Bill C-229 Tackles Animal Welfare in Canada

One Bark At A Time is one of our very favourite blogs. Its keeper, Fred, is a volunteer at Toronto Animal Services (TAS). His insider view of the shelter operation is a window on compassion but also some very heavy issues. It’s heartbreaking when shelters and rescuers must go head to head with Canadian and Ontario animal “welfare” regulation which stands in the way of protecting animals. Read about Fred’s frustration here. Heck, read his whole blog!

In the case of federal regulation, it’s a bloody travesty.

Parliament passed ineffective but politically correct legislation (as in Pontius Pilate’s handwashing) last year in the form of Bill C-203, a sham introduced by John Bryden to not rock the boat. After all, meaningful legislation could come later, once the ice had been broken. As in a hundred years from now, maybe.

Meanwhile, Mark Holland, MP for Pickering, continues to push for legislation with some real meaning and teeth. Each time, our elected MP’s haven’t stepped up to the plate or there’s been yet another election or similar obfuscation. Please keep on pushing, Mark!

Last year, Mark rightly promoted Bill C-373, which might have helped suffering animals a whole lot more than the pap that was approved under Bill C-203.

Now, Mark has re-introduced the more hefty Bill C-373 as Bill C-229.

Please visit his website and review the bill.

This needs to get done this time around. Contact your MP, senators and Minister Nicholson. Let’s do it!

Animals Make Us Human

Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior  occupies a special place among the animal books of the last few decades. Grandin’s autism gives her a special understanding of what animals, whether house cats or cattle, think, feel and — perhaps most important — desire. There is a revelation on almost every page, and Grandin’s prose (she wrote with Catherine Johnson) is ungainly in the best possible way: blunt, sweet, off-kilter and often quite funny.

Grandin’s new book, Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals, also written with Johnson, picks up where Animals in Translation left off. It has a slightly different focus: she concentrates this time on the emotional rather than the physical life of animals, although the two are clearly related.

Grandin bases many of her observations in Animals Make Us Human on the work of Washington State University neuroscientist, Jaak Panksepp, who identified a series of core emotion systems in animals: seeking, play, care and lust (on the positive side) and fear, panic and rage (on the negative).

“The rule is simple,” she writes. “Don’t stimulate rage, fear and panic if you can help it, and do stimulate seeking and also play.”

There are provocative chapters here on dogs (she quibbles with some of the alpha-male ideas of Cesar Millan, television’s “Dog Whisperer”) and cats. Grandin is at her best, however, when she is talking about animals like cows, pigs, horses and chickens, as well as wild animals and those in zoos.

Grandin has designed humane and stress-free slaughter systems that are used now to process about half of all the cattle in the United States and Canada. There is some cognitive dissonance here. She is often asked “How can you care about animals when you design slaughter plants?”

Her reply is that “some people think death is the most terrible thing that can happen to an animal.” She argues that “the most important thing for an animal is the quality of its life.”

She adds: “The more I observe and learn about how dogs are kept today, I am more convinced that many cattle have better lives than some of the pampered pets. Too many dogs are alone all day with no human or dog companions.”

She worries about the “totally adversarial” relationship between animal advocacy groups and the livestock industry. She has kind words for companies like McDonald’s and Wendy’s (she has consulted for both), which are forcing their suppliers to treat animals more humanely. But she also praises activists. “The big companies are like steel, and activists are like heat. Activists soften the steel, and then I can bend it into pretty grillwork and make reforms.”

One of the major points in Animals Make Us Human is the importance of hiring and training good people to work with livestock. Strong, caring managers are needed; bullying and sadistic employees should be fired; and because turnover in these industries is high, constant training and retraining are necessary, as well as constant auditing from the outside.

Grandin is in favor of almost total openness — she’s among the writers who believe that slaughterhouses should have glass walls. “No animal should spend its last conscious moments in a state of terror,” she writes, and any visitor should be able to observe that they do not.

She loves solid, declarative sentences: “Cattle hate being yelled at”; “Pigs are obsessed with straw”; “Cows like to learn new things.”

We’re lucky to have Temple Grandin.

She has already written one very fine memoir, Thinking in Pictures . Human beings can often be made to feel like cattle, especially in large cities. What would she have to say about subways, housing projects, stadiums, prisons, office cubicles, long-distance buses, shelters for the homeless, elevators or the security line at an airport? What are her thoughts about urban planning in general?

This blogger would love to know.

