pet connection

Toledo, Ohio municipal judge Michael Goulding sent a little love note recently to the city of  Toledo, informing them that their current policy of seizing and killing any dog who could, if you squinted your eyes and drank a bucket of stoopid, vaguely resemble a pit bull, was unconstitutional.

Brent Toellner at KCDogBlog, who keeps an eagle eye on all things dog-law related, made an interesting connection between that decision and Lucas County’s infamous puppy-murdering ex-dog warden, Tom Skeldon, after reading an article about the court case in the Toledo Blade:

The city of Toledo has a contract with the county dog warden to enforce its local laws. Last year the contract was for up to $146,882. The contract calls for the city to pay the dog warden’s office $100 for every citation issued against a “pit bull” or “pit bull” mix dog.

So, in other words, Toledo was providing an incentive to Lucas County’s dog wardens to pick up ‘pit bulls’ and kill them in the shelter (the shelter has a well-known policy against adopting out ‘pit bull type’ dogs). Last year, Lucas County took in and killed over 1000 ‘pit bulls’ — which could have meant up to $100,000 in incremental revenue for the dog warden’s office based on the city incentive to do so. No wonder Skeldon and his crew were so focused on ‘pit bulls’, allowing dog bites to increase and shelter kill rates to hover around 77%. Their incentive was to capture, and kill, ‘pit bulls’.

Hopefully the city of Toledo will not only re-write their law to not include breed specific language (which was ruled to be unconstitutional by the court), but also rewrite their contract with the Lucas County Dog Warden’s office to incent activities that are good for citizens and for dogs — like maybe declining bite rates, decreased shelter killing, better return-to-owner rates, etc. Now THAT would be real success.

Then there are the crazy-ass folks in Chicago who are actually, get this, requiring their shelter volunteers to be fingerprinted before being allowed to volunteer. Not just background checked, folks: fingerprinted. From Dancing Dog Blog:

City budgets have sliced the life out of dollars allotted to Animal Care and Control (ACC) agencies across the US.  Skeleton crews work the problems of caring for and tending to the needs of dogs and cats. Those needs would not be met by most measures if volunteers did not step in to fill the gaps.

In Chicago, cutbacks forced ACC to reduce adoption hours from 49 per week to 17, closing for adoption on Sundays.  Volunteers revolted, the Sun-Times reported it, and a semblance of sanity was restored to the program’s hours.  Volunteers and the work they do should be respected. They are the life’s blood of many organizations.  I don’t think many would disagree, so this news comes as a surprise.

According to Fran Spielman, City Hall reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, the city “overlooked” the fact that Animal Care and Control volunteers (more than 250) have not been subject to what is said to have been policy since 2008. All 110 other volunteers for city departments have provided and allowed: social security numbers, background checks, and fingerprints.

That last was not a typo. Fingerprints are required of volunteers just as if they were applying for a civil service or federal job. To do work no one else will do in a noisy, stressful environment and all without a paycheck, you now have to be subjected to jumping through more hoops than if you were actually getting hired by a corporation.

Check out the comments section — it’s insanity. It’s all part of the same mentality that would rather see animals dead than adopted out to the evil irresponsible public, justified by the animal world’s version of Godwin’s Law, “It’s all about the people who would sell pit bulls into fighting rings.”

I wouldn’t allow the government to fingerprint me in order to volunteer at an animal shelter. So, good work at screening me out of your volunteer program, Chicago! Wouldn’t want someone who has actually read and cherishes the constitution scooping poop in your kennel runs!

Update: Bad Rap weighs in on Toledo.

My back is bedeviling me again, no doubt a result of too much computer time during last week’s series of storms, when I was social media-ifying pretty close to 24/7 for the day (and night) job, which is on the communications team of the local customer-owned electrity utility.

I work there part-time, and I usually like it a lot. Strange but true: I love public policy, electric transportation and green energy technology, and I’m a total fan girl for infrastructure. (Infrastructure makes me all tingly!)

Yes, I’m a policy wonk. So far, the interesting subject matter and challenging nature  of the work has been enough to offset the fact that my “cube” at the best public utility in Sacramento is so distressing and depressing it would make a factory-farmed chicken feel better about a battery cage. I can’t get it changed, and some of these gray winter mornings the thought of working in that spot … well, you can tell the work is interesting to me, because I’m still there. Yes, I know that sounds whiny, and yes, I’m glad I have a job. But would it be too damn much to ask for a workspace that doesn’t make me want to cry?

But back to those back spasms. They come and they go. It’s age, it’s hormones, it’s my Sciatic nerve … it’s just something to deal with when it happens, so it goes. Walking, physical therapy and rest when it gets bad, there you have it.

Frankly, my doctor couldn’t care much less. She nice and she’s smart, but she works for an HMO (and yes, again, I’m lucky I have coverage), and she needs to get me in and out of her exam room in 15 minutes or less. And she needs to keep me out of the hands of specialists and surgeons and away from tests, all of which cost the HMO money they’d otherwise get to keep. So she tells me to lose (more) weight, walk more and go to the physical therapist. Thank you, goodbye. Please don’t call again. You’re welcome.

