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How Much is That Doggie in the Window? Way too much

8/14/2019

1 Comment

 
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In 1952, Patti Page recorded a song called, “How Much is that Doggie in the Window,” which was written by Bob Merrill. Many of us over a certain age have heard the lyrics, the most memorable of which are: “How much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggly tail. How much is that doggie in the window? I do hope that doggie’s for sale.” The song goes on to talk about the singer leaving her sweetheart alone to take a trip, not wanting him to be lonely, and getting him a dog to keep him company and protect him from robbers. In 1952, the average cost of a new house was just over $9,000, the average wages for a year were just under $4,000, a gallon of gas cost 20 cents and a new car cost less than $2,000.
 
I was born in the decade after the song was released and grew up in a time when the sight of a pet store with animals for sale was not uncommon. This was a different era, long before the days when animal welfare for companion animals or related to animal shelters was on the radar of most of the public. Pets were sold in stores. They ranged from dogs to rabbits to hamsters to rats to fish. I don’t recall ever having seen a kitten in a store, but I’m sure they were there.

The concept of selling pets in stores seems harmless at a glance. People in America are animal friendly and many of them share their lives with companion animals who are considered family members. We got our first cat when I was very young and I have lived all of my life in the company of companion animals much like many other Americans. It would seem this a simple case of demand creating supply. But make no mistake. Times have changed drastically and what once may have been a harmless norm in our society is anything but that now. So how much is that doggie in the window? Way too much.
Dogs have been a part of American culture from the days we first set foot on this continent. I won’t recount the history of our domestication of dogs as species here or cover our relationships with dogs as settlers in a new land.  Our relationship with dogs dates back thousands of years. Prior to the Victorian era, dogs were defined by their function. By the early 1900’s, different types of dogs were being developed by breeders who wanted specific features and characteristics in their dogs. We have so many breeds of dogs now that it is easy to forget the are the same species.
 
Commercial dog breeding operations first became a part of American culture following World War II and were introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture. In response to widespread crop failures in the Midwest, the USDA began promoting purebred puppies as a fool-proof “cash” crop. This concept was well received by farmers facing hard times; breeding dogs does not require the intense physical labor that it takes to produce edible crops, nor are dogs as vulnerable to unfavorable weather. Chicken coops and rabbit hutches were “re-purposed” for dogs, and the retail pet industry - pet stores large and small - boomed with the increasing supply of puppies.
 
There is much disagreement in our country about what to call places where large number of dogs are bred to be sold in stores. Some call them commercial dog breeding operations. Others call them dog farms. Still others refer to them as “puppy mills.” As I blogged about a couple of years ago, I refer to them as mills due to volume of dogs being produced. I have been told that some commercial breeders take great offense at this phrase. Following a 2015 ruling by a federal judge in a case brought by the Missouri Pet Breeder’s Association about an ordinance banning the sale of dogs in Cook Count, Illinois, from commercial breeders, Hank Grosenbacher (former president of the Missouri Pet Breeders Association), was quoted as saying he was unhappy with perceptions of large commercial breeders. "Puppy mill was a moniker given out by the activists and the Humane Society to be extremely negative, perhaps even more so than a racial slur," Grosenbacher said. In the case of Smith v. Humane Society of the United States, 519 S.W. 3D 789, 801 (2017), a puppy mill was defined as a commercial farming operation in which purebred dogs are raised in large numbers. That’s good enough for me.
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No matter what we call these factory farming operations, the sale of dogs in pet stores and pet shops is big business in America. Millions of dollars change hands.  Approximately 68% of U.S. households have pets (approximately 85 million households) and approximately 90 million of them are dogs. Approximately 4% of all dogs are purchased from pet stores.  The problem is not so much the number of dogs being sold in stores as where those dogs come from in our current society. They do not come from a nice, local breeder down the street and may not even come from a breeder in the same state where the pet store is located.  A Fact Sheet published by the Humane Society of the United States contains the following highlights:
 
Pet store puppies come from puppy mills. Responsible breeders do not sell their puppies to pet stores because they want to meet their puppy buyers in person—and a majority of national breed club Codes of Ethics prohibit or discourage their members from selling their dogs to pet stores.
 
Puppies sold in pet stores come from all over the country—and many come from breeders with one or more Animal Welfare Act violations. Some breeders found selling to pet stores have a record of repeat violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.
 
Pet stores often do not disclose the origin of the puppies they sell. Most pet stores do not disclose the true origins of their puppies, instead using deceptive sales pitches about “USDA licensed” or “professional” breeders. Unfortunately, the federal Animal Welfare Act provides survival standards for dogs, not humane care standards.
 
Puppies sold at pet stores often have serious health or psychological problems. Some of the illnesses common to pet store puppies include zoonotic diseases which can be spread to other pets and humans. Buyers are often faced with enormous vet bills or even the death of the puppy within days or weeks of purchase.
The bottom line is pretty simple when it comes to this subject. If you don’t want to support large commercial dog breeding operations, do not want to support breeding operations in which dogs are not treated in ways of which you would approve, and don’t want to risk the spread of illnesses from those dogs to other pets and humans, don't buy a dog from a pet store. My entire platform promotes adoption and rescue of dogs to bring an end the needless killing of dogs in our nation’s animal shelters.  The variety of dogs available from organizations within driving distance of where you live may astound you and if you want a dog who is not near you, adoption may still be an option for you depending on the rules of the organization. If you want a dog from a breeder, that is your right. Seek out a breeder which meets your standards, allows you to see the conditions in which the dogs live and has a proven track record of producing healthy dogs.