Full review by Dwight Garner at New York Times, January 20, 2009.

A Good Death

For those of us who think that animal stories are newsworthy and belong in the daily press, like the canaries-in-the-mine reportage that has surfaced in our dailies over Toronto Hydro handwells that have been electrocuting dogs with “stray voltage”, today’s kerfuffle is over a pet funeral establishment that has been hauled into court by the Ontario Veterinary College.

Now, no one but the hard-hearted relishes the idea of taking an ailing pet to the vet’s office to be put down on some steel table or cold floor. So there is a niche for Pet Heaven, a North York home business that hooks grieving owners up with mobile vets for a more gentle and dignified death at home.

Or so it would seem.

Pet Heaven’s proprietors have day jobs in real estate, matching film stars, rock icons and business tycoons with high-end homes. In their spare time, they can be seen on the internet, gamboling happily with their many dogs on their spacious lawn.

The OVC has taken them to court, alleging that they are not licensed to perform veterinary services. Of course, they are not doing so, only providing a referral service, at a fee, to mobile vets. Kind of like a service that promises to find you a home handyman. Or like you can find on your own for no charge, if you’ve figured out Google.

Euthanasia for pets is more than “just sticking a needle into a vein. It’s a serious and emotional event for the owner.”
~ Dr. Nigel Gumley, past president of the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association

Like anything else, caveat emptor, although if a home handyman messes up your new deck, you can fix it. If a mercenary vet messes up your companion, you can never fix yourself.

The comments in the daily rags gush about how greedy the OVC is and what a saintly service these folks are providing. Probably some truth to both. And if you get referred to a good handyman, keep on keeping on.

When my old cat was languishing with terminal cancer a couple of years back and within a couple of days of the Imminent Event, I emailed these folk to pre-plan cremation. They never got back to me. Possibly I wasn’t a profitable prospect, since I didn’t want the full meal deal with a service and interment. Maybe they hadn’t checked their email. Well, I’m glad it worked out that way.

Instead, I took my old sweetheart up the street to our regular vet, and three of us sat in a comfortable little room in the back of the office, on a flowered couch, and we held the old girl and talked to her while our compassionate veterinarian, with whom she was familiar, carefully administered the Waters of Lethe. After she was gone, the vet arranged cremation, and the ashes were quickly delivered in a beautiful package with a clay pawprint that had been thoughtfully taken.

I hadn’t thought to ask whether a vet would actually come to the house. This is a big issue for those whose veterinarians perform euthanasia in a sterile office, and I fully understand their concerns. Many years ago, vets took the animals to the back room to do the deed, and packed them off to landfill or a rendering plant. Many still do, I guess. That’s why my vet is golden and if she provided home service for the final voyage, that would be even better.

Anyway, why am I glad that Pet Heaven didn’t return my call?

I can’t imagine that an ailing pet of mine would take to a stranger showing up at the door with a tackle box. I can’t imagine I’d take to it either.

My pets might not mind that the proprietor of the “funeral home” would show up in biker gear, driving a truck with Harley decals, get me to hand over a cheque and sign a disclaimer, then send the mobile vet in.  But I’d mind.

And if the vet didn’t ask a few questions about the animal’s condition and offer an compassionate and expert opinion, then proceeded to poke ineptly at my companion, finally delivering a painful heart-stick (the favoured but largely illegal method in some suth’n states). I’d be on the phone to the OVC immediately, and wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror forever after.

In this case, the plot thickens, as the mobile vet in question has denied working for Pet Heaven, even though payments from them are on record.

How do you find a vet with wisdom and compassion, and avoid the hacks?

You can take your chances on the say-so of a referral service. Or you can just forego the substantial referral fee, and ask your own trusted vet if they provide home service or if not, who would they recommend? Or ask friends. Mobile vets do advertise. Do your homework and check references.

The humane passage of your companion is too important to trust to just anyone, mobile or otherwise.

Love for a Lost Dog

The posters have been up in the west end since early December. Penny went missing on December 7 and has still not been found. The little hound/pointer cross with the apricot heart-shaped spot on her back is a survivor of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and she is only a year old. After her rescue, she was shipped to Canada and found a forever home in Toronto. Or so it seemed.

She had only been with her new family for a month before an incident in the off-leash area of Dog Hill in High Park sent her scurrying through an opening in the fence, and into that great sprawling void that is our grey winter city. And this has been one of the most miserable winters on record, with searing cold nights and endless snow.

