Do you like this story?
Who are the activists? Who steps up, and why?
By David S. Greene
September 2, 2010
Did you ever wonder how activism happens? How do the leaders and role models begin to make a difference in their communities? USA Today paints three portraits of people who saw a need that wasn’t being met, and decided that since action needed to be taken, they’d do it.
It all started a few years back when Tonja Robertson ferried the occasional cat to be neutered when the shelter where she volunteered needed transportation help.
Now the former gift-shop owner is a one-woman show responsible for hundreds of southern Indiana pets getting sterilized every year — preventing the births of thousands of unwanted kittens and puppies.
As founder (and organizer/orchestrator/driver) for the non-profit Spay Neuter Indiana Pets (SNIP), Robertson has distributed hundreds of discounted sterilization vouchers to mostly rural folks who had never spayed or neutered their dogs or cats. Moreover, twice a month she launches her military-precision pickup of animals at pre-arranged spots in three towns for people unwilling or unable to make a vet trip, traveling 205 miles between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., returning with sterilized animals.
“Often, the call comes from a person who started feeding one cat outside and then there’s a litter, and it quickly turns to 10, and the person is desperate,” Robertson says.
Last year more than 400 cats and dogs were sterilized because she made it happen (about 75% were cats); this year she anticipates 600.
If you think the problem is too big and you can’t do it all, just remember what Margaret Mead said:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Companies teaming up for adoptions: Do you have this week’s issue of Time Magazine? Check out the advertising insert. Petco, Iams, Hoover, PetFinder and Sargeants came together to publish an eight-page insert, cooperatively promoting responsible adoptions. Before you jump all over big conglomerates as being uncaring, remember they are capable of helping the greater community. (hat tip to KC Dog Blog for the link)
Animal health is tied to human health: When animals are sick, the threat to human health is increased. Translate that idea globally, and the mandate is clear: taking care of animals helps everyone. The Kansas City Star recounts a symposium of veterinarians, scientists and experts at the city’s Bartle Hall convention center.
Even animal diseases that don’t transfer to humans could cause billions of dollars in the damage to the U.S. economy in a matter of weeks. Barbara Drolet, a U.S. Agriculture Department microbiologist, said the country needs to spend more to diagnose animal diseases and to develop the ability to quickly produce vaccines.
“This is absolutely a threat to the United States,” Drolet said.
DC cabbies discriminating against blind people with service dogs: The Americans with Disabilities Act forbids cab drivers from discriminating against or charging a surcharge for passengers with service dogs. District of Columbia law says largely the same thing. Yet, the Washington City Paper highlights a study from the Equal Rights Center showing that’s exactly what’s been going on.
The Equal Rights Center study was based on 30 tests in the District. A blind person with a service dog was placed up the street so they would be seen by the cab driver first. A person who wasn’t blind and didn’t have a service dog stood on the same side of the street after the blind person. In 15 of the 30 tests, the cab driver drove past the blind person and picked up the sighted person without the dog. In three of the tests, the cab driver attempted to add a surcharge to the blind person’s fare for transporting the dog.
I have a hunch that D.C. might not be alone in this kind of discrimination.
Let’s just be humans leading training: I’ve been looking for an article like the one I found in DogStar Daily. A drawback of approaching dog training as a “dogs are wolves” issue, is that, in the words of the article, it’s
an insult to both dogs and wolves, and, advertises a complete misunderstanding of their most sophisticated social structure.
It’s a good article. Please read and discuss.
Bunny time!!
Monday is Labor Day, so I’ll be back with the next news wrap on Thursday the 9th. Have a great weekend.
I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories. Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.
Photo credit: Charlie, Danese Kenon/The Star.
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“Let’s just be humans leading training”:
http://www.petconnection.com/b.....-daughter/
Comment by The OTHER Pat — September 2, 2010 @ 6:21 am
Most frustrating for me is even well meaning people often do not want to work together.
In Des Moines we defeated BSL legislation but talk to some of the people about a dog park or No Kill and they are not interested. They don’t seem to comprehend that all of us are in the minority on some issues which matter most to us, we need to support each other to reach a majority.
Comment by Erich Riesenberg — September 2, 2010 @ 6:23 am
Okay, I promise not to pretend that my goggie is an Arctic wolf if others will stop pretending that theirs are kidnapped killer whales.