Although some in advocacy circles pronounce, “do not breed or buy while shelter dogs die,” I do not. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect everyone to adopt a dog and although I am not a fan of breeding dogs, it is perfectly legal. Some people who breed dogs are hobby breeders who do it for the love of the breed. My dentist breeds Black Russian Terriers, one of whom was Best in Breed at Westminster some years back. The dogs she breeds go on to live wonderful lives in carefully selected homes. I feel pretty confident that any money that changes hands is far outweighed by the money spent on the dogs. As far as those people who breed dogs as their sole source of income, they have have a right to make a living that way regardless of whether or not you approve of it.

You can also go one step further and support local laws which prohibit the sale of animals in pet stores or pet shops which come from breeders or brokers (brokers are the middlemen of the dog supply chain; they purchase dogs from breeders which are then sold to pet stores to sell to the public). With each passing month, more and more places across the country enact preemptive laws to preclude national pet supply chains from setting up shop in their communities and selling dogs who are imported from commercial breeders in other states or from within the state.  People, and the elected officials who govern them, are taking a stand to say, “not in our city.” The reason preemptive laws are so important is that once a pet store begins selling animals, trying to stop that process is incredibly difficult because it is considered interfering with commerce. There are advocates who protest weekly at pet stores that sell animals not because it will cause the business to behave differently, but it hopes of reaching consumers and educating them that buying pet store animals enables the commercial dog breeding industry.
 
The state where I live is currently on a roll of sorts with local laws being enacted to provide that pet shops or pet stores must source dogs from local animal shelters and from rescue groups which do not get dogs from breeders or brokers. These laws have no effect on the ability of people to get a dog from a breeder of their choice. The process is just not facilitated by local retail stores. I have heard from opponents of these laws that they are intended to bring an end to commercial dog breeding or to “shut down puppy mills.” I don’t agree with that premise at all.* The laws are consumer protection laws at their core. The CDC determined that pet store dogs have spread diseases to the human population, making this a health issue. Many dogs sold in stores are sick or have genetic defects making the treatment costs an expense the consumer likely does not expect. I am also told that some sales from pet stores are not actually sales at all and that people are only leasing the animals. I have no idea how that contract language would read, but I feel confident that most people who get a dog at a pet store think it belongs to them and have no idea the animal is leased to them. Beyond that, every community has the right to set standards for the types of businesses which operate within their borders for the greater good of all and to avoid the potential negative effect of retail pet sales on local animal control systems or adoption of animals from the public from shelters and rescues.
 
It is up to all of us to make good choices related to how we acquire the animals who share our homes and lives.  You can show that you don’t support commercial dog breeding operations through the choices you may and the laws you support.

To learn more about the commercial dog breeding industry and all the money at work, I encourage you to watch the documentary film "Dog by Dog." I consider it must-see viewing.

I also encourage you to view the information on the Harley's Dream website. Harley Taylor was the 2015 American Hero Dog and a puppy mill survivor.

*note - I do not support any breeding operation which fails to provide proper care to the animals being bred or their offspring. If the side benefit of local laws is not supporting commercial dog breeding operations which are substandard, I see that as a good thing.
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(pet store images courtesy of Hector Parayuelos, Viking and Nicole Mays)
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What Do You Stand For?

8/17/2017

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The events of this last week which took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, have left most people angry, upset and outraged. We have all seen the video clips and images of the rally and counter-protest which led to the death of one woman and two state troopers and left 19 others injured. I watched along with everyone else and felt a profound sense of sadness as I wondered what happened to bring our country to this level of hate and outrage.

On Monday night, I received an email from a No Kill contact in Texas. He wrote to warn me that a common contact of ours who led a non-profit organization had been "outed" as having been present at the white nationalist rally. I thanked him for telling me, but didn’t take any steps to look into it. My first reaction was that surely this was a case of mistaken identity. I told myself I would look into on Tuesday morning. As I watched the evening news, I heard a news story about people being "outed" on Facebook using video clips and images of the rally and violence. The story reported that people were being encouraged to call out those people who attended in support of the "Unite The Right" rally if they saw images or video clips of people they knew. I was sure that there was some error. Surely no one I know would attend a rally in support of bigotry, separation, discrimination and separation.

I was wrong.
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Most of us interact with people in our lives with whom we do not share they same political beliefs. That truth has been no more evident in my life than in the last year. The political divisions in our country are wide. I keep my beliefs to myself for the most part. I know there are people with whom I have little in common in terms of my political positions and I tend to just stay in my own lane of travel and let other people do the same. There is a vast difference between having a general awareness that someone you know has vastly different political views than your own and having any concept at all that they would align themselves with groups of people whose values are both repugnant and intolerable to most of us. It was suggested to me that many of the people who attended the rally in Charlottesville did so in order to stand up for free speech and protect Constitutional rights. I firmly believe in the First Amendment right to free speech. I just draw a line  personally when that speech is hate speech of the KKK, white supremacists and Neo-Natzis.

