Taking on Animal Cruelty » Animal Advocacy

Where You Been, What You Been Doing?

Cher — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:53:17 +0000

I know it has been a fair while since I wrote anything here but that’s not to say I haven’t had my thumb on the pulse of the animal welfare world. Quite the opposite actually. I’ve been out there getting my hands dirty trying to educate myself further in the world of animal advocacy. I’ve learned a lot, made contact with lots of good resources and like minded people and have some fairly concrete goals in mind for myself and how I will fit into the fight against animal cruelty.

Everyday I would encounter something or other that I thought I should probably write about here but then one thing came up and then another and before long I had too much to write about and no time to write it. Trying to keep tabs on my resources for articles was another issue because as each day goes by, the story grows colder and the trail to the resources does as well.

There are some stories that won’t grow cold for awhile. For instance, today I heard that the sentencing date for Fabian Henderson, the turd that threw Oreo off the 6 storey building and was ultimately responsible for her death will be December 15th. As far as I know, he will be sentenced in absentia since I haven’t heard that he has been arrested since he failed to appear at his court date December 1. With any luck they will arrest him soon and his day in court will be his very last day of freedom for a long, long time.

Then there is the story out of Toronto about the President and some of the Board of the Toronto Humane Society being arrested for animal cruelty and obstruction of justice. I’ll cover that story under it’s own heading. It’s pretty friggin’ scary though when those we trust to protect our 4 legged friends are those who abuse them instead.

I spend a lot of time on Facebook these days watching the hundreds of alerts for the rescue of dogs who are in imminent danger of being put down due mostly to overcrowding in our shelters. The frustration over not being able to save them all is almost show stopping. Sometimes I just have an urge to throw up my hands in surrender and crawl under my bed with my eyes and ears covered so I can no longer hear or see those poor dogs and cats being killed because nobody cared enough to prevent the litter, nobody cared enough to make sure that a life time commitment to an animal didn’t actually mean a temporary convenience, nobody cared enough to research the shelter they handed their family member over to in order to ensure that hours later, the family member they abandoned because of having to move or whatever stupid and completely unacceptable excuse they gave, is dead from gas, heartstick or just a plain old shot in the leg. Dead..just like that…within hours of being turned into the shelter. Not given even a chance at finding someone more worthwhile to share their lives with. The whole animal shelter system in North America sucks and it does everything BUT shelter, protect and provide for our companion animals. My faith in organizations like the HSUS, PETA and ASPCA is completely shot to hell. They only do what they do to keep donations high so that spas, ocean front condos and rented limousines can be added to the expense tab. I will no longer support any national or government sponsored shelter until major reform is carried out throughout the entire system.

Did you know that PETA kills over 90% of the animals they take in every year?

I have watched a video of how animals are gassed. I swear to you, as God is my witness, that to my own dying day, I will never forget the sound of those poor dying dogs. And the more heartbreaking sound of there suddenly being no sound. I cried for hours after watching that video, couldn’t sleep. It is simply awful and I am now determined to find a way to put an end to, first of all, gas chambers for use in killing animals in shelters, and secondly, put an end once and for all to kill shelters. I plan on starting locally at first and then taking it national once I get a good number of supporters.

Enough is enough of this senseless killing of companion animals. There are more then enough available adoptive homes to ensure a safe and loving environment for all homeless animals. The only reason they are killed on a daily basis is because bureaucrats and administrators don’t care enough to research and implement policy that works to end shelter kills and homeless animals. It can and has been done before and it can and will be done here. Or I will die trying.

I took my very first step in this direction by signing on to volunteer at a local rescue shelter here in Surrey to help with transporting their residents to the doctor’s office and to PetSmart where they are featured in adoption events. I feel sure this is the best way to get to know the rescue situation here in the Lower Mainland as well as establish some solid contacts for pushing through new policy on animal welfare locally.

I always told myself that my activities online on behalf of the animals was valuable and important but lately it has become less so. I need to get my hands dirty and dig into this cause in order to change the status quo.