Still, a puppyhood as a stray may have helped Penny cope with these past two months on her own.

This past week, the Toronto Star ran this comprehensive article on the lost dog.

There have been reports of Penny sightings:

Mid-December: Sunnyside and Indian Road area just east of High Park

January 20: Humberside and Indian Grove at 7:30pm. She was spotted wearing her collar but no jacket. This sighting was confirmed with a woman who recognized her through photos, and with a tracking dog who found the trail but could not follow it to an exact location.

January 28: Around 8:15 p.m. near Avon Avenue and Feltham Avenue (west of Weston Road), possibly around Harwood Park.

At time of writing (January 30), it’s also possible that Penny has been picked up and is now in the St. Clair West area, between Arlington and Winona. A dog matching her description has been spotted with a teenaged boy walking between 10 and 1. Although we would like to think that Penny is in out of the cold and getting something to eat,  given that she has been tagged and microchipped, she really needs to go home.

Her owners have gone to the ends of the Earth in their search for this beloved girl, and those of us who love our own animals as companions in creation, would also do the absolute best we could.

Penny is not the only pet missing during this difficult winter, and we all need to be aware of dogs wandering without an owner in sight. With cats, who are routinely let out, even in foul weather, it’s more difficult to tell whether they’re stray. And if we do spot some likely stray, let’s take the time to help re-home them.

Penny has tags, a Toronto Animal Services license, and a microchip to help her find her way home if she is spotted and caught.

Microchip: 982009105462418
Toronto: D08-111774
PetLynx: AA55279

For more information, check out these websites:

Find Penny. This is her owners’ site.

One Bark At A Time

Pets.ca forum

A Small Miracle in Mumbai

On a hospital campus in the scarred city of Mumbai, one of the victims of last month’s terrorist attacks is making a recovery – an aging, cream-coloured stray dog that workers have named Sheru.

Sheru – the word means Lionheart in Hindi – was hit by an errant bullet when two gunmen opened fire in a crowded railway station during the first night of the assault.

The dog’s survival has become an uplifting and soothing symbol of Mumbai’s recovery for many anxious and angry citizens of a city where children are receiving trauma counselling.

In a three-day rampage beginning Nov. 26, 10 gunmen killed more than 170 people and wounded at least 230. They attacked the train station, two luxury hotels, a restaurant, a Jewish outreach centre and other sites.

“Some may ask why a dog is being saved when so many human lives were lost,” said veterinarian J.C. Khanna, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Indian army.

“But saving all creatures big and small shows the love and affection for all life that (Mumbai) has shown again and again. Sheru’s life stands for something, for all of us getting back on our feet.”

The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
~ Gandhi

On the night of the attacks, Sheru heard the gunfire and people’s screams and was too terrified to move, said Shripat Naik, a local newspaper photographer who was at the scene and brought Sheru to the animal hospital.

“I myself was a dog owner. My dog died a year ago. My heart went out to this poor, quivering animal.”

“The bullet had luckily cleared Sheru’s shoulder and didn’t puncture his heart or lungs. It was like a small miracle,” said Yuvraj Kaginkar, manager of the hospital unit of the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

India is home to one of the world’s largest populations of stray dogs.
But in this rattled city, freshly painted black billboards warn: “Someone needs to protect the city: It all starts with you.”

“Ultimately, it is an ecosystem,” said Khanna, the veterinarian and retired army officer.

“Everyone is connected to each other. If animals are not there, we are not there. Sheru has made it. That was good news for all of us.”

Gandhi would be pleased.

Full story at the Toronto Star

No Christmas at the Shelter

I wonder what Bailey’s family was thinking.

I wonder what was going through their minds when they tied him to a fence and abandoned him in the Canadian winter.

Was he a cute golden puppy that grew too big for the family? Was he chewing on their shoes? Did he grow too big to be fun anymore? Were they no longer able to afford the vet bills? Did they take Bailey to the vet? Were they worried about losing their jobs? Did they figure it was easier just to leave Bailey tied to a fence than to take some responsibility to look after him or turn him in to a shelter?

What did they think would happen to him? Some kind Samaritan would take him home and love him forever? The authorities would shelter him and he would soon find a new, loving home?

They never could have anticipated, in their wildest imagination, that Bailey would be one of a handful of animals that survived the horrible blaze at the Durham Humane Society Shelter this week. But did it cross their minds that, had Bailey not had the double good fortune to end up in a no-kill shelter and survive its destruction, he might have been euthanized in a few short days?

