pet connection

The closure of the Bay Bridge here in San Francisco has made our city streets impassable and probably prevented a fairly large number of the Humane Society of the United States’ natural constituency as well as their foes from turning up tonight.

I’ll be liveblogging the town hall meeting, so just a couple of reminders: This is live, so there will be typos. Only things in quotations marks are direct quotes; everything else is a paraphrase. I’ll update now and then, so if you come across this post while the event is still in progress, just hit “refresh” to see new material.

Here we go. :)

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Where is your money really going when you donate to animal charities? And where can your dollars do the most good?

Those are questions I had to consider when my mother passed away last month, and I had to choose an animal charity to receive donations in her memory.

I picked a small, local group with which I was familiar, but out of the process I got the idea for my column this week on SFGate.com:

Should you always direct your donations to small and local groups? Large national organizations tend to have high administrative costs and usually don’t do real hands-on animal care. However, they also have a lot more influence and power, and their infrastructure, while costly, can amplify the power of your donation, even if it’s a small one.

Smaller groups tend to get their hands dirty when it comes to saving animals from bad situations, and to really effect change that can be seen and measured on a local level. But those groups can have their own problems, such as a lack of effective outreach and management, or a failure to maximize their resources.

Large or small, local or national, the key is to dig into what groups are actually doing, and make sure you want to give them money. A couple of hours on Google can be very enlightening if you want to get an idea of what a charity really does with its revenues.

[....]

No matter the size or mission of the charity you’re evaluating, when you’re digging, dig deep. That’s because some animal lovers might be surprised to learn that a group that runs a campaign they want to support — ending inhumane agricultural practices or protecting wildlife, for instance — also funds others they oppose.

Fortunately, it’s often possible to support the part of a group’s work in which you do believe rather than those in which you don’t. Just be sure to earmark those donations for the program you want to see benefited, and not to the group’s general fund.

In fact, such targeted giving is often the most effective in making a difference in the lives of animals.

For example, both shelters and large national groups sometimes do special fundraisers for specific programs, like providing medical care to homeless pets or for one particular pet in need. It might not change the world or even the life of another pet in a similar situation, but it can save that one animal, and that can be one of the most rewarding kinds of donations to make.

Read the whole thing here, and enjoy the knots I tie myself into trying not to name any of the organizations in question — per SFGate.com’s writer’s guidelines.

Kitteh is Panda, owned and photographed by Bonnie Keller.

It’s a little scary when you drive up to the entrance gate of the park where you’re having your event and the guy at the gate doesn’t have your name on the reservation sheet. Even more so when you’ve already been dealing with a contrary park ranger who seems bent on throwing up every possible obstacle as you try to obtain permits beforehand. Fortunately, the woman who wields the wand of power and persuasion and dogged determination–my friend Tamela–drove up right behind us and all was quickly resolved.

The third annual Darcy FUNDay took place on Saturday, September 26, which happens to be my husband’s birthday and is close to the actual founding date of the Darcy Fund three years ago. For the past five years I’ve had a pretty good run of scheduling special events for Jerry’s birthday–think full moon hanging over Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, for instance–so I’m going to have to go all out next year to top making him work like a, well, dog moving tables and hauling boxes and taking pictures in the hot sun and just generally being my errand boy. He did get presented with a painting of Darcy by artist Betty Turner, though, so I guess it was a fair exchange.

The Gang of Four–Tamela Klisura, Rima Gerendas, Petra Tiber and I–have been planning this event for six or eight weeks. Tamela, aka the blonde tornado, is the general, assigning tasks and following up to make sure everything is on track. She’s not afraid to crack the whip if she thinks we’re slacking off. I think she was Eisenhower in a previous life. Rima and Petra are her incredibly able colonels, hustling up amazing gift baskets from Three Dog Bakery, White Lotus Day Spa, Dawgy Style, California Fine Wine Tasting, Pet Junction, Crown Valley Animal Care Center, Romantic Style, Wild’s Animal Supplies and more. They planned the color scheme, shopped for all the decorations, organized the sign-in and silent auction sheets, and wrapped all the donated items. Pam and Mike Becker and Suzie Cordes couldn’t come because of previous commitments, but they showed up early to help set up. Now those are real friends! Our husbands are the muscle and transportation. We couldn’t do without them.

