying, "It's going to come Friday night now! Really! This time we mean it!" I was all, uh-huh. Let go, guys.

And while there may have been a few flakes mixed in with the rain up on Twin Peaks, we're now on day two of bright sunshine and temps in the 40s -- cold for us here in San Francisco, yes, but really not that exciting.

However, my birdbath was frozen over this morning when I went out with the dogs. Oh, Mother Nature in all your horrifying display!

Rawley Deerhound and the terrible bright horrible morning light

Rawley is not, as I've said before, a morning dog. His attitude towards being woken up is best represented by this photo, which I took with my iPhone this very morning at around 7:15 AM, after I'd already been up for half an hour:

 

When he realized I wasn't going to go away, he gave me The Look -- check out the expression in his eyes:

Then he realized the whole thing was just too, too fatiguing and he started to fall back to sleep.

Oh, Rawls. Best little face to wake up to every day, though!

Head of B.C. task force: Sled dogs ' aren ' t pets, ' can be killed

If you thought the fate of the 100 sled dogs who were slaughtered in British Columbia would mean a better day ahead for dogs, think again.



Instead of learning from the tragedy, instead of understanding that yes, sled dogs can be and frequently are adopted into pet homes, instead of acknowledging that death -- whether it's from a bullet to the head, a knife to the throat, or a syringe full of Fatal-plus --  is not an acceptable canine retirement plan, the task force assigned to investigate the killings is turning its back on Canada's working sled dogs.



Task force head Terry Lake, a veterinarian and past vice-president of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association as well as currently an elected official representing Kamloops-North Thompson in the B.C. legislature, had this to say to The Canadian Press:

Lake speculated the task force could end up recommending tighter rules and regulations to govern B.C.'s sled dog industry.



He said the task force will also review the gruesome ways in which the dogs died and likely recommend guidelines for more humane methods of destroying working animals.



"In over 20 years of practise, I probably have euthanized hundreds of animals, and, of course, in an acceptable and humane way," Lake said. "These are not pet dogs we are dealing with, and so the method of euthanasia in a veterinary office is not the only humane method of euthanasia. I think that's an important thing to say."

You know what, Mr. Lake? It's a stupid thing to say. It's a false thing to say. It's a steaming pile of crap. You should be removed from this task force for having given up on these dogs before your investigation even began. You make me sick. Your fellow veterinarians should turn their backs on you when you walk in the door.



I shouldn't really be all that surprised; the president of the British Columbia SPCA is on the task force, too -- you know, the organization that said these dogs weren't adoptable, without having ever seen or evaluated a single one of them? Who said if they'd been brought into the case earlier, they'd have killed them, too?



But, you know... humanely.



I could understand, barely, that the sled dog tour company took the attitude that the dogs were just livestock and could be disposed of when their usefulness was at an end. I didn't like it, I didn't agree with them, but it at least had some kind of rational framework I could grasp.



But this? Veterinarians and animal welfare officials talking about how these dogs aren't pets and as long as they're killed less horrifically than the way Robert Fawcett did it, that's okay? But don't worry, it doesn't even have to be in a veterinarian's office to be humane.



And it's the mushers and sled dog tour operators you think need regulation? It sounds to me like this task force needs regulation. What do you think?



Photo: Some "unadoptable" sled dogs enjoying their retirement with Jo Jacques of Salem, Mass. But remember... these aren't pets.

Lessons from a sled dog massacre

In the aftermath of the horrific   massacre of 100 sled dogs in British Columbia, Marcie Moriarty, the head of animal cruelty for the B.C. SPCA went on record as saying that even had the organization known that the dogs needed help, they'd have probably ended up killing them all themselves.



Her reason? Working sled dogs are "unadoptable." As she told the Vanouver Sun:

"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 percent of their lives."

From my SFGate.com column today:



That sweeping generalization is easy to disprove, simply by meeting any of the thousands of working sled dogs who have successfully made the transition from tether to living room sofa.

"Two of my four sled dogs were adopted as adults from a professional dog racing kennel," said Jo Jacques of Salem, Mass., president of the International Siberian Husky Club. "One was two and the other was nine when we adopted them. Both adore meeting new people and love dogs. They can take Cheerios from babies without even leaving spit on their fingers."



One of the dogs, Viking, grew up in a mushing kennel. Around six months after Jacques had adopted him, she became very ill. "I had a difficult time walking," she said, "Viking never left my side. When I would have to move anywhere, he would paste himself against my left hip and stabilize me. If I fell, he would position himself in front of me and help me up."