I’ll even stop “psychologically or physically bullying him/her under the guise of dog training.”
Oh wait. Turns out I don’t do that. Perhaps it is a straw man. Maybe it’s possible to make an argument (even a mighty thin one) about dog training without reflexively accusing some unnamed other of abuse.
Perhaps, biologically, dogs are wolves and an accurate, nuanced understanding of general canid ethology is a sound foundation for understanding the social behavior of C. lupus familiaris.
Or, you, know, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy, it’s all the same, animals are just stimulus-response units whose minds are (pick one) forever closed to us / an imaginary construct that doesn’t exist.
My neighbor’s Jack Russell terrier killed three guinea hens and a pullet two weeks ago. We were away. Her owners recently moved from the city and are “pet owners” not “dog people.” They were gobsmacked that their pooch could do such a thing. They are very lucky that the neighbor whose poultry she killed is a dog trainer, not an old-time farmer.* Did this mean that she was vicious, they asked?
They literally had no idea that, when their dog pounces on a squeaky toy, shakes it, tears it, pulls the stuffing out — that this is the natural predatory behavior of any canine, and that the squeaky toy is a stand-in for a juicy chicken. That predatory behavior is not the same thing as aggression.
In the old days, before we were under the delusion that you could learn something about dogs by understanding wolves, Ringles would have just been a wicked disobedient dog who did wrong and needed to be punished (dead chicken tied around her neck) or shot.
* Also very lucky that Moe was locked up, because another thing about C. lupus familiaris is that they are territorial and can also be protective, not unlike other C. lupus. Moe made a hash out of my desk trying to get out the back window to kill the terrier. He did not call 911.
Comment by H. Houlahan — September 2, 2010 @ 7:40 am
Studies have shown that positive reinforcement alone is not enough to override basic genetic responses.
Considering that genetically the dog is a pack animal, with every pack having a leader pair, to completely ignore this and proceed the same way one would to train a chicken is an insult to the dog.
And when you consider that chicken behaviour includes clucking and pecking and dog behaviour involves chasing and biting you can see why it’s important to provide structure. It’s not about being a bully - it’s about being a leader.
I love the horse whisperer saying about stick people and carrot people - and how he’s a carrot/stick person. I agree with this statement, and while I certainly have a clicker and some treats in my arsenal, the training and their general lives are modeled around their natural behaviour.
Comment by Kim — September 2, 2010 @ 7:42 am
A dog is not a wolf. OK. A dog is a dog, and a dog is an awful lot like a wolf. Seems pretty obvious, unless you’re intent on pushing square pegs into round holes.
Oh, but, this just in: A dog is a child:
“You wouldn’t send your kid off to a school where they use shock,” says veterinary behaviorist Dr. Karen Overall. “So, why would you send your dog there?”
Here.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — September 2, 2010 @ 8:02 am
Basing dog training on a misunderstanding of wolf behavior is as useful as basing human education on a misunderstanding of chimpanzee behavior.
Yeah, but a correct understanding of chimp behavior is really useful in studying humans, and chimps are studied for exactly that reason.
Not because we are exactly like either common chimps or bonobos. Because we are related, closely related, and an understanding of one enhances your understanding of the other two species.
Dogs and wolves are even more closely related to each other than we are to the other two chimp species, and while there are significant differences, most of which, yes, relate to how wolves and dogs respond to humans, we still need to remember that, as with Heather’s example of the chicken-killing JRT, all the play and work behaviors that we value in our dogs, are modifications of the same or similar behaviors in wolves.
And the same is true of what we consider “problem” behaviors. A correct understanding of real wolves in natural wolf-packs (not captive wolves in packs artificially constructed out of unrelated individuals) is really useful in understanding dogs—regardless of the fact that dogs are a lot more human-social and human-responsive.
Comment by Lis — September 2, 2010 @ 8:04 am
On the activists: thank you for posting the link - it’s wonderful to read about people doing something effective. Yes, definitely, working together is what makes “no kill” possible - it’s a no-kill COMMUNITY, after all.
Comment by CatPrrson — September 2, 2010 @ 8:14 am
Yes, definitely, working together is what makes “no kill” possible - it’s a no-kill COMMUNITY, after all.
Comment by CatPrrson — September 2, 2010
YES!!
