pet connection

I’m a military brat; my Dad spent a career in the US Coast Guard. I’ve served in the US Navy and the US Marine Corps, and my husband is a retired Marine.  But all that patriotism hasn’t blinded me to the fact that the military can make mistakes just as anyone can.

The US Marine Corps’ latest dog policy is a mistake, plain and simple. Over the past few months the news — via the internet, newspapers, and TV — has stated that the US Marine Corps is waging war on aggressive and/or dangerous dogs.  That’s only partially true.

The US Marine Corps has begun waging war on pit bulls, pittie mixes, Rottweilers, rottie mixes and wolf hybrids. The news originally stated that families living in base housing who have these breeds or mixes will have to have their dog earn an AKC Canine Good Citizen title to remain on base. This is not addressing only those dogs who have been reported as aggressive; no, it’s breed specific legislation and is targeting only these breeds.

The CGC is a wonderful program and all of my trainers at Kindred Spirits Dog Training are CGC evaluators, we do CGC tests, and we love the new AKC puppy STAR program. But this is not what the CGC was designed for.

So a proverbial war is raging. At some bases the ASPCA SAFER program is being tried to see if it will work better than the CGC, and at other bases there are discussions about the American Temperament Test Society test.

While everyone is arguing and debating what should have been done or what needs to be done now, Kindred Spirits just stepped up to the plate and said, “We need to keep these dogs in their homes. Period.”

So we are holding free screening sessions for the dogs living on base. The service member of his or her spouse can bring the dog to our training yard during an evaluation session and we’ll take a look at the dog’s level of training or lack thereof.

If the dog appears capable of passing the CGC we’ll do it right then and there for no charge or we’ll schedule the dog for the test. If the dog is pretty close to being ready but not quite, we’ll give the owner some pointers and tell him to call us when he’s ready. Or, if the dog needs training, we’ll schedule him for a basic training class.

Our first two dogs just passed the test last night. Sam, and black and white pittie mix and Titan, a red and white pittie mix, passed the CGC after a few weeks of training. Their owners stepped up to the plate, took the coaching from us seriously, and did an awesome job. All of us at Kindred Spirits are so proud of them.

Personally I do not believe in breed specific legislation. I don’t believe groups of anyone — people or dogs — should be lumped together and judged by the actions of a few. But I also don’t want to take the time to argue with the US Marine Corps while these families might be losing their dogs. Some families have already panicked and taken their dogs to one of the local shelters or rescue groups.

Many of the owners who have contacted us are dealing with jobs and raising a family by themselves while their spouses are in Iraq or Afghanistan, and now they’re facing losing their dog.  Nope, not gonna happen while my trainers and I can do something about it.

So, if you live near Camp Pendleton and know a family living on base with one of these breeds, send them to our website. If you train dogs and live near a Marine Corps base, contact animal control on the base and offer your help. They need it.

It was really only a matter of time before Michael Vick got his endorsements back, once the NFL decided having an admitted dog torturer and killer on its roster was a super-groovy good idea. Nike has taken Vick back to its bosom. From Yahoo Sports:

Michael Vick is back with Nike two years after the company severed ties over the quarterback’s involvement in a dogfighting ring.

“Mike has a long-standing, great relationship with Nike, and he looks forward to continuing that relationship,” his agent, Joel Segal, said Wednesday.

Segal would not reveal terms of the agreement. Nike declined a request for comment.

The deal was announced during a panel discussion at the Sports Sponsorship Symposium by Michael Principe, the managing director of BEST, the agency that represents Vick.

The endorsement is the latest step forward for Vick as he seeks to rehabilitate his career and his image after serving 18 months in federal prison. On Sunday, Vick played his first regular-season game since December 2006.

“It is quite evident that athletes that run afoul of the law are by no means relegated to obscurity when it comes to pitching products,” said David Carter, a professor of sports marketing at the University of Southern California.

Why is Nike doing that? Because apparently we don’t care enough about what Michael Vick did to those dogs:

Nike, which signed Vick as a rookie in 2001, terminated his contract in August 2007 after the Atlanta Falcons star filed a plea agreement admitting his involvement in the dogfighting ring. At the time, Nike called cruelty to animals “inhumane, abhorrent and unacceptable” and halted release of his fifth signature shoe, the Air Zoom Vick V.

Back when Vick first signed with the Eagles, Carter had said he was “too toxic for most companies to even consider taking a chance on him.” What’s changed? As Carter noted Wednesday, there has been little backlash to the quarterback’s return to the NFL.

Protests have been limited, and the Eagles’ sponsors have stood by them. That experience could make companies less wary about adding Vick as an endorser, though the biggest determinant might be no different from any other athlete: how well he performs on the field.

So Nike only does the right thing if they have no choice. Got it. Way to go, you mavericky shoe-making juggernaut, you. There’s nothing like a guy who has killed and tortured dogs with his own hands, while laughing about their agony, to sell stuff for a red-blooded American sporting goods firm.