Me? I write the songs, I mean the checks, kept track of the registrations, rounded up speakers, and did my share of acquiring prizes. They included  books and magazines from publishers TFH and Bowtie; decorative Cavalier items from our good friend and breeder of Bella and Harper Joanne Nash; signed copies from D. Caroline Coile, Ph.D, of her book Cavaliers: A Complete Pet Owner’s Manual (if I couldn’t write this book, I’m glad Caroline did); the gorgeous Cavaliers in Fact and Fancy by Barbara Garnett-Wilson, generously donated every year by Barbara and her husband Roy; a fancy Private Quarters dog bed, donated by Oklahoma dog lover Ann Campbell (yes, I hit up my relatives, too); and a really large and excellent donation of food and treat gift baskets as well as samples for everyone from The Honest Kitchen. Besides being dehydrated and thus the perfect travel food for our many road trips, HK is cool because the company is switching over its chicken-based foods to use only sustainably farmed, free-range chicken from Petaluma Poultry. When it comes to pet foods that are natural and environmentally responsible, they do their best to walk the walk.

Approximately 60 people gathered for our games, speakers and potluck picnic. We’re not a typical breed club. We call ourselves the South Orange County Cavalier Companions, and we’re pet owners who started meeting informally at a Mission Viejo park about 10 years ago. Through word of mouth, we’ve grown to approximately 250, although not everyone comes to every meeting.People have moved or live an hour or more away, but usually you can find 20 or 30 of us at one of the regular meetings and 40 or more at a Darcy FUNDay. There are always a few who have been there since the beginning and knew the Darcinator in person, but everyone seems enthusiastic about the cause, or at least the good time that we have.

We don’t discriminate. Along with all the Cavaliers were a Boston Terrier, a Tibetan Spaniel, a Cocker Spaniel and a pretty little mix who might have been a Lhasapoo or a Cavachon. Someone with a Bernese Mountain Dog walked by our site. Tamela’s husband, Mike, laughed. “Look, a giant tricolor.” The more typically sized tricolor to the right is clearly in, uh, hunting mode. Also seen were a ladybug, a cheerleader and a firefighter.

Pet edu-tainer and my cocktail buddy Arden Moore made her second appearance at the event, sharing tips on petiquette in public. If Tamela was a general in a previous life, I think Arden was a bouncer in a biker bar. How else could she give such great advice on breaking up fights in dog parks and, even better, preventing them in the first place? “If you see dogs starting to look tense, use a happy voice to distract and divert them,” she says. “Change the mood by making yourself the object of attention or getting them to chase a ball.” Arden travels with her dogs even more than I do, so she also had good tips on hotel stays, dining at cafes (hint: don’t let your dog sit in a chair or lick your plate) and air travel.

On a more serious note, veterinary cardiologist Sarah Jane Miller addressed the basics of mitral valve disease, including signs and treatment, and new medications such as pimobendan (Vetmedin) and took questions from the audience about diet, exercise and lifespan. I can’t say enough good things about veterinarians like Dr. Miller who are willing to give up their Saturday morning to help educate pet owners or participate in health clinics so that people who might not otherwise have a chance to take their dogs to a specialist can have the opportunity to learn more or to get a baseline report on their dog’s condition. We hope she’ll come back sometime. I spent a lot of time worrying about Bella, concerned that she would be stressed by all the people, dogs and activity, not to mention the heat, even though the pen was in a shaded, breezy area, but she was a trooper and did just fine. I was still glad a cardiologist was there, though.

I always feel bad for my dogs during this event. I don’t think they’ve ever gotten to participate in any of the games or contests. No “fastest biscuit eater” or “race to owner” or “longest ears” or “oldest dog” or “cutest costume” for them. They’re stuck in the Cavalier corral, begging for attention from strangers while I make the rounds to ensure that all is going well or make announcements or answer questions. (I think they’re grateful that they’re not in the costume contest, though.)  Tamela’s dogs didn’t get to come, either. The English Toys stayed home, and Farley, a handsome ruby boy, was in the hospital with pneumonia, fighting for his life. Tamela had planned to bring him home yesterday afternoon, but when she got to the hospital he had taken a turn for the worse. We’re all pulling for him. He’s a sweet dog and a poster boy for Cavaliers: 9 years old and murmur-free. I just got the good news that Tamela is picking him up from the veterinary hospital. That makes me happy. He and Darcy were special friends, as seen in the photo above, and I’d hate to see anything happen to him.

Arden did a brief video of the event, so if these photos leave you wanting more, here is where to see it. We haven’t totaled the amount brought in yet, but it’s well over $1,600 so far.