Stay tuned…More later…

In peace

Cher

Where You Been, What You Been Doing? is a post from: Taking on Animal Cruelty

Kudos to Go Daddy

Cher — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:31:15 +0000

Go Daddy Matches Online Contributions & Doubles Its Own Donation to Help Arizona Animals

Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence.

www.godaddy.com

Picture: Danica Patrick

A role model for good corporate citizenship, Go Daddy yesterday matched all contributions and then doubled their own contribution to benefit the Arizona Humane Society during their annual telethon. CEO Bob Parsons delivered a $100,000 cheque by way of his two dogs, Max and Chief pulling a chariot. This is the 4th year in a row that Go Daddy has contributed big time to this event. The total take for the event was $328,000 which goes a long way to shelter, provide medical care and find homes for stray and abandoned animals. It also helps fund a low cost spay/neuter program as well as educational programs that teach people how to properly care for their pets.

Go Daddy’s philanthropic works support a wide variety of charitable and community organizations dedicated to such causes as domestic violence, child abuse, disabled children, teenage homelessness, Parkinson’s research, breast cancer and more. Go Daddy donated $1.7MM to charitable causes last year and is on pace to break its own record for 2009.

So Kudos to Go Daddy for balking the trend of most corporations who are backing off their charitable giving citing poor economic times.

Personally, I am more inclined to spend my money with a company who has a heart and shows it then one who doesn’t.

Kudos to Go Daddy is a post from: Taking on Animal Cruelty

Michael Vick: Something Good May Come of His Notoriety

Cher — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:48:24 +0000

Dog-fighting, cruelty – 29 dogs seized, Box Springs, GA

Staked to the ground with 3-foot logging chains around their necks, pit bull dogs possibly used for fighting were seized Wednesday from a wooded area in Box Springs, Ga.

“One or two appear to be recently in a fight, with the scars we’ve seen on their faces,” said Phil Gallacher of Norred & Associates, a private corporate security firm that received a tip about the pit bulls.
Major Jeff Sivell, an investigator with the Talbot County Sheriff’s Office, said Antonio Monds, 32, was arrested about 11 a.m. after he arrived in the wooded area. He was charged with dog fighting and cruelty to animals and held in the county jail. The 29 dogs ranged from puppies to full-grown pit bulls.

The scene brought back memories for SPCA executive director Joan Sammond, who received three pit bulls that belonged to NFL quarterback Michael Vick. The former Atlanta Falcons player was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy and running a dog fighting operation. He served 18 months of a 23-month federal prison sentence and recently signed with the Philadelphia Eagles.

“We don’t like to see this, but you know the Michael Vick thing brought awareness to the attention of the public,” Sammond said of dog fighting. “People are now more aware and helpful in tipping us and law enforcement when they see things suspicious. We’ve got a lot of work to do in Georgia. We’ve got a lot of animal abuse with dog fighting.”
The dogs displayed typical behavior of animals kept for fighting, she said. They became aggressive near other dogs but were not violent toward people.

“They may not be suitable to be around other animals but for humans they are fine,” Sammond said. “People get the notion that a pit bull is going to be aggressive toward people and animals, but that is not the case. Humans have to handle these animals. They want them aggressive toward other animals and that is what they train them to do.”

Sivell said officers were on the scene about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The investigation had been under way for four months, Gallacher said. “We offer a reward on information,” he said. “We’ve been doing an investigation here for about four months.”

The dogs were found about 500 feet north of South Howard Road where it runs into Sizemore Road. Dogs were confined by 3-foot chain leashes connected to metal stakes in the ground.

“Water was supplied solely by rain water that’s got algae, dirt and stuff in there,” Gallacher said. “We didn’t find any fresh food. Some didn’t have shelter at all, living strictly on the dirt.”

Miguel Abi-Hassan, director of animal welfare and outreach for the Atlanta Humane Society, said staffers were carefully transferring the animals. “We are fortunate enough that they are happy to be rescued,” he said.

The Humane Society loaded the dogs into a newly equipped trailer that could transport up to 100 animals.

Lois Monds, Antonio Monds’ cousin, said the sheriff served a search warrant at their home Wednesday morning. “Those are not our dogs,” said Lois Monds, who lives in a single-wide mobile home about 700 feet from the wooded area. “Those are not my dogs.”