So I’m home yesterday, in occasional spasms of agony, when I notice puppy Faith is very quiet. This, it almost goes without saying, is not normal for her 9-month-old puppy self. I work her over a little and discover that she is in pain. So I call over to the veterinary hospital and in 45 seconds, I’m talking talking to our Primary Care Veterinarian, the saintly and gifted Dr. Bill Porte. After a few minutes, FayBee and I are on our way to see him.

Once there, she is ushered into the back, enveloped by worried vet techs, and soon, Dr. Bill is there, too. Within an hour, she has also been given a look-see by the surgical specialist and the neurologist (it’s a specialty center, 24/7), and the radiologist has reviewed her rads and ultrasound. Blood and urine tests are sent out stat. Nothing obvious presents, so she is admitted for overnight observation and fluids, after the night doc is called in to the room to meet me, meet my dog and get the overview from Dr. Bill.

This morning, Miss FayBee is bouncing off the walls at the veterinary hospital, licking the top layer of skin off the face of anyone who comes near. After hospital rounds, she’ll likely be released, at which time I’ll know more about what could have laid my crazy 9-month-old retriever puppy so low yesterday she didn’t want to pick her head off the exam-room floor.

We’ll drive home with me shifting in the seat painfully, heading home for more meds and a heating pad, wondering why health-care reform is so apparently unobtainable that despite insurance I can’t get help for anything — but my dog can get help for everything. Chances are I’ll start crying again, thinking that this time last year almost to the day my family and I were in a hospital emergency room with my scared and dying father, begging for someone to help him, to admit him, to ease his pain. And getting nothing and nowhere for hours and hours and hours.

The fact is, my father, despite the best efforts of his own, good, primary care physician, was chewed up and spit out dead by the health care system. The best care he got while dying? In hospice. Sad but true.

The whole thing makes me want to vomit, but that effort would surely make my back even worse — and God knows I won’t be able to get any urgent help with that. So in a couple of hours I’ll go gratefully reclaim my puppy, hug my veterinarian and let it go for a while.

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On a happier note …

On Friday I came home and found two packages in my mail box. The first from from regular reader Cait Macanliss, who’d read my admiration of the felted dogs and cats I’d seen on Etsy and offered to create one for me herself, being a crafty sort.

She did, and I love it. The little dog is a model of the late, great Heather, right down to the gray on the muzzle, and she didn’t have to tell me that, so strong was the resemblance. She also included a big surprise: A Drew! (The picture doesn’t do them justice, believe me.)

I love these both, and I cannot recommend her work enough. If you’re looking for a treat, click on her name and drop her an e-mail.

The other package was from Iowa, from Dooley, a/k/a The Big D, who was known here at the house  by his ribbon color, Blaze Orange Boy, or BOB. Bob is living with my friend Alyce (a/k/a Verde) who also has the last remaining member of Heather’s litter, her 13-year-old brother Bogey.

Inside the package: A long, beautiful pheasant feather, and a note that read, in part:

The Big D is going to be a hoot in the field and a pain in my ass every day of his existence. I love him to death! I hope he drives me crazy for 13+ years like another dog I know.

So do I, Alyce. So do I. And that feather? From Dooley’s first retrieve as a hunting dog. His housemate Bix put the bird up, and Dooley brought him back. Good thing Alyce is a good shot, because the spurs on that old roo were 3/8th of an inch long and could have dampened the puppy’s enthusiasm for retrieving considerably had the bird put up a fight. Well, considering that the puppy is the very determined The Big D, likely not. That boy is unstoppable.

All the puppies McKenzie and I raised here last spring are doing well, and their families check in regularly. This morning I got a picture of Jack The Zipper, known here as Mr. Yellow, or Zippy the Pinhead because of his distinctive cowlick down the middle of his nose. Always had a real soft spot for this boy, because I thought I was going to lose him a few days after he was born and rushed him to the veterinary hospital on Easter Sunday, where the ER doc patted me on the head, told me the puppy was fine, just fine, and sent me home.

Once a worrier, always a worrier. Here’s Jack, now a healthy 9-month-old Murgatroyd. I’ll soon be off to pick up his sister, then it’s back to the pain meds and heating pad.

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I was a little reluctant to tackle the topic of Oreo’s Law in my SFGate.com column this week. The debate tends to descend into a battle about whether the ASPCA was right or wrong about Oreo, and whether Pets Alive would have been a good place for her, and really, given that Oreo’s dead, I’m not sure how much any of that matters.

What does matter is the fate of other dogs and cats in shelters not just in New York, but everywhere. Because I firmly believe that no shelter or animal control agency should kill any pet if a qualified rescue group or shelter is willing to take him.