Amazingly, Jacques never trained Viking to do this; it was all his idea. "Hearing the SPCA call these dogs 'unadoptable' as a group, sight unseen, without any individual evaluations infuriates me," she said. "It makes me just want to hug my 'unadoptable' sled dogs and cry all day."



Nannette Morgan of Morgan Hill adopted a sled dog named Cricket from a mushing kennel.



"The biggest problem I had with her is that she was used to being outside," Morgan told me. "The first couple of weeks it was hard to get her in the house at night. Then when she'd come in, she'd look up at the ceiling, looking for the stars."



It took only around a month, the companionship of Morgan's other dog, Binks, and what Morgan called "gentle guidance" to get Cricket adjusted to her new life.



"She's totally at home," Morgan said. "She's a princess. She has a chair she likes to sit on. She sleeps on my bed."

Both Jacques and Morgan went into detail about sled dog operations that know how to do right by their dogs, the still-developing sled dog re-homing network, and tips on helping working sled dogs make the adjustment to family pet:

Those stories, along with those of Cricket, Viking and the rest, demonstrate that people who insist sled dogs are "unadoptable" are wrong.



That alone should end the argument, but somehow, it doesn't. The bias of those like the B.C. SPCA and their unnamed "expert" is just too deep to be changed by the facts.



But if the Michael Vick case taught us anything, it's that all dogs being assessed for temperament and the ability to adapt to life as pets deserve an individual evaluation and shouldn't be dismissed as "unadoptable" because they came from a certain background. This is true of dogs like Vick's and the many lesser-known victims of dog fighting rings; it's also true of racing greyhounds and sled dogs.

I have a lot more to say, and I hope you'll read the whole article.



Thanks to Jo Jacques and Nannette Morgan for talking to me about their dogs, and sharing their beautiful photos with my readers. Seen here is Viking, courtesy of Jacques.

And the Scottish Deerhound wins at the Garden!

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: The Scottish Deerhound won Westminster tonight.



Okay, I know that there are ten million things wrong with dog shows, purebred dogs, and the whole genetic mess that is the world of the closed stud book.



I also know that popularity is a deadly curse for dog breeds.



But can we set that all aside for ten seconds, just long enough for me to scream: OMG! A Scottish Deerhound won Westminster!



I was once at a pet fair with a friend who was a hearing dog trainer, who was there to do a demonstration. I brought my beautiful Lillie with me -- a conformation champion and my beloved companion who slept on the bed with me every night until she died at the age of 12.



And a woman with two children walked up to me and said, "That's a face only a mother could love."



It's not the only time something like that's happened to me, that some jerk felt the need to tell me that my sleek running machine was "bony" or that face with its melting eyes was "ugly."



So like I said, I know all that other stuff is true. I really do. But would you just dance around the room yelling with me and Rawley tonight, because someone saw the beauty in this breed that I see every night when I go to sleep, and every morning when I open my eyes?



And please join me in sending congratulations to my friends Ceil and Scott Dove, who bred the lovely GCH Foxcliffe Hickory Wind and share their lives and 50-acre Virginia farm with her, and to her other owner, Sally Sweatt.



And hey, Gina... this, too:







Photo of Hickory courtesy of the Westminster Kennel Club.

Why shelters say ' no ' to rescue groups, and why it has to stop

Are shelters that close their doors to rescue groups protecting animals, or their own power?



The battle over New York State's proposed law to prohibit shelters from killing animals if qualified rescue groups are willing to take them has heated up again with the bill's reintroduction.



Now, the reason the big shelters give for opposing this law is that they believe "hoarders" and unqualified rescue groups will come get animals, and they want to hold onto the right to approve or disapprove whether a rescue group can take their "death row" pets.



However, since if the bill passes there will be significant restrictions on who can and can't take animals, and what animals can be rescued,  I don't think that's the real issue. I believe what's really eating at shelters opposing this bill is that it will be the law, not the shelters themselves, that controls access to those animals. I think they resist the loss of power, and in some cases, the possible exposure to criticism and whistleblowing on conditions in their facilities they fear access could bring.



One of the reasons I believe the whole "hoarder/bad rescuer" objection is just an excuse is that we've had a right of shelter access -- known as The Hayden Law -- here in California for more than a decade now. While there have been a few (a very few) times when there were bad outcomes from rescuers taking pets who would otherwise have been killed, the opposite problem is extremely common.



Hardly a week goes by that I don't hear from a rescuer being denied access illegally -- and despite my telling them their rights and in some cases offering to help them get pro bono legal representation, they're afraid to do anything about it because they believe the shelters will retaliate by cutting off their access to the animals entirely.



That is why it is completely unacceptable to let the very shelters these laws are meant to regulate be the gatekeepers of access for rescue groups.