Lois Monds’ address was on the warrant, but no name was listed. The document stated that a number of pit bulls were found chained in the woods and had no source of food or water. Lois Monds said officers were also looking for drugs.

“I don’t sell drugs,” said Lois Monds, who says she works a 12-hour shift taking care of a disabled person.

Frank Turner, a neighbor, was surprised to learn about possible dog fighting in the area.

“I heard dogs barking over there and there,” Turner said, pointing toward the woods. “You never saw any dog fighting. It’s no big deal. Nobody around here said they seen any dog fighting. ”

After working with Vick’s dogs, Sammond sounded hopeful for the rescued dogs.

“We got three of his dogs,” she said. “One of those dogs was deemed unadoptable and turned out to be the most wonderful pet.”

Source: Pet-Abuse.com

Oddly enough I was just thinking this morning about dog fighting and how suddenly it seems everybody is talking about it. I had to begrudgingly admit to myself that it is thanks to Michael Vick’s arrest, conviction, time served and subsequent re-acceptance into the NFL that has brought this terrible cruelty into the limelight. Without the notoriety that he has brought to the issue, people wouldn’t be as aware of the prolific nature of dog fighting. It made me curious about just how much of a problem it is in Canada and did some preliminary research on that today. Vick is making us think differently and that’s a good thing.

So when I read this report tonight and SPCA director Sammond mentions Michael Vick as well it seemed like serendipity to me. I’ve decided that dog fighting and those criminals who participate in it will be heavily featured here at TOAC as I’ve adopted it as one of my pet projects. (Pun intended) I will be running some features in the upcoming weeks about the history of dog fighting, the methods used to train dogs to fight as well as other hopefully interesting facts about the crime.

On the flip side of everybody talking about dog fighting these days, I read somewhere this week that those morons who participate it in have gone further underground to conduct the contests even resorting to using tractor trailers while zooming up the highway. So be aware in your neighborhoods for signs of dog fighting. It can be happening anywhere and if you see something suspicious, call the police. As John Walsh of AMW says, “You can make a difference.”

Michael Vick: Something Good May Come of His Notoriety is a post from: Taking on Animal Cruelty

UPDATE: NM board to probe alleged animal cruelty

Cher — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:24:43 +0000

It may not come to anything but I’m grateful that an authority of some kind is going to at least investigate this horrible crime and blatant breaking of the rules. Rodeos must be stopped! NOW!

August 23, 2009 By The Associated Press

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Livestock Board says it will investigate alleged animal cruelty at the National High School Finals Rodeo following the release of an Internet video depicting horses and bulls being electrically shocked with handheld cattle prods.

The four-minute clip filmed by an animal rights group shows more than 10 bucking horses and nine bulls being prodded with the pronged devices as the rodeo chutes open at an arena that appears to be McGee Park.

Many of the film clips detail the use of prods beyond what the National High School Rodeo Association animal welfare rules allow.

The association’s rule book states horses can be shocked below the neck if the animal stalls in the chute but bulls are never to be prodded when inside the chute.

Video clips document as many as six rodeo workers prodding horses in the upper neck as gates open, and one rodeo worker prodding bulls in the hind legs and tail within the chute.

Information from: The Daily Times, http://www.daily-times.com

Original Story: (Read My Original Post on this here)

UPDATE: NM board to probe alleged animal cruelty is a post from: Taking on Animal Cruelty

ACTION ALERT: ANIMAL RESCUE CENTER NEEDS OUR LETTERS AND PHONECALLS RIGHT NOW!

Cher — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:51:46 +0000

From For the Love of the Dog Blog by Deanna Raeke

Sabbath Memorial Dog Rescue Center Inc. is a non-profit organization under 501C3 status, located in Miami and dedicated to rescuing abused, neglected, and abandoned dogs from the streets, giving them care and love, then placing them in with loving families. Under founder Robbie Coy, 9 years in operation, more than 2500 dogs rescued and saved, Sabbath has never needed a kennel license and should have been grandfathered in.

Now Miami Dade Human Society Director, Sara Pizano, who could have grandfathered the license in but chose not to, has placed a $5k lien on the property because of the kennel license violations. The owner of the land has refused to fight the citation, reportedly due to intimidation and now Sabbath has until about the end of August to be off the property with approximately 150 dogs, many of them long time residents. If they have not moved and removed the dogs, animal control will step in and that will most likely be a death sentence for the dogs left the the rescue.