That’s been the law here in California for nearly 12 years now, and amazingly, all the horrific things predicted by opponents of that law when it was first proposed have not come to pass. Nor have we reached nirvanah; there are places where the law is ignored or only spottily applied, and there aren’t always rescue safety nets for all the shelter dogs and cats who run out of time in the state’s shelters.

But the law exists, and it’s often used to prevent the kinds of abuses that are so sadly common in other parts of the country. From my column today:

I support Oreo’s Law, and this is why: All over New York, indeed, all over the United States, there are shelters right now killing dogs and cats who could be saved if only they’d let qualified local rescue groups and foster volunteers take animals out of their facilities.

That’s true in Toledo, Ohio, where animal control warden Tom Skeldon was recently forced to resign over his unwillingness to let even puppies go to another humane society or rescue group, and insisted on killing them instead.

It’s true in Dallas, N.C., where rescuers begged and pleaded fruitlessly to be allowed to take sick dogs for veterinary care and potential adoption, instead of seeing them killed in the animal control facility’s antiquated gas chamber.

It’s true in Rochester, N.Y., where Kellner told me that qualified rescue groups are prevented from taking pit bulls out of the city shelter, because the agency doesn’t allow pit bulls, not even puppies, to leave its facility alive.

It’s true in a thousand places, where volunteers keep silent about abuses out of fear of being prevented from transferring animals to rescue groups or even providing basic care to animals.

Oreo’s Law is not for Oreo, and it’s not aimed at the ASPCA. It’s for the animals in every shelter and animal control facility in New York state.

I interview New York State Assembly Member Micah Kellner, the co-author of Oreo’s Law. We discuss his proposed amendments to the law, intended to address some of the concerns of its opponents. We also talked about why he feels the law will help New York’s animals and its shelters, and what kind of support it’s getting (here’s a hint: it’s massive).

The full story is here.

Photo: New York State Assembly Member Micah Kellner and his dog, Nina.

I criticize the American Kennel Club from time to time… ahem… but allow me to give credit where it’s due. Via my colleague Cheryl Cooper at PetHobbyist.com, news of a letter (PDF) that went out from AKC chairman Ronald Menacker and president/CEO Dennis Sprung to Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie, with a copy to the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation, carefully connecting the dots between animal abuse and that of children:

On behalf of the American Kennel Club, our 5,000 clubs nationwide, and the millions of responsible dog owners we represent, we are writing to ask you to withdraw Michael Vick as the Philadelphia Eagles’ recipient of the Ed Block Courage Award.

We understand that his teammates selected Mr. Vick for this honor, but in doing so they are demonstrating a lack of understanding about the nature of both animal and child abuse, and are trivializing Mr. Vick’s heinous actions. Michael Vick horrified the world, and especially those of us who devote our lives to promoting the health and welfare of dogs, with his engagement in dog fighting. In addition to the bloody fighting contests, reports indicate that many dogs were electrocuted, drowned or hung for underperformance.

A man who has been convicted of these atrocities should not be held up as a role model of sportsmanship and courage. Further, Ed Block, the award’s namesake, dedicated his life to ending the vicious cycle of pain and despair suffered by children at the hands of their abusers. It is unconscionable that a man who tortured and abused helpless animals be honored by an organization dedicated to ending abuse.

Please take a stand against ALL forms of abuse by selecting another player to represent the Philadelphia Eagles at the 32nd Annual Ed Block Courage Awards.

No comment from me today, other than: Bravo, AKC.

Photo: One of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick’s dogfighting operation, courtesy of Bad Rap.

Organizers at Change.org are reaching out to the animal community to bring pressure on the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation to deny Michael Vick the award.

Last night, Maria Tchijov, Outreach and Communications Coordinator at Change.org, emailed me and asked for help in getting signatures on a petition to Sam Lamantia, the CEO of the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation:

Dear Mr. Lamantia,

Recently the Philadelphia Eagles have elected Michael Vick as their recipient for this year’s Courage Award. Given Mr. Vick’s crimes and felony conviction, we do not believe he is worthy of this honor. For several years, in addition to promoting dogfighting, Vick himself tortured, abused, and murdered innocent dogs for his own profit and apparent enjoyment. This is not courage. This is inhumanity, immorality, and sheer brutality and does not warrant giving Vick this or any other reward.

Many of us have protested Vick’s reinstatement to the NFL. There has been strong media and PR influence in trying to diminish his past actions and erase the public’s memory of his sadistic behavior. We encourage you to stand up for the rights of animals everywhere and the memory of the dogs who endured Vick’s cruelty. Please do the right thing and deny Michael Vick the Courage Award.

They’ve already got around 6000 signatures — but I think we can do better than that. Sign here.

And because I know this will be a concern to many of the readers here, yes, this petition is housed in the “animal rights” section of Change.org. This is a very active community with participants with a wide variety of views, from those nearly all of us would support to those many of us wouldn’t.

Please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Surely on this we can all agree: Michael Vick should not receive this award.