Comment by Gina Spadafori — September 2, 2010 @ 8:19 am
You don’t even need to throw a stick to hit an ethologist or behaviorist who can thoroughly debunk pack-leader dog training theories.
Not to mention the fact that its not even entirely agreed upon that dogs are in fact pack animals when left to their own devices. As Ian Dunbar has previously written packs of feral dogs have been studied and found to have loose and fluid groupings. Transitory.
That doesn’t mean dogs won’t group up and start killing stuff or just happily chase a bunny and gleefully disembowel it. Dogs are dogs.
Comment by Sheyna — September 2, 2010 @ 8:34 am
Packs of feral dogs normally live on the edges of human settlements and subsist on vermin and human garbage—low-value resources that don’t reward pack hunting and strong pack structure. Wolves living in conditions where the primary resources are similarly low-value also disperse rather than living in large, tight packs.
And real wolf-packs, natural wolf-packs, even with the consistent high status of the breeding pair, the parents of most of the other wolves in the pack, are a lot more fluid, and a lot less hierarchical, than the stereotype of “dominance theory,” or the artificial captive packs created from unrelated individuals.
I’ll be a lot more interested in Ian Dunbar’s ideas when he or any of his crew become a bit more interested in actually discussing things, and less interested in using on people the punishment techniques they decry for dog training—and stop insisting that anyone who disagrees on even the smallest point is stupid, ignorant, or abusive.
Comment by Lis — September 2, 2010 @ 8:51 am
Bunny! BIG white bunny jumps!
I love the way he cocks his head at :50, getting ready for the leap.
LOVE the big white bunnies. They get passed over at the shelters so much! The little lop-eared rabbits or the dwarfs go so fast, but the big, sweet, expressive, confident, goofy white bunnies … they sit and sit.
Ah, I just love them.
Comment by Mary Mary — September 2, 2010 @ 9:35 am
I love it when they do Binkies. :)
Comment by Gina Spadafori — September 2, 2010 @ 9:49 am
Okay, rabbits make me sneeze so they are one pet I don’t keep. What are binkies??
Comment by Liz Palika — September 2, 2010 @ 10:16 am
The pop-up, kick-out jumps of rabbit joy. :)
Comment by Gina Spadafori — September 2, 2010 @ 10:21 am
Ah, got it! I was looking for blankets. Don’t ask me, I don’t know….
Comment by Liz Palika — September 2, 2010 @ 10:30 am
Love the binkies- never knew that term- My family calls baby pacifiers Binkies.
When our bunbuns jump and spin it is such an expression of sheer joy. My kids laugh and the cats and dog (yes- dog. She plays with them supervised) stare in wonder at the twisty leaping rabbit.
Chase is another favorite. If one rabbit is chasing the other and she does a binkie (I am liking that word) it confuses the other one. That is kind of interesting to watch.
Comment by ericka — September 2, 2010 @ 10:41 am
I like the term binkies, and until I saw this video, I too thought it was a baby term for blanket. Blanket —> blankie —> binkie.
Comment by David S. Greene — September 2, 2010 @ 12:35 pm
Thanks for sharing the article by Ian Dunbar. I spent some time this week reading a 19 part commentary (yes, nineteen) that put dog training into three categories.
What gets me is that people get into different camps over the topic, want to believe what they want to believe (never mind the truth) and then don’t think twice about what might be the best for the human-animal cohabitation piece.
Eesh.
I so have to do a long article on training because I am SO sick of the same ol’ shit I’ve been hearing for 30+ years.
Like the bunny…my allergies don’t let me do bunnies either but they sure can make me smile.
Comment by Ark Lady — September 2, 2010 @ 3:13 pm
The post about cab drivers not picking up blind people with service dogs….in the jurisdictions where this occurs, are the cabs licensed by the municipality?
If so, there should be an organized mail campaign to the city councillors advising of the cabs (company and cab number for each incident) where the cab drivers discriminated against people with disabilities.
The letters should be copied to the U.S. Department of Justice and reference the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Bet you’d see some fast clean-up of the practice.
We’re having an issue in my place of residence because many cab drivers are claiming a religious aversion to animals and won’t pick up people with animals. If they have an aversion to animals, why are they in an occupation that may require them to transport animals with their human owners? So, I keep my money and take public transit with my animals, I’m lucky that I’m physically able to do so.
Comment by SocialMange — September 7, 2010 @ 1:36 pm