Stop Pet Overpopulation

With 80 million households having at least one pet it's shocking that 5-11 million cats and dogs are euthanized each year. These animals are killed because there just isn't enough room in shelters to house them all, and there aren't enough people willing to adopt them. Yet the pet business is booming and breeders, pet stores, and puppy mills continue to churn out animals. fortunately, there are some easy steps that can be taken to reduce the number of unwanted animals, and to provide better care for sheltered animals. All you have to do is be B.A.D.

B.A.D. is an acronym that stands for birth control, adoption and donation. By practicing these three things we can significantly reduce the stray population, reduce the number of animals being bred by pet factories, and improve the quality of life for those animals that are sheltered. Below are a few links to help you help these animals and communities in need.

If you're looking for a pure bred dog, there are several places to check besides breeders and pet stores. Thousands of pure bred dogs end up at the pound or rescue shelters.The American Kennel Club has a list of shelters that specialize in pure bred dogs here.

The Kansas Humane Society has a great website with pictures of some of the animals they have for adoption, but they also have a list of ways you can help support them. This link has information about donating time, money and resources. Did you know that you can donate your aluminum cans to the humane society?

Finally, there is Peta. I realize that for some, these people seem crazy. However, there is plenty of good information on this site, including alerts about local legislation that affects you as a pet owner.
I encourage you to investigate these sites, as well as to post others you find helpful.

And remember, we can all do a lot of good by doing a little B.A.D.

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Lou Dobbs == Charlton Heston?

In 2010 primates will learn sign language and be able to communicate intelligently with humans. This new ability to "speak" will shock the world, throwing their legal status and rights into limbo. In an attempt to avoid future lawsuits, hundreds of research labs across the country will release millions of animals into the workforce. Lou Dobbs will finally shut the hell up about Mexicans and worry about the real threat to the nation's economy: those damn dirty apes!

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Toys

When Teddy was brought home he was like any other new bear. He had shiny button eyes, soft clean fur, and was soft as a pillow. But when the human society found him, he was anything but. He was missing an eye, the end of one paw had been chewed off, and half his stuffing had been pulled out. half his body was soaked through with urine, and the back of his head was covered with some crusted fluid. Teddy had definitely seen better days.

Unfortunately, Teddy's store is all too common. Every year, thousands of plush animals are abandoned to the streets and landfills of America. Some are found and rehabilitated, but most aren't.

Rebecca Moines, co-founder of Furry Rescue, has seen a lot of orphaned plush since she started her rescue group in 1987. Since then, her organization has rescued over five thousand animals. She says teddy bears are the most common animal to be abandoned, however monkeys and dinosaurs are on the rise.

"The number one problem, besides people abandoning their toys, is that they don't fix them," Rebecca says. Most plush toys aren't spayed or neutered, and even fewer are taught to socialize with people or animals. Rebecca says this only compounds the problem. "They fuck everything," she says. Some have suggested this is a defense mechanism for a creature with no natural defenses, claws and teeth are usually only put on plastic toys.

Rebecca herself has been the victim of several sexual assaults from stuffed animals. Politicians and victim-rights groups seeking to outlaw plush animals point out that 30 percent of registered sex offenders are Beanie Babies. Despite her experiences, Rebecca continues to reach out to help the lost and desperate plush animals. "We have to remember that at one time, these little guys were a child's best friend." She admits that it's sometimes easy to forget when one is violently humping your leg.

A week after Teddy is brought in by Furry, he has been washed, restuffed, stitched up, and had a new eye sewed on. He's also been neutered. "It's a simple operation," Rebecca explains. "It just takes a seam-ripper. But why toy companies continue to sew penises on these poor animals is beyond me."

The next step for Teddy is to try and have him placed in a home. The volunteers at Furry are realistic about his chances. Teddy, despite being cleaned up and fixed, has a lot of competition from new bears to hand-held video games. Still, there will always be a closet for Teddy, and hundreds of plush friends just like him, at Furry Rescue.

If you have plush animals, please have them spayed or neutered.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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Michael Vick and Dog Fighting

Michael Vick obviously doesn't read my blog. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if you wouldn't do it to a baby, you shouldn't do it to an animal. That includes: shooting, hanging, electrocuting, smashing on the ground, starving, burying in the back yard, or sport fighting. I know, baby fighting sounds entertaining, but all it takes is one kid with that single chiclet to really make things messy.

Vick could be innocent. He is until proven guilty. So we won't really know for another 1-2 years, depending on how much his lawyers cost. In the meantime, I would advise that no one let this guy babysit. Maybe he does read my blog. Maybe he can do this to animals, because that's how he treats children. How many bed wetters does he have buried in his back yard?

Vick could be innocent of the charges brought against him. However, someone tortured and murdered those animals on his property. If the feds do a raid on his house and find a backyard full of toddlers, what's his defense going to be? "They're not my bed wetters."

Vick could be innocent. One has to ask, what would make a guy who has so much to lose do something so stupid, so cruel, and so illegal? One could ask that for a number of celebrities and sports figure besides Vick. Maybe he can risk it all, because nothing will be lost. He knows that if caught, he faces a maximum of one slap on the wrist, and a fine up to a year's wages for a burger fryer. But the job will still be there, the fans will still be there. The spot light will still be there, although angled just a bit so the pile of dog carcasses don't upstage him.

