I am the most thankful that Bailey has outsmarted her dogtors and together we’ll celebrate her 4-YEAR anniversary of being cancer-free in early December!!

I’m also thankful I have a job, which brings me to another topic covered in the comments to this blog post. I work for Iams and, with respect, I want to clear up some misinformation quoted above concerning our feeding studies.

More than 70% of our animal “taste testers” are family pets, living in their own homes.

For the studies that require a more controlled environment, we use our company-owned, state-of-the-art Pet Health & Nutrition Center. These studies follow our industry leading research protocol and are the veterinary equivalent of nutritional or medical studies acceptable on people. The studies are monitored by our own staff of veterinarians, behaviorists and independent experts.

Complete details can be found at http://www.IamsTruth.com. Or give us a call at 800-525-4267.

We (Iams) are passionate about cats and dogs, with a deep commitment to their health and welfare evidenced by our Iams Home 4 the Holidays adoption event (www.ih4th.com). For 10 years we have partnered with the Helen Woodward Animal Center and thousands of rescues and shelters world-wide to help orphaned pets find forever homes. Last year, this program helped get 1.2 million pets adopted between October 1 2008 and January 4 2009. This year our goal is 1.5 million. As of November 15, the total is at 401,148 pets adopted. (And if you know of an Iams Home 4 the Holidays shelter, be sure to visit http://www.iams.com/iams/feed-pets.jsp to vote—each month for the next 13 months the shelter with the most votes gets a free month’s worth of pet food!)

Thank you, Gina, for letting me have my say. I’ll get off my soapbox now. Happy Thanksgiving all!

It’s my personal opinion that many things Dr. Hurley has said gave aid and comfort to the anti-no-kill movement, but she is herself a supporter of that movement.

Some of this is, I believe, a misunderstanding, but there are also issues I’d chalk up to the fact that many veterinarians start to have a bit of a “herd medicine” mindset, which can often result in statements that are horrifying on the level of an individual animal, and definitely contrary to the goal of the no-kill movement. I discussed this with Dr. Hurley and I think her responses were both enlightening and encouraging.

Another factor in play is that people frequently decide if one self-described no-kill shelter is badly managed, that carries over to the entire no-kill movement, but never seem to think that one badly managed, even hellish, traditional shelter tarnishes all traditional shelters. It’s incredibly aggravating, and I think that some of the things Dr. Hurley has said play into that, although I truly don’t think that was her intention.

However, as Gina said, Dr. Hurley can defend herself. These are just my thoughts based on what I’ve seen and heard. I’ll have more to say when my article and the interview have been published.

Not no mistakes, ever.

You’ve pilloried Wysong, among others, for PR weaseling, and rightly so.

I’m seeing the same here.

Nathan is a visionary and a firebrand, and he is a game-changer without whom we not have advanced the idea and the reality of no-kill communities as we have. We will see a different shelter industry in a decade, mark my words, and that’s largely because of Nathan Winograd standing up and calling them out for losing their way.

He is not, however, a bridge-builder, and as visionaries sometimes do, he fails to see that people may be coming to the same place from different starting points.

I have been profoundly unhappy with his treatment of her. He is entitled to his opinions, and I will continue to consider them. But I am entitled to mine: He is off-base on Dr. Hurley, and that’s a damn shame.

Ingrid Newkirk deserves all the shit Nathan has thrown her way, and much, much more.

Dr. Kate Hurley? She’s a grown woman in a tough field, and she doesn’t need me to defend her. But I will nonetheless. She doesn’t deserve this.