HELP STOP THIS EVICTION!!!!!
Contact the Mayor’s Office to STOP Eviction of Sabbath Rescue! Over 100 dogs there and they have been there 9 years! Contact Mayor Carlos Alvarez
Stephen P. Clark Center
111 N.W. 1st Street, 29th Floor
Miami, Florida 33128
E-mail: mayor@miamidade.gov
Phone: 305-375-5071
Fax: 305-375-3618

Unfortunately I have no more information than this to pass along but thought this was important enough that I wanted to get the word out and hopefully get some action taken on this! Not sure why the director has chosen eviction when she could have made sure that this rescue and the dogs there were safe but if you’ve even been involved in rescue, shelter works, etc., there is a lot of BS and politics involved and this may sadly be a case of that with the innocent victims being, as usual, the dogs.

Please take the time to call and write!! Time is of the essence!!

…end Deanna’s post…

This is a copy of the email I have just sent to Mayor Alvarez and you are welcome to copy it word for word if you like but I highly recommend you use it only as a guideline to compose in your own words. This will ensure a stronger impact on the reader.

The Office of the Mayor
Stephen P. Clark Center
111 N.W. 1st Street, 29th Floor
Miami, Florida 33128

Honorable Mayor Carlos Alvarez,

I writing to you regarding the eviction and the $5,000 dollar lien that Miami Dade Human Society Director, Sara Pizano has imposed on the Sabbath Memorial Dog Rescue Center and it’s founder, Robbie Coy.

The issue was posted on Facebook this evening and after reading the details, I felt it imperative that I write to implore you to please use your office to stop this action. Mr. Coy has spent 9 years rescuing lost, abandoned and stray animals from the streets of Miami Dade County and has provided safe haven, food and care to these animals, 2500 in all according to reports, in service to his community. He certainly does not deserve to be pushed out onto the streets for apparently murky licensing requirements.

Sabbath Memorial has not required a kennel license in the past and it is reported that Ms. Pizano could have easily grandfathered the license to Mr. Coy but chose not to and has provided no reason for her choice.
The Sabbath Rescue Center now protects 150 dogs that will be left homeless on the August 31st eviction date if you do not intercede on their behalf. You must know, Honorable Mayor, that if these dogs are forced into homelessness, they will end up dead within hours by animal control.

Please show your humanity which I know you possess and put a stop to this eviction and lien. These animals need your help and your community is looking to you for leadership. I know you will do the right thing for both.

Sincerely
Cheryl Jewhurst
Surrey, BC, Canada

Please take the 5 mins it requires to fire off this email. As John Walsh of AMW says, “you can make a difference”.

ACTION ALERT: ANIMAL RESCUE CENTER NEEDS OUR LETTERS AND PHONECALLS RIGHT NOW! is a post from: Taking on Animal Cruelty

Is Rampant Animal Cruelty Finally Getting Some Well Deserved Attention?

Cher — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:10:32 +0000

It’s odd, just last night I was lamenting over the fact that nobody seems to give a damned about all these animal cruelty cases that you and I read about every day. Dozens show up in my Google alert every single day and it is extremely depressing to have to read them all. Especially when it seems like nobody cares.

Between some thug beating the crap out of a wee 5 month old puppy to a multi-billion dollar corporation like Coke who doesn’t seem to care that they are sponsoring blatant animal cruelty by funding rodeos, it all sometimes seems like the road for the animal welfare advocate is paved with “doomed to fail” aspirations.

But maybe, just maybe there is a wee light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe with the accessibility that everyone has to news almost as it happens with the internet, the ability to comment, to read other comments, to interact with and learn from online advocates, maybe the general public is beginning to pull it’s collective head of it’s collective butt. I won’t put a lot of hope into this until I see further proof, but there is a spark there worth watching.

However, if my friends and family are any indication, the majority of people would rather leave their heads up their butts and pretend these things don’t happen and God forbid, they certainly don’t want to have to actually do anything about it.