However, if Vick is found guilty, he could face up to six years in prison and a fine of $350,000. Even if he did get the maximum, it seems kinda light to me. Six years for someone who slaughtered animals purely for sport? Check that, tortured animals purely for sport. Their murder was the most humane thing done to them. Do we want a guy on the street whose past time is torturing animals? Not the streets of America anyway.

Perhaps he was just auditioning for a job with the CIA. Maybe he already had a job with the CIA. Being an NFL quarterback was just a cover, and these dogs were really enemy combatants. First they were secreted away to a clandestine prison in Virginia, a sort of no-mans land for international law. To get them to talk, they forced the dogs to do humiliating tricks like play dead, beg, and sing. When that didn't work, they were stacked into canine pyramids, and photographed wearing cute sweaters, hats and little booties. Finally, Special Agent Vick and his toadies were brought in to work them over. Sadly, torture proved just as ineffective with these dogs as it has with humans. Whatever secrets they had, they took with them to a shallow grave in Virginia. But it was all for National Security.

So the question then becomes, who gave the order? President Bush? Vice President Cheney? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell? Or those who continue to put these people in a position of authority, the season ticket holder?

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Baby Proof the Pets

Last night my wife told me about a video on youtube involving a ferret and a pepper (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hERwV1lyKv4). The video shows someone letting the ferret lick the pepper (without letting it eat it) and the comedy that takes place afterwards. Knowing my love of ferrets and my views toward the treatment of animals, the wife was curious as to my take on it. The comments left by other viewers were pretty mixed. Some thought it funny, others called it torture. Thank goodness I never filmed my ferret Memphis in her harness, for I'm sure I'd be brought on some war-crime charges (for an accurate portrayal of a ferret in a harness see Gollum tied with elvish rope in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers).

As an animal lover who has put tape on cats paws; given dogs peppers and lemons; harnessed and bathed ferrets (though never at the same time); thrown imaginary sticks for dogs to fetch and faked throwing real sticks for dogs to fetch; attempted to make four legged animals dance on hind legs; and forced two dogs, three ferrets, and two cats to live with each other in the same house-- I do not see letting a ferret lick a pepper as torture. The ferret wasn't forced to eat the pepper. The ferret wasn't harmed beyond the initial burning, which we've all experienced. But more importantly, it doesn't fail the baby test.

Owning a pet is as much a responsibility as it is a right. When you take a pet into your home, for whatever reason, you create an implicit agreement with that animal that you will attend to its basic needs to keep it healthy and happy. This means feeding it, housing it, protecting it from environmental dangers (weather, predators, hostile people and pets, disease), as well as attend to the social needs particular to its temperament. In return, that animal will do eat your food, sleep in your house, attend to your social needs according to its temperament, and generally will refrain from eating you. In addition, you form an agreement with your community that your pet will not pose a threat to people or the environment of that community. To fail in these agreements leaves both you and the animal in a situation, that at best, is no better than it being in the wild. And for a domesticated animal that is a cruelty. Our relationship with babies is similar and more or less follows the same rules (though one could argue that breast feeders don't quite hold up their end of the deal). But most people are more capable of seeing a baby as a living being as opposed to a thing. To help see animals more as beings and less as things I came up with the baby test. It's simple: If you wouldn't do it to a baby, then you shouldn't do it to your pets.

The real question is, am I treating this creature like it's living, thinking thing-- or am I treating it like a broken appliance that I don't know how to fix besides banging on it? For instance, you wouldn't a baby's face in a dirty diaper, so why would you stick a dog's nose in crap? Even if it was an effective way to train a dog, which it is not, is that how you want to treat something that depends on you for everything in its life? Too many people treat their pets and children like property (which in the case of animals is their legal status). If you find yourself incapable of training/raising a pet or baby in a humane way, then perhaps you should find another home for the pet or baby. There are animal rescue societies and grandparents willing to take them in.

There are other pet related issues where the baby test can be applied besides feeding pets weird things (briefly let me say that feeding ferrets weird things generally is not a good idea because they have such small intestines, and blockages can and do occur from the most innocuous things. A ferrets digestive system is designed to break down animal protein, and though they love tasting and swallowing many things, generally only animal protein will be digested). Some common ones are docking and cropping tails and ears, spaying and neutering, and ridiculous costumes and sweaters.

Docking tails and cropping ears are common practices with certain dog breeds where the tails are clipped short, and floppy ears are cut to stand up straight. There are some cases where docking a dog's tail might prevent future, more painful maladies, but cropping ears is purely cosmetic. I would not do either to a baby. A baby with floppy ears or with a tail might be the next genetic leap for human evolution. Mutilating such a child might be killing a future super hero like Monkey Man or Ella Phantastic. And then who would be there to save us from the evil Crab Hands Murphy?

Neutering and spaying? While I probably would not condone the spaying and neutering of babies, most should probably be sterilized. Just as in the animal world there is a serious over-population problem, so is it true in the human world. Neutering might seem rather drastic, but there are some cases where the nature of the parents demand all steps should be taken to prevent a line of genes from ever being passed on. I would remind you of Jurassic Park when all those female dinosaurs, engineered to be incapable of breeding, spontaneously began laying eggs. Then they devoured as many people as they could. Nature finds a way.

Perhaps if we start treating our pets more like sentient, living beings and less like appliances or adornments, animals and people alike will benefit from fuller, healthier relationships. So if you think you have a funny prank to play on your pet but you're not sure if it's cruel, try it out on a baby first.

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