When I started the Darcy Fund three years ago, I wasn’t really sure how exactly we would raise funds for it, but Tamela gave me the first FUNDay as a birthday present, and we’ve continued them ever since. I can’t thank her enough for coming up with the idea. These events have been more fun than I ever imagined, and I have been surrounded by wonderful people  who are really the ones who make it happen every year. My goal now is to see Darcy FUNDays spread to other Cavalier groups around the country or to inspire people in other breeds to start their own fund. Together we can make a difference in all our dogs’ lives.

I cannot believe the lottery numbers didn’t fall my way on my birthday. I had big plans for that $252,000,000 (yes, Christie, some of it was going toward shoes). Guess we will have to continue with our plans for next month’s Darcy FunDay.

Five of us met Monday night to decide on games, speakers, prizes and refreshments and get our act together on insurance coverage and park reservations. I have a great team of go-getters from our Cavalier park group who are helping to set this year’s event in motion. Petra and Rima met last week and came up with an amazing list of ideas for themes and games; Tamela is our communications person; I’m working on pet-related prize donations and speaker arrangements; Petra is doing the park reservation; she and Rima are organizing the food and decorations; and Wendy and Suzie will help make phone calls to expand our prize offerings beyond the pet world. Jerry and the other husbands are the muscle and go-fers.

In my book, a successful meeting is always followed by margaritas, so we went across the street to dinner, accompanied by Petra’s ruby Cavalier, Henry. We all first met Henry a little more than a year ago when as a puppy he was left on the doorstep–not kidding!–at our veterinarian’s office. Tamela stepped up to foster him, but she needed a place to leave him for the day, so he came to our house. Harper wasn’t much older than he was–maybe 8 months to his 4 months–and she was thrilled to have a playmate so close to her own age. They spent the day tearing around the house like little maniacs. He soon went to live with Petra, and it’s fun to see him now as a lanky adolescent.

It was clearly the dog dining hour at El Ranchito. Every time we turned around, someone with a dog was walking in or out of the patio area. I do love living in a dog-friendly area. At a recent stop for a late-night dessert in Laguna Beach, the hostess quickly waved us onto the patio with Harper instead of making us tie her up just outside it, which is the usual policy at this place. Harper justified her kindness by curling up on the wall out of sight and going to sleep. She may yet be calming down enough in public to earn therapy dog certification. One can hope.

If ever there were a case that a passle of wrongs don’t make a right, take a look at the kerfluffle over the report by an Atlanta TV station on the Humane Society of the United States.

The first wrong was the piece itself, which was pulled down after the HSUS cried foul over the contents. This triggered an Internet game of whack-a-mole, as the piece popped up seemingly everywhere, and when that seemed to abate, the transcript was floated around instead.

Mainly, the piece claimed the HSUS raised money under false pretenses, giving the impression that the advocacy group claims direct responsibility for shelter operations, which it does not and does not claim to. But that wasn’t good enough for the TV station, which reported:

Critics tell Channel 2 Action News reporter Amanda Rosseter that this isn’t just consumers misunderstanding who they are giving in to – but an organization actively misleading donors to get money.

“They do their marketing very well, that’s for sure,” said Trey Burley of PAWS Atlanta.

Critics say the national organization takes advantage of people who think they are giving to local shelters. DeKalb’s “PAWS” shelter says there is no regular funding help from the $100 million HSUS budget.

“I think that some of the folks who donate to the national organization may be under the false pretense that that money is going to a local cause,” said Burley.

This isn’t news. In fact, there’s a section in my book “Dogs For Dummies” (1994) that discusses the importance of direct donations to local shelters and rescue groups. When you give to the HSUS, you’re providing mostly for animal advocacy, lobbying for animal laws and investigations. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that.

Without even creasing my brow I can think of a dozen non-animal-related organizations that do the same. Lobbying, after all, is a stand-alone business, and I doubt many of the professional lobbyists in Washington or Sacramento spend much of their time involved with the management of the industry groups  or social interests they represent. (Pulitzer prize-winning reporter John Woestendiek of the OhMiDog blog takes apart the TV piece, here.)

What happened next was perhaps politically predictable but still sleazy: An effort to raise money for anti-forced spay-neuter lobbying efforts,  suggesting that the HSUS was not correcting the record but burying the truth by demanding the TV piece be pulled down.