I had no idea.
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I have never met Debi Day, the founder of No Kill Nation, Inc. We have connected by email and on social media. We’ve interacted about No Kill philosophies and about issues related to breed bans of pit bull type dogs in Miami-Dade county and across the nation. I held her in high regard due to her commitment to advance No Kill philosophies to save the lives of shelter animals, much of which was shown through her financial support of No Kill Conferences and her financial support toward the production of the documentary film about the No Kill movement which was released in 2009. I was acquainted with her due to common interests, but I would not say that I really knew her.

On Tuesday morning, August 15, 2017, I severed all ties with Debi and with No Kill Nation, Inc. I have absolutely zero tolerance for the behavior of any person who promotes, defends of enables voices of hate, bigotry and separation. I will not be associated with that behavior in any way. Period. The No Kill Nation website and Facebook page are now gone.

I fully recognize that there are opponents of No Kill philosophies and opportunists who are using the revelations about Debi Day’s behavior and associations to try to taint the entire No Kill subject. There is really no discussion to be had on this topic. The No Kill movement is bigger than one person. It is bigger than Debi. It is bigger than me. To those who are trying to discredit a social movement the focus of which is saving the lives of animals, I say this: you are wasting your time.

No Kill advocates across the country have already banded together to continue to speak with one voice to end the needless destruction of healthy and treatable animals in our nation’s shelters using tax dollars and donations even though many of us are grieving. If you are so incredibly outraged by Ms. Day’s behavior, as am I and are my peers, do something productive with that outrage. Get involved in our own community. Speak out for what you value in your own life. And speak out for the shelter animals who need you to be their voice. Saving lives is not a partisan issue at all and it has nothing at all to do with politics beyond holding municipalities accountable for how they spend our money. I stand in solidarity with other No Kill advocates across the country who have spoken out against Debi’s behavior and have severed ties with her. I stand for animals who need my help and for advocates who are working incredibly hard to bring about reform in their own communities.

Think about what you stand for and then go do something about it.
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(rally image courtesy of the Richmond Times Dispatch)
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The Power of Advocacy Related to Animals

1/5/2017

3 Comments

 
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 In the years since I had my unwelcome epiphany about the plight of shelter animals – which led to greater awareness about a host of issues concerning companion animals in general – I have had the privilege of connecting with people across the country whom I consider trailblazers for the sake of animals. If you are new to the topic of animal welfare, you may not know their names. I call them Nathan and Mike and Theresa and Rudi and Dan and Mary and Ryan and Tamira and Davyd and Becky and Brian and Valerie and Debi and Terri and Kathy and Christie and Doug and Bett and Karen and Keith. All are very active related to the topics of no kill animal sheltering and ending puppy mills and ending the chaining/tethering of dogs and getting lost dogs back home and TNR of community cats and ending breed stereotypes and bans. What all of these contacts of mine have in common is that they don’t work for large national animal welfare organizations. Some of them manage nonprofit organizations, but most of them work full-time jobs and aren’t paid a dime for their advocacy. It is something they do because they are compelled to take action to improve our society and improve the welfare of the dogs and cats we say we value and care for. They act because they have to and it is part of who they are as people.
 
I get a lot of email from people in other states about a variety of issues due to my outspokenness. Many want to know how to bring about change in their own areas and really don’t know where to start.  Most have put some reliance on large national organizations to bring about change and have been left disappointed in that process. They ask, “what could I possibly do as one person? How can I possibly make things better related to _____________ (fill in the blank on the topic) in my city or my state?” I think that for most of us, the idea of taking on an issue ourselves is pretty daunting. We know we want to help, but may feel overwhelmed at the work we see before us to bring about change. The problems just seem so – to use an overused word – HUGE.

Take heart, animal advocate. Because you do have the power to bring about change and your voice is louder than you may imagine. You do need to educate yourself on your topic. An informed advocate is an effective advocate. But speaking out on your own can be of more value than you may realize in your current state of mind.

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I was reminded of this recently while reading a book written by a contact of mine named Becky Monroe called Bark Until Heard: Among the Silenced Dogs I Found My Voice.  Becky and I just recently connected on the topic of puppy mills as a result of one of my earlier blogs on the topic. I have yet to blog about her book, but the reasons she wrote her book got me thinking about this whole topic of advocacy by individual people. Without taking away from your enjoyment of Bark Until Heard, the premise is pretty simple: Becky ended up at a puppy mill auction somewhat unexpectedly, saved a dog she named Thorp and was forever changed by the process, making it part of her life’s purpose to educate others about the horrors of the puppy mill industry in an effort to bring an end to it.  I’m sure when Becky started what could be described as a crusade to end puppy mills, she had no idea how successful she would be. But that didn’t matter to her. She connected with like-minded people, she sent emails and composed letters, she wrote articles which helped people get a glimpse of what she had experienced and now she has a very successful book she is using as a means to reach more of the public. She truly did find her voice.