The shelter industry is essentially arguing it should be allowed to regulate itself, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is being "divisive" or attacking them. But no industry should self-regulate; not agriculture, not drug companies, not restaurants, not donation-soliciting charities, not hair salons, not Wall Street.  The more we have relied on self-regulation in these industries, the more catastrophic have been the outcomes. Witness what's just happened to our economy.



The shelter industry, frankly, is sounding more like agribusiness to me on this issue than like an animal welfare organization.



Furthermore, their concerns are misplaced. The proposed New York law has far more restrictions placed on rescue groups than the California law. It has exemptions for dogs who have been found to be dangerous, and those with serious illnesses and injuries. And of course, if a shelter doesn't want a "death row" pet to go with the rescuer for some reason, all they have to do is not kill that pet -- this law is only for animals who would otherwise be killed.



But that's not enough. By opposing this law, they're saying they don't want shelter access to be a right, but at their discretion. They want to say who can save an animal, and who can't. And they'll frighten you with the specter of hoarding, propelled by the profit-hungry television machine that's currently gorging on hoarder-mania, and the far-fringe of the animal rights movement that thinks animals are better off dead than in the care of human beings. Great company to hang out with, guys. Seriously.



This law is not just good for New York, it's good for every state. And this obsession with holding onto power is particularly chilling considering that so many "shelters" all over the country are nothing more than hellholes and death factories, and yet they still insist they have the right to decide who is a "good" rescuer and who is a "bad" rescuer.



That's true in Toledo, Ohio, where animal control warden Tom Skeldon was 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 the New York State assembly member sponsoring the bill, Micah 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.



Animal advocates need to understand that codifying a right that saves animal lives -- and, by the way, saves shelters money -- in a responsible manner is not a threat to them.



I understand that there are symbolic issues here; the law, dubbed "Oreo's Law," was named after a pit bull killed by New York City's ASCPA despite the fact that a rescue group was willing to take her. As a human being with feelings, I can understand that the ASPCA feels attacked by this law; it is, indeed, meant to prevent them from doing anything like that again.



But they fought the law to a standstill last year. They've made their point. They should admit that laws like this are good for animals and good for shelters -- something they clearly already know, given that when current head of the ASPCA Ed Sayres was head of a shelter here in California, he supported the Hayden Law, despite the fact that it has far fewer safeguards than the New York law includes.



I call on all New York State shelters to embrace this law. If the name really bothers you that much, promise to support the law if the name's changed.



But if you've got nothing more than a desire to hold onto power and a bruised ego over a name? Get over it. It's time.

Anatomy of a sled dog massacre

The more I learn about the mass-killing of 100 sled dogs in British Columbia, the more the phrase "nobody's dogs" keeps going through my mind.



They were killed -- brutally -- by the man who was supposed to be caring for him, who had, in some cases, raised them from  pups.



The company that "downsized" them out of existence mostly defended itself by saying it hadn't known how the dogs were going to be killed, as if a clean death in a vet's office could somehow sanitize killing 100 healthy dogs.



And the local shelter, whose mission was supposedly to help animals in their community, to provide rescue, haven, and re-homing, was on record saying that even if they'd been aware of the dogs' plight before they were massacred, they'd probaby have killed them, too.



Didn't these dogs have anyone who gave a damn about them?



They did. Sadly, those people didn't know what was going to happen in time to stop it, but they're speaking out now. For my SFGate.com column, I spoke with a number of sled dog advocates, and learned about their dogs, and efforts to make sure all former and retired sled dogs have a happy ending when their time on the trail is done.



My editor, however, felt that my SFGate readers wouldn't have enough background, so he had me turn the column into a two-part series. Part one runs today, with a focus on the history of the slaughter in much more detail -- some of it graphic -- than I shared here on Pet Connection. Click with caution.

It was a dog-lover's worst nightmare made real. Canadian radio station CKNW obtained leaked workers-compensation documents that graphically described the brutal massacre of 100 dogs in the British Columbia town of Whistler.



A man later identified as Robert Fawcett, manager of a sled dog tour company in Whistler, had filed the claim, citing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by "having to put down a large number of dogs" under orders of his employer, Outdoor Adventures Whistler, because business had fallen off.



Fawcett, the claim states, had been with the company for many years, and knew the dogs well. He had named them. He'd raised them. He was responsible for feeding them, caring for them, and handling them. He lived with them, and was available to tend to them seven days a week. He had developed, he said, "a relationship of mutual love and trust" with them.

Read the rest here... the second part will run next week.



Photo from SFGate.com: A sled dog rests at a kennel operated by Whistler Outdoor Adventures near Whistler, British Columbia, on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2011. Darryl Dyck / AP

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.