The perpetrator? PetPac, which has been a tireless fighter against forced spay-neuter laws and the drive by spittle-spewing animal-rights haters to push reputable, ethical breeders into extinction through laws not only opposed  by reputable  breeders but also contrary to policy statements of  the ASPCA and the AVMA. The opposition to forced spay-neuter knows that this kind of legislation is racist and classist, kills more pets than it saves and inserts the government into a medical decision that’s not without negative consequences and that should be left to a pet’s owner, with advice from a veterinarian.

PetPac led the fight against the draconian AB 1634 last year in California, and is working against SB 250 this year. The latter was brought forward by the same folks behind the last bill, especially Judie Mancuso, who insists that all breeders are the same, and all are evil “greeders.”

The HSUS hasn’t taken a position on SB 250, please note. But that didn’t stop PetPac from smearing them anyway, to throw red meat to the rabid HSUS-haters among its own supporters.

In a series of e-mails to suporters (which includes me, by the way)  PetPac’s Bill Hemby questions the motives of HSUS in having the TV piece pulled down, suggesting some nefarious plot to bully the station into hiding the “truth.”

Mr. Hemby knows better. He’s decent guy and a reputable, compassionate and ethical breeder — I first talked to him when trying to find the owners of a pair of lost Borzoi who wandered down my street a few years ago.  But he has been around long enough to know that when a media organization has really got a tiger by the tail, they don’t back down, and sabre-rattling by the group that they’ve reported on is a badge of honor.

Pure politics, this spin, playing to the red state/blue state divide of pets, mortars fired across the scarred battlefield between two entrenched positions. Playing to and scaring the choirs, and it’s done all the time, by all kinds of special-interest groups on all sides of every imaginable issue.

But this sort of behavior, from the extremists in camps that often seem to hate each other more than they care about animals, is counter-productive.

I’ve called the HSUS out on many of their positions, especially with regards to forced spay-neuter (which they have in the past at least tacitly supported) and with what should be done with fight-bust dogs. I ripped them for raising money on the backs of the Vick dogs while their “experts” said the dogs all be destroyed as unredeemable (unredeemable, like Hector here). Not cool, nor is their current deal with Michael Vick himself.

But I believe that for reasons largely driven by changing internal ideology and partly driven by the continued need to tap the zeitgeist so as to keep on tapping wallets for donations, the HSUS is evolving on many of their positions. They’ve embraced trap, neuter and release of managed feral cat colonies, a 180-degree turn from a past position. They have a guide to choosing a reputable breeder that I honestly couldn’t have written much better myself. And they’re spot-on that concentrated animal feeding operations are cruel as well as environmentally unsustainable and a risk to our national health and security. Cheap eggs aren’t worth those kind of risks, folks, cruelty aside.

The agriculture and food industries doesn’t much like that last bit, which is why they have  outfits like the Center For Consumer Freedom out there attacking animal advocacy-groups and scaring the bejeebers out of many good breeders who are now convinced that if they don’t side with puppy-milling scum, they’ll be next to go — a point with some merit, if the Mancusos of the world have their way. (Just to show how complicated this all can get, the CCF has done spectacular work documenting through public records the shameful practices at PETA with regard to their handling of homeless pets in their “shelter.”)

I live on both sides of the great divide, and it’s my job to talk to people on both sides as well.

It’s long past time for the reasonable, animal-loving people of the world to quit allowing the 10 percent of nutjob true believers on the extremes of these issues to dictate the terms of engagement.

For all his good work, Bill Hemby was wrong in calling out the HSUS on this politically motivated crap, just as Judie Mancuso is wrong in lumping the work of compassionate, ethical and responsible breeders in with the careless, clueless breeders or with puppy-milling scum. I hasten to say, though, that it was Hemby’s first mistep, while Mancusco is the ATM of extremism, spitting out hate along with long-discredited ”facts”  whenever anyone punches her buttons.

I will be on the side of PetPac when SB 250, the new Pet Extinction Act, comes to a floor vote in the California State Senate. And I am on the side of HSUS when it comes to investigations and legislation against puppy-milling scum. I am not one of those breeders who defends puppy-millers because of the slippery-slope argument: I believe we need to separate from these dirtbags because we care about what happens to animals in their “care.” I’m a reputable, ethical and compassionate breeder as well as a person who has run a breed rescue and is looking to raise foster litters in the future for shelters and rescue groups, just because I’ve discovered I’m damn good at it.

I will fight forced spay-neuter because it doesn’t work. I will fight for compassionate, reputable and ethical breeders. And I will fight to shut down puppy mills and their Internet and retail outlets.

If any of that bothers you, I bloody well don’t care. Because it’s not about politics and “winning” for me:

It’s about the animals.