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I was also reminded of this recently while engaging with fellow advocate Steve Shank of Lake County, Florida. Steve has been working for years to shine a light on the dark corners of the house that is animal sheltering in his county. He has been met with opposition, resistance and most recently what I would consider at best deception and at worst lies by the current shelter leadership to make things seem better than they are. Steve is just one person. But he did not give up and he stayed true to his vision. He ultimately connected with a county commissioner who got on board with his goals right away and in just a couple of weeks, a no kill consultant will be traveling to his county to meet with local officials and talk about plans for the county to run a no kill animal shelter using progressive and proven programs. I am sure that much like Becky, Steve had no clue where all this would go when he decided to take the risk of being the one to speak out for the animals who could not speak for themselves. The future of Lake County is still unfolding, but I’m sure we can all agree that there are many changes ahead and that the animals in that area are soon to be safer than at any time in the history of the county. Steve and his contacts will face opposition from a host of sources which will surprise many people. PETA, local rescuers and general naysayers will say that no kill is not possible or it means institutionalized hoarding or it costs too much. The problem with the pushback like that is that it seldom survives the reality of communities which change drastically and in very short periods of time. It’s hard to say the world is flat or we didn’t go to the moon or no kill communities are not real when they continue to emerge with increasing speed.

Being a voice for animals is hard work. It may cause you to lose what you thought were friendships. It may baffle the people you love who are closest to you who support you, but who may not truly understand the depth of your commitment to bring about change. It may cause you to be vilified by organizations or individuals as they defend the status quo and focus more on the messenger than on the reasons why the message was necessary in the first place.
 
But never doubt the power of individual advocacy related to companion animals whether it is on a general topic or whether is it focused on a state or municipality which is using tax dollars related to animals in ways which are not consistent with our culture and our values in America. Sometimes all it takes is one person putting themselves “out there” to help others find the courage to do the same. Which means that instead of being an army of one, you may find that you are one of many as you work together to change our society and help many more animals than you may ever realize.
 
To borrow a lyric from Sara Bareilles, show me how big your brave is.
(images courtesy of Becky Monroe and Steve and Hank Shank)
3 Comments

A Little HeLP From Your Friends (Getting Lost Pets Back Home)

12/9/2016

4 Comments

 
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It happens every day. Pets get lost or go missing, people frantically try to find them and in some cases, they never do. As the go-to animal person at my office, I hear about this regularly. The family cat who was scared by fireworks on New Year’s Eve and bolted through an open door. The newly adopted rescue dog who was let outside to relieve herself and ran because she was scared by a car. Maybe the worst one I heard at work was about an elderly dog with limited vision who slipped out a door when some contractors were doing renovation work. The family felt she could not have gone far and did all the right things:  searched the neighborhood, knocked on doors, put up flyers, put a “lost” ad in the local paper, put food and her bedding outside. They even went to the municipal animal shelter with photos in hand to look for her, only to be told, “sorry, your dog is not here.” They searched and knocked on doors for days. After almost a week of anguish, the family went back to the shelter one more time on a hunch, only to discover their beloved dog had been there for a week and was scheduled to be euthanized the next day. This family was both lucky and incredibly relieved. Some are not so lucky.

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I know that animals end up in shelters for a host of reasons and that some of those reasons have to do with public irresponsibility. But not every animal in a shelter is there because of someone’s fault. We do better at a society to treat each and every shelter animal as someone’s beloved pet who is lost than to presume that “the irresponsible public” does not care enough to keep them safe. Gates get left open by children, contractors pay more attention to ladders and tools than to cats and animals are displaced due to traffic accidents and bad weather. Life happens. It is a reality of our animal sheltering system that healthy and treatable animals are destroyed every day and in most cases these are simply lost pets who could not be identified in order to be reunited with their families. It is a national tragedy.
 
I’m a huge proponent of microchipping all pets whether they live inside of not. You simply must prepare for the possibility that they may end up outside and while collars and tags are also advised (with breakaway collars for cats for safety purposes), nothing can really take the place of what amounts to a barcode for your companion animal to help them be identified if they get lost and end up in a shelter, with a rescue group or at a veterinary office. Most microchips cost very little, including lifetime registration, and really can make the difference in ensuring your pet can be identified if he or she is lost (or even if they are stolen).

If you do a simple search on social media using the words “lost found pet” you will come up with a variety of groups and pages all trying to help people find lost pets or trying to reunite found pets with the families searching for them. As valuable as these pages may be, they all have one thing in common. They are geography specific. Just because your dog goes missing from your home in X city doesn’t mean he or she will stay in that city. He may very well end up in Y county for whatever reason and you may never know that.  Animals don’t know geographic boundaries and the reality is that once your dog or cat is outside of your control, you really never know how far they will travel either on foot, in the back of a truck bed or in a vehicle or even taken an unknown distance by a good Samaritan who is simply trying to help them.
 
All this leads to an announcement about a wonderful new tool in our animal lover’s toolbox I learned about recently: a website called Helping Lost Pets (HeLP).  The website has been active since 2010 and is used across Canada and the United States.  The site is the brainchild of Rob Goddard of Goddard Information Systems Limited and is currently funded by his company (with hopes to be funded by sponsors and advertising at some point). I learned about Helping Lost Pets just recently and I’ve been telling everyone I know about it because it’s just such an incredible tool.
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The concept is simple: the website is a map-based site and is free to use for shelters and animal owners alike. If you run a shelter or animal control department and you pick up animals running at large or found animals reported to you, you enter them on the site with an image and some basics about where they were found. This allows pet owners to look for their lost pets. If you are an animal caregiver and your pet goes missing, you enter them on the site with an image and some basics about where they belong. This allows animal control personnel and social media platforms to help reunite lost pets with their families.  Helping Lost Pets describes the website this way:
 