Animal cruelty cases online spark outrage across nation

Experts say humans hardwired to respond strongly to victimization of most vulnerable

By Amy Husser, Canwest News Service August 14, 2009

It was three gun-toting men blasting away at defenceless ducklings in a roadside pond in Saskatchewan that recently raised the ire of the public when a video highlighting the escapade was posted on YouTube. Collectively, the men were punished with a$16,000 fine.

Just days later, three young boys in Newfoundland were accused of harassing a baby moose to the point of exhaustion. It had to be put down in front of horrified onlookers.

On the other side of the country, dead kittens were found in a freezer of a Nanaimo, BC, home where 94 sick and neglected cats had to be taken into the care of the SPCA. The shelters have been flooded with calls from people looking to adopt the cats.

The response has been nothing short of outrage.

“What makes someone do these things?” one reader asked on Canada.com.”Obviously, no respect for life. If they cannot respect animals, how are they going to treat fellow humans in the future?” “Those kids should be beat with sticks, maybe their parents, too,” said another.

“A $10,000 fine is not enough!! We should do like the East and cut off their hands!!!” another wrote on Canada.com.Animal cruelty is nothing new. The Ontario SPCA investigated 14,850 complaints last year alone, and more than half of the animals involved in those claims were taken in as a result. It’s no different across the country. The British Columbia SPCA conducted 4,647 cruelty investigations in 2007; Alberta looked at 2,056 cases in 2008.

But it is the public viewing of such events that evokes a strong response, experts say.

“When the killing of animals somehow is public or recorded in some way, we’re much more sympathetic,” said Sean Hawkins, a University of Toronto professor who studies the intersection of animal and human rights. “It can generate much more attention than if it happens behind the closed doors of an abattoir.”

Hawkins said the public’s emotional response can be “highly subjective,” and people tend to have more sympathy for individuated cases; atrocities performed against a single creature illicit more attention than collective animal cruelty, he said.

Hawkins said animals often become “icons” of human memory, explaining that the duck reminds us of our childhood bath toy and the moose “fits into our national mythology.”

“Research suggests that humans seem to be hardwired to be the most empathetic to the most vulnerable around us, and most enraged when someone victimizes the vulnerable, whether it be an animal or a person,” explained forensic BC psychologist Steve Porter in an e-mail interview.

“Most of us are incapable of harming others, including animals, in a premeditated way,” he added. “We can imagine what the animal might feel if we did so.”

Porter–a professor with the University of British Columbia-Okanagan and whose hometown is Deer Lake, NL, where the moose-beating incident took place–said animal cruelty can be motivated by curiosity, a sense of power or anger and revenge related to and often stemming from human relationships.

“Perpetrators of animal cruelty –whether young people or adults –almost always engage in other types of anti-social behaviour, sometimes including violence against others,” Porter said.

Currently, animal cruelty is prosecuted as a property crime or under Canada’s Wildlife Act, which Holland said makes criminal convictions difficult.

Is Rampant Animal Cruelty Finally Getting Some Well Deserved Attention? is a post from: Taking on Animal Cruelty

Petland lands in center of rabbit-drowning posted on Facebook

Cher — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:04:46 +0000

See Original Story Here

This is why pet stores should be not be allowed to sell animals. There is no way to insure that the animals are being properly cared for by properly trained staff. The owners and or managers of these stores hire cheap labour and provide no protection for the animals by guaranteeing that the cheap labour has had proper animal handling and care training.

There are no regular inspections done by authorities and if it hadn’t been for this twit’s narcissistic need to publicize her disgusting crime, no one would have been the wiser about the fate of these animals.

Pet stores trade with puppy mills. Puppy mills are hell on earth for animals and in my opinion, should be banned across North America. A registered breeder who is licensed properly and has breeding restrictions placed on them including the environment that they must house their animals in is the only way I would approve of a breeding facility. Have you ever seen pictures of a puppy mill?

Do you love animals? You cannot look at these pictures, love animals and not feel strongly about the need to shut them all down.So too should pet stores that sell animals from puppy mills be shut down. Demand leads to supply. If no demand, there would be no supply.

Petland lands in center of rabbit-drowning posted on Facebook is a post from: Taking on Animal Cruelty