In an effort to prevent a number of armed forces families from having to give up their pets, the United States Marine Corps has asked the ASPCA for help in evaluating a number of dogs owned by service families for potential aggression:

By using the SAFER assessment, safe dogs will be given the opportunity for a waiver so they can remain on the base until 2012. The ASPCA is opposed to breed bans — laws that ban specific breeds of dogs or unfairly discriminate against responsible dog guardians based solely on their choice of breed. Such laws also fail to achieve the desired goal of stopping illegal activities such as dog fighting, and breeding and/or training dogs to be aggressive. The ASPCA believes that strict enforcement of laws that ban animal fighting, and breeding and/or training animals to fight, is the proper means to address the problem.

“We’re very excited about the ASPCA coming to Parris Island,” said Army Capt. Jenifer Gustafson, the Officer in Charge of the veterinary clinic on Parris Island. “There was a chance that some pet parents would be forced to give up their dogs or leave housing on the base, so this is a great

The media release from the ASPCA is here.

One’s too dangerous, the other one’s too fast. They’re both too big, and also: kind of weird, right?

The list of things people think they know about rescued pit bulls and retired racing greyhounds could fill a book, but I settled for a column over on SFGate.com this morning:

When it comes to choosing the right dog, it’s not reality that bites. It’s the seemingly endless list of myths and misconceptions that result in too many people bringing a dog into the family that’s exactly the wrong one for them while passing up a dog who might have been a perfect match.

Take two of the dog world’s least-known treasures, rescued pit bulls and retired racing greyhounds. Far more of these dogs are available for adoption than ever find homes.

Pit bulls and pit bull mixes are the most common dogs killed in many shelters because no one will adopt them. As for greyhounds, there is a vast network of rescue organizations trying to help them find homes, but there are always more dogs than adopters.

Sadly, far too many of these dogs are rejected or never considered at all, not because they’re actually the wrong dog for a particular home, but because the potential adopter doesn’t actually see the dog sitting in front of him. Instead, he sees the idea of the dog he has in his head.

I interviewed Donna Reynolds of BAD RAP for the true story on pit bulls as pets, and talked to Barbara Judson of Greyhound Friends for Life about ex-track greyhounds. Fantastic organizations, terrific interviews, and great dogs. It doesn’t get much better than that for a pet writer! Check it out here.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did get equal numbers of photos of pit bulls and greyhounds, but only one of the greyhound photos made the cut. I put another one of them here on this post, just to make myself feel less breed-discriminatory, even though I have to admit pibbles really are easier to photograph than sighthounds!

The two greyhounds in the photo are ex-track dogs named Bali (left) and Coach (right). Bali is 11 and a half years old; Coach is 7. They live in San Francisco with their humble servants Erik Schulz (with Coach) and Rob Kachajian (with Bali), and deigned to pose for me outside of Pet Food Express on Market St. here in San Francisco one day, shortly after having been water tortured bathed at the self-service dog wash inside.

Their earlier statements on the matter — like this one — were full of mealy-mouthed platitudes, but the ASPCA came out swinging today on the subject of Michael Vick. So here we present another chapter in my ongoing saga, “This is how an animal welfare organization should talk about Michael Vick“:

Several months ago, Mr. Vick’s PR representatives approached the ASPCA to help educate America about the heinous act of dog fighting following his release from prison. We were the first animal welfare organization given the opportunity to work with Mr. Vick but immediately turned him down due to the unique knowledge we had of his indescribable and barbaric acts of animal cruelty where he and his associates savagely electrocuted and beat dogs to death after they lost their brutal fights.

The ASPCA’s general consultation and our specific role in processing the forensic evidence in this case were key elements that resulted in Mr. Vick and the three other defendants all pleading guilty to felony crimes. As such, this organization and I personally have seen the acts of cruelty committed by Mr. Vick first hand — acts so heinous that the public has never laid witness to them. And now that Mr. Vick has spoken out for the first time since his release from prison, the ASPCA wants to make clear why this organization chose not to partner with him in his supposed rehabilitation efforts. We are simply not convinced that Mr. Vick has demonstrated compassion toward animals as living beings or the necessary remorse for his criminal actions against them.

60 Minutes provided a convicted criminal a national platform to selfishly focus on his own recovery when, in fact, the animals, the victims who cannot speak for themselves, should have received the attention. CBS did a grave disservice to the animal welfare community by failing to show the ugly truth of Mr. Vick’s actions and the horrors of dog fighting and animal cruelty in this country. The continued attention paid to Mr. Vick is only reinforcing that criminal behavior does not destroy fame and fortune.

You can read their (admirable albeit tardy) full statement here — and kudos to the A for not sending this out via email until it was available on the Web for linking. I wish more folks looking for bloggage were so savvy!

Photo: Leo, one of the Vick dogs, now  a therapy dog.