HelpingLostPets.com (HeLP) is a FREE nationwide database for lost and found pets that connects shelters, veterinary clinics, rescue groups, the public, and volunteer groups across the nation to effectively reunite lost pets with their owners. What makes HeLP unique is it is mapbased and fully searchable by breed, location, size, color, gender, and other identifiable information, making it easy to match lost and found pet listings. To ensure our listings stay current, our system automatically contacts owners/finders for status updates at defined intervals. This allows our system to remain uptodate and display only pets that are still missing and truly need our help getting home. We have found that flyers are one of the most effective ways to reunite a lost pet. When someone list a pet, free flyers are instantly generated to provide an effective tool in getting a pet home.
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What makes the website even more powerful is the many volunteer groups across the country that also use the website to help pets get back home.  Lost Dogs of America is their largest partner with chapters in over 30 states now.

If you manage or are affiliated with an animal control agency, rescue group or veterinary office which often takes in lost pets, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to learn about this wonderful resource. If you are a pet owner, I encourage you to take all the normal steps to find your pet: talking to your neighbors, putting up flyers, putting an ad in a local paper, posting on social media, putting food and bedding outside, etc.

Having a pet go missing to never be found again can be a life-altering experience for you and can be a life-ending experience for your pet.  Please use HeLP. It’s quick, it’s free and you just never know when using that one extra tool in the toolbox will help you be reunited with your beloved companion. 

Lost Dog Recovery Tips:
http://lostdogsofamerica.org/lost-dog/recovery-procedures/
Lost Cat Recovery Tips:
http://www.missingpetpartnership.org/recovery-tips/lost-cat-behavior/
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Why You Should Adopt a Senior Pet

11/1/2016

1 Comment

 
I am considered the resident "animal person" where I work. I am known to be outspoken in my advocacy and that means people come to me for advice on a host of issues like re-homing a pet due to a death in the family, finding a lost pet, where to get the best prices for spay and neuter, which local rescue groups are the best, "what do we do about the bat hanging on the outside of the building," etc. I'm no expert on any of these topics, but I do try to steer people in the right direction while perhaps teaching them something in the process.  I had an inquiry from a co-worker recently about getting a new-to-him dog in the wake of the passing of a beloved dog. My response was immediate: get a senior.

Our attachments to animals are emotional and involve chemistry, so a lot of people gravitate to animals based on appearance or based on assumptions about future behavior. The reality of our culture is that people often get pets from breeders, stores or websites because they equate cost with value or worth and they believe animals from sources other than shelters and rescues are somehow superior. The flip side of that negative bias is that people assume that since animals die in shelters in all but our most progressive communities, they must somehow be damaged or broken. Neither or those assumptions is true. Animals in shelters are there due to no fault of their own and many may very well have been someone's beloved pet.  When it comes to animals adopted from shelters, our other reality is that people tend to gravitate toward younger, cuter animals while overlooking animals who are older.

In honor of Adopt a Senior Pet Month, here's my pitch for why you should adopt a senior animal.  My personal hope is that some day after I retire, I'll adopt only senior pets and work to give them the best years of their lives. They deserve nothing less.

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What You See  is What You Get.  All puppies are cute, but it can often be difficult to tell how large they will grow and what kind of personalities they will have as adults.  The same is true for kittens. When you adopt a senior pet, you know exactly what you are getting in terms of size, color and general physical condition. Some senior pets require a period of time to decompress from the circumstances which led them to you, but good shelters and rescues can tell you a lot about the animal's behavior and temperament so you know more about what to expect. Many animals adopted from rescue groups have been in foster homes so the group can tell you a lot about their personalities. The vast majority of  animals adopted from shelters and rescues are also fully vetted so you know about their health and they come to you spayed or neutered, vaccinated and microchipped.

Seniors are more mellow and predictable. As cute as a puppy may be, the reality is that they take a lot of work. They need structure and boundaries. We are responsible not only for teaching them our language, but learning how to understand the body language they use to communicate with us. Puppies can be destructive when bored and can be mouthy when playing.  Even young cats can have a destructive side and can keep you up at night with nocturnal play. A senior dog or cat has been there done that and is simply going to be a more mellow addition to your household. Many senior animals have spent years living with a family and are socialized to people. Senior dogs may know basic commands and may very well be house trained.  Even if an older dog is not house trained, many are very easily trained in a short period of time. All dogs and cats need exercise and mental stimulation but your senior pet just needs less to keep him or her entertained. Most senior pets don't require the same level of monitoring or training that younger animals require so they're a good choice for busy families with young children, for older people or for people with disabilities.


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Older Dogs (and Cats) Can Learn New Tricks.  Training a puppy or a young dog can take a lot of time, effort and repetition. You have to be consistent and help the dog learn what behaviors are expected and which are not appropriate. This includes involving all members of your family, including your children. Adult dogs and cats are simply more focused and learn fast.  If your senior dog needs to learn about how to function in your family, you can enroll him or her in an obedience class or consult with a behaviorist so you can learn how to read your dogs' behavior and how you can be a good pack leader. Although people perceive that cats cannot be trained due to their independent nature, most can be trained to follow basic instructions.

You Still Have Plenty of Time With Them.  Whether or not a dog is a senior is based on breed and size. In general, the larger the breed or size of the dog, the shorter the life span. Many large breeds are considered "senior" by the age of 6. Many smaller breeds are considered senior by the age of 10. Most cats are considered senior between the ages of 7 and 10. Regardless of the age of the senior, older pets still have plenty of great years left. If you get a medium sized dog who is 6 years old, he or she may have 10 good years left. If you get an 7 year old cat, he or she may have more than 10 years with you. You can talk to your veterinarian about ways to keep your senior dog or cat happy and healthy for many years after your lives together begin.

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Older Pets are Great for Seniors. A lot of older people don't get new pets because they worry about their ability to care for them for the entire life span of the pet. A dog or cat can live from 10 years to 20 years and some older people are worried that their pets may outlive them. When seniors adopt seniors, it can be a perfect fit. The older person gets an animal who is more mellow and who is more content to just spend time together and the animal gets a new life in a more mellow household where companionship is the focus of the relationship. Many animal shelters have Seniors for Seniors Programs in which adoption fees are either waived or greatly reduced and with programs in place to re-home an adopted pet if something happens to their adoptive family.

Be a Hero, Save a Life. Older dogs and cats are often overlooked in shelters and end up being destroyed in all but the most progressive communities even though they are perfectly healthy. When you adopt a senior animal, you are quite literally saving that animal's life.  If you have ever loved a animal into their old age, think about what a tragedy it would have been if that animal had never been given an opportunity to live out their last years in comfort. Although you may have fewer years together than with a puppy or kitten, your rescued senior may enhance your life in ways you never imagined. The health benefits of pets is well documented - they lower our blood pressure, reduce our stress levels and provide us with unconditional love that we rarely provide each other as humans. Older pets somehow just seem to know that you have done a good thing to help them and you may find yourself bonding with a senior much faster than you would with a younger animal.

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(images courtesy of Dana Kay Mattox Deutsch)
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Helping Man’s Best Friend

6/15/2016

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There was a time about a decade ago when I considered myself pretty well informed about animal issues simply because I grew up in an animal friendly household and I just like animals.  Looking back now, I just didn’t have a clue. Yes, I meant well, but I really was completely out of touch with most of the issues which now take up a lot of space in my head and about which I find myself thinking. A lot.
 
One of those issues relates to pit bull-type dogs and something called either breed discriminatory legislation (BDL) or breed specific legislation (BSL). I really didn’t have much awareness on this subject until long after the Vick debacle related to his arrest and which led to the 2007 relocation of 47 of the 49 dogs seized from his property (one dog was destroyed early in the process and another was later destroyed for medical reasons). I knew the dogs had been treated in ways most of us simply cannot imagine and they all deserved a second chance. But I really didn’t get into the topic of pit bull-type dogs and legislation issues related to breed until the summer of 2009 when I was asked by my local shelter director to write a “white paper” advocating adoption of “pit bulls” from her shelter. She told me she wanted the paper so she could use it to persuade some of her old guard employees that these dogs were not inherently bad and to convince some folks at city hall that she should not have what then was essentially a de facto ban on these dogs in her building, leading to their destruction. I told her I was not qualified to write a white paper, but that I would be happy to prepare a research paper if it would help her and would save the lives of dogs.
 
I think I knew even the she would never use the paper and so I wrote it to be of use pretty much everywhere, in hopes that someone would get some use out of it. It took me weeks to research and write and when I first shared it in September of 2009, I felt good about it. I had learned things along the way I just did not realize before and developed a great contact in the process through my interaction with Karen Delise, the founder of the National Canine Research Council.  The paper got passed around a bit, ended up on the Animal Law Coalition website, and the feedback was generally positive.  When I saw my shelter director being interviewed by a local news anchor years later (in late 2012), lamenting the fact that she had so many “pit bulls” she simply had trouble placing, I’ll admit it made me angry. Yes, I just wrote a paper. Yes, it was just research. But had she been genuinely interested in advocating for these dogs and helping to educate those around her on how great they are, all she had to do was read my paper and develop a plan of her own on how to use it. I decided to channel my anger into action and I revised my research paper in February of 2014. Some of the end links no longer work, but I stand by my research all of which is found here.
 
When you put the media hype aside and you take a real look not only at the breeds of dogs we all call “pit bulls,” but at the research regarding factors which cause fatal dog attacks, the reality is that these dogs are no different than any other dogs. All dogs have teeth. All dogs bite. How we treat dogs, objectify dogs, use dogs, whether we spay and neuter dogs and whether we neglect or abuse dogs all play a role in their behavior.  I am a huge proponent of breed blind legislation and I firmly believe that all dogs should be treated as individuals.  I’m fine with legislation which is focused on public safety, but which is completely silent regarding dog breed.  Some dogs really are dangerous. Some dogs are just broken, for lack of a better word, and should not be around people. But to take entire breeds of dogs – or worse yet – perceived breeds of dogs and try to legislate them is not only unconstitutional, but it is entirely ineffective.
 
I was on Facebook today and two items in my news feed stood in stark contrast to each other and served as a reminder that legislating dogs by breed simply does not work and is just wrong.
 
  • In Detroit, a beloved dog is at risk because his caregiver posted a picture of him which went viral. Local authorities saw the picture, decided the dog looked like a pit bull (he is actually an American Bulldog), took it upon themselves to find out where the family lives, went to knock on the door and told the owner he had three days to relocate “Diggy.” So this is how tax dollars are used in Detroit.
 
  • In Toronto, there are more dog bites than ever even thought a pit bull ban has been in place for over a decade and almost all pit bull-type dogs are gone from the area. We could have predicted that outcome a very long time ago.
 
If you really care about dogs or just about how municipalities spend your money in the name of public safety and through use of police power, please educate yourself about the history of the types of dogs we call “pit bulls” and about the real reasons behind dog aggression. The best way for you to help man's best friend is to be an informed animal lover or animal advocate. If the whole subject is a bit too overwhelming for you and you need a place to start, well, my research paper may just help you.

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The "Value" of our Pets

6/7/2016

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I work in the legal field and am also considered the resident "animal person" in my law firm. When people need help placing an animal, they ask me. When they need help adopting an animal, they call me. Every now and then our law librarian (a dog lover) passes along a legal opinion brought to his attention related to animals and we invariably have some discussion about the case. It makes my job more interesting when my animal welfare interests become related to how I spend my days.

On June 6, 2016, the Georgia Supreme Court rendered an opinion in a case involving a dog who became gravely ill after having been administered medication improperly by a boarding facility. Her owners ultimately spent almost $70,000 trying to save Lola, their 8 ½ year old Dachshund mix they had adopted from a rescue center at the age of two. They were not able to save her and Lola later died. The case ended up on appeal to "the Supremes" related to issues about the value of the dog. Her family argued they were entitled to compensation for expenses paid treating her and trying to save her life. The boarding facility argued that because she was obtained from a rescue center, she had no value and the family was not entitled to compensation for her veterinary care because the amount they spent was unreasonable.

I found it very interesting that the court had to go back to cases from more than a hundred years ago for legal precedent. People may not realize this happens, but it does all the time. The law is an evolving, ever changing landscape. But if the last cases factually similar to one now are from 1850, they are still legal precedent. In the end, the Supremes ruled, as they had to, in accordance with Georgia law. The case was sent back to the trial court in accordance with the ruling that the family was entitled to seek damages for the loss of the value of the dog and for reasonable veterinary expenses. The court was not in a position to allow the family to seek damages for the sentimental value of Lola just because Georgia law doesn't provide for that remedy.

In spite of the limitations put on the ruling, I found some of the wording of the opinion to be quite enlightened and I see it as an indication that times are changing related to how we view the "value" of our companion animals. The court began the opinion with this sentence: "The subject matter of this case is near and dear to the heart of many a
Georgian in that it involves the untimely death of a beloved family pet and concerns the proper measure of damages available to the owners of an animal injured or killed through the negligence of others." The court also stated the following near the end of the opinion, which I choose to interpret consistent with my own values:

"We agree with those courts which have held that the unique human-animal bond, while cherished, is beyond legal measure."


Time will tell how our laws continue to evolve related the value of our companion animals in our legal system. If you're anything like me, your dog is priceless to you and you want your laws to reflect that if anything were to ever happen to them due to the conduct of others.  Lola was one dog. But she could have been my dog or yours.

You can read the entire opinion in the case of Barking Hound Village, LLC v. Monyak here
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(image courtesy of Peace and Paws Dog Rescue, Inc.)
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About Pets as Property

2/24/2016

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Pets are property under the law. Most of us are somewhat offended by that status. Our companion animals are family members to us and we know they are priceless and invaluable when it comes to how they enrich our daily lives.  But the reality is that sometimes having our beloved animals classified in the same manner as our cars is a good thing.  I work in the legal field which means that I deal with legal concepts and issues every day. I am not an attorney; I am a paralegal. But I still understand legal concepts like case law as precedent and I still understand statutory law in terms of how statutes are written and interpreted.  It is because of my legal focus that I am actually glad that my dog is my property.
 
There are places in our country where your dog can be seized from you if he or she either is (or just looks like) a particular breed.  This amount to a seizure of your property.  If law enforcement authorities were to knock on my door and try to take my dog because they think he looks like or is a _____________________ (fill in the blank), I would have legal options because for them to do so could be considered search and seizure of my property.
 
Every place in our country has laws about how long animals believed to be owned must be held if they are found running at large. This is usually referred to as the "property hold period." If my dog gets loose because I am driving down the road, get in a wreck and my dog manages to escape his harness and flee the scene in fear, he may very well end up in an animal shelter. Depending on the location, he must be held ____ (fill in the blank) number of days to give me and the members of my family an opportunity to reclaim him. In that same scenario, if the shelter where my dog ends up does not keep him for the requisite hold period and instead kills him or adopts him out to another family, I have legal options because they have either destroyed or converted my property. (There have been a number of lawsuits in recent years about "oops" killings at shelters and about how much the lives of those animals killed are actually worth.)
 
My dog will never be seized for looking like a pit bull terrier and we don't live in a city that has breed bans or restrictions.  My dog will likewise never end up in a shelter because my husband and I take extraordinary steps to ensure his safety at all times so that he will never be displaced or become lost and so he can be identified in the event of a disaster or crisis.  But some recent events in Wisconsin have led me to consider what I would do or what may happen to my dog if we lived there. Thank goodness we do not.
 
There is legislation pending in Wisconsin right now which will shorten the time period shelters hold animals from seven days to four days.  I am told passage of the bill is a foregone conclusion. The legislation does not specify if those are four calendar days or four business days (which is a big deal). The bill (in its latest version) says, "under this bill, the period after which a stray or abandoned animal may be treated as unclaimed is reduced to four days."  Supporters of this legislation, including the Best Friends Animal Society and a host of self-proclaimed no kill advocates, have applauded this bill. The argument is that by reducing the hold period, that speeds up the process by which animals can be put into new homes or released to rescue groups. In a perfect world, I would agree. But the world is not perfect and the last time I checked with people I know there, Wisconsin was not perfect. From where I sit, reducing the property hold period is a good thing in only the most progressive of communities where it is easy to find out where a lost pet may be housed and where there are programs in place which will assure that "unclaimed" animals will be spared and not killed. To  enact legislation like this which will affect an entire state is really hard for me to understand. One laws are on the books, they are hard to change. Just the simple failure to clarify whether we are talking about calendar or business days is troubling to me. But it is not as troubling as making this shortened hold period apply in every community in Wisconsin, regardless of how hard it may be for an owner to find their pet or how hard some shelters work (or do not work) to save lives.
 
I live in a state which has a lot of challenges in terms of animal welfare. Some communities are more progressive than others. Although I engage with a few communities which are working incredibly hard to save the lives of shelter animals, the vast majority of animals which end up in "shelters" here are simply destroyed once the property hold period ends. If the Wisconsin bill were to be enacted in my state, it would not speed up the process by which animals are adopted or released to rescue groups in most places. It would simply speed up the process by which they are destroyed while local elected officials applaud the fact that they can house animals for shorter periods of time and save taxpayers money as they get rid of so -called “unwanted” animals faster.
 
I am glad my dog is my property. I am glad we do not live in Wisconsin. But I also know from my job that legislation is infectious both for good and for bad. A good law can be an example for others to follow. Just like a bad law can be an example for others to follow. Will a time come when a law like the one pending in Wisconsin comes to my state?  I certainly hope not, but the possibility is very real.

Do you know how many days you have to find and reclaim your dog or cat if they end up lost or displaced from you? If you love or value them, now is the time to find out just how much time you would have if the unthinkable happened and also to take steps to ensure they can be identified through the use of a simple microchip.
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(image courtesy of Peace and Paws Dog Rescue)
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Rethinking "The Bubba Factor"

12/15/2015

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There is a concept in animal sheltering called the Bubba Factor which essentially means what it sounds like: that people in “the south” are incapable of doing better for companion animals because they are simple minded and have antiquated attitudes regarding animals as property. Although I was not born in the south, I have lived in Alabama for many years and consider myself one of the locals in many ways. I have seen enough over the years and engaged with enough people “from here” to know that it is time to rethink the whole Bubba Factor concept when it comes to companion animals.

I will be the first to admit that a cultural divide still exists in some areas of the south regarding “inside” animals v. “outside” animals. My dog will never live outside. He is a member of our family and I would no sooner relegate him to a fenced yard 24/7/365 than I would do that to a human member of my family. I know people whose animals will never live inside. They would no sooner have a dog living inside 24/7/365 as a family member than they would set a place for a rooster at the dinner table.

Some people confuse these cultural differences of opinion for a mindset that animals are just things which lack feelings and self-awareness. And they do so unfairly. The south is no different than any other area of the country when it comes to irresponsibility and treatment of animals as things. We have plenty of people who should not be allowed to have companion animals at all and some who should likely be legally enjoined from ever having pets. But there are people like that across the country. From where I sit, the southern family which allows a dog to run at large with an antiquated mindset that the dog is not harming anyone and can easily be replaced if hit by a car is no more irresponsible than a person in Los Angeles who buys a dog at a pet store, carries it around in a purse like a status symbol or a living piece of jewelry and then decides the dog must go to a shelter when it won’t stop making a mess in the house in spite of being told in plain English to “stop”many times.

The thing that I think people tend to forget about the south is this: for all of our negative history and all of the undeserved stereotypes about values and intelligence, people from the south are some of the most morally grounded people in the country. Many people here are deeply religious and have very strong values when it comes to treatment of domesticated species. They see themselves as stewards of all animals, whether those animals serve some specific function or they share their homes with human caregivers. Most people in the south do want the very best for all animals and need only be educated on issues related to humane treatment and better choices to change how they think and function. When we tell people about the benefits of spay and neuter, the cruelties of perpetual chaining, the dangers of allowing animals to run at large and the benefits of microchipping to ensure lost pets can get back home, they listen and they adjust their behavior accordingly.

I know that at some time in the next month I will see someone in a Walmart parking lot either selling or giving away puppies. It will infuriate me enough that I will stop and we’ll have a conversation about why that’s happening. They’ll look at me like I’m from another planet as I drive away. And as I remember that there are people in that same Walmart parking lot who had their cat spayed this week or donated a dog bed to a local animal shelter or did a flyer for a lost dog who wandered into their yard or helped an elderly neighbor pay for veterinary care of a very sick and much beloved cat or bought a dog bed because they realize that their aging canine companion will be immeasurably more comfortable inside the house. More people here love and value their animals than don’t and even in the south, there is enough compassion in our communities to overcome the irresponsibility of the few.

Image from the Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard in Cherokee, Alabama 

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    I am an animal welfare advocate. My goal is to help people understand some basic issues related to companion animals in America. Awareness leads to education leads to action leads to change.

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