A good death.

Does Bailey’s family think about the turn of events in the past short tragic week?

Bailey was one of eight dogs and two cats saved from the fire at the Durham Region Humane Society shelter in Oshawa. Most of the animals did not make it out alive.

The overcrowded shelter was in a run-down industrial area of Oshawa, a satellite of Toronto that is facing an evisceration of the automotive sector while Smilin’ Jim Flaherty contemplates his navel lint.

The shelter, run on the broken hearts of volunteers, could not afford a sprinkler system. The ultimate irony is that the shelter was hoping to move to a better location soon because of break-ins and vandalism.

The jury is still out on the cause of the fire, although the Fire Marshall seems to have ruled out arson, which would have been the worst, really unthinkable, scenario. In fact, the culprits could have been mice chewing on wiring in the ceiling.

No revelations will heal the hearts of the volunteers who cared for these precious creatures. We can only let them know that their work on behalf of animals in need is so very special. May they have the courage to pick up the pieces and continue on for the animals that need them more than ever.

Animal lovers across the country rallied to help as the news spread.

“It’s been crazy here,” said Richards. “People are very upset and some people have just been crying on the phone.”

Donations poured in to their website and offers of temporary locations, food and supplies kept staff hopping all day.

Whitby mother Candie Abramson and her sons M.J., 13, and Quinton, 11, arrived at the Animal Services shelter on Farewell St. with cash donations in lieu of Christmas gifts for their teachers.

“How many coffee mugs and boxes of chocolates do they really need?” said Abramson. “We thought this way would benefit the little people with four legs.”

Coincidentally, the 50 members of the Divine Light Spiritual Foundation in Oshawa had already picked the humane society for their annual charity donation.

“When we heard about the fire, we thought, `This is imperative, let’s get this done now,’” said Rev. Alva Folkes of the $5,000 gift.

Animal welfare workers were thrilled with the public response.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
~ Margaret Mead

May those that were once Bailey’s family come to know how much poorer they are without him, especially during this season of giving.

And I wonder what Bailey is thinking, after losing his home and those he depended on, spending three days in a cold concrete cage, suffering through a frightening fire, and ending up in another cold concrete cage while, in a week’s time, thousands of boys and girls will be having sugarplum dreams of new iPods and Guitar Heros, and their parents, of HDTV.

More on the story at the Toronto Star.

What can you do?

If you are able to help the Durham Humane Society by making a donation to their trust fund or material donations, follow this link to their website.

If you’re not in the area, please consider a Christmas donation to a needy shelter nearby.

Allah Help The Dogs of Baghdad

It is a duty upon every human being to respect Allah’s creation. If we ill treat any of His creation, we will be questioned about it on the Day of Judgment.

Iraqi police officer Qassim Ahmed, left, and veterinarian Mazin Hameed, center, are seen next to the bodies of two stray puppies who ate poisoned meat in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008. Baghdad authorities killed more than 200 stray dogs on Sunday, the opening day of a campaign to manage the dog packs that roam the capital.

The Unclean Children of God

Operation Baghdad Pups

War Horse Puppet Theatre

Many audience members weep openly. When the play reaches its moving climax, it sends them to their feet in rapturous applause.

In the somewhat blasé world of London theatre-going, this kind of emotional empathy with what’s happening onstage is a rarity. And when puppetry is involved, one might imagine further barriers to connecting viscerally to what in essence is a battlefield horror story.

But War Horse – the latest jewel in the crown of Britain’s National Theatre – is a horror story with heart. It’s a brilliantly realized stage version of Michael Morpurgo’s acclaimed novel about a Devonshire farm horse named Joey who is sold to the cavalry and thrown into the carnage of the First World War. There, after suffering dreadful ordeals, he ends up reunited with the humble farm boy who has enlisted at the age of 16 with one goal in mind: to find the beloved animal from whom he has been parted.

But it’s not just another tenderly wrought story of a boy and his animal. It is also a searing examination of an almost forgotten chapter from the First World War.

When you watch the lacerating scene where members of the cavalry are mowed down by the Germans’ mechanical might, you can’t help but recall the idiotic assertion by the British military establishment that the machine gun had no stopping power against the horse. The grisly truth is that between the years 1914 and 1918, a million horses were sent across the English Channel to France – and only 62,000 returned. War Horse tells us what it was like for them.

They were used as cavalry horses, for pulling guns and ambulances; in the battlefields of the Western Front they were essential to the armies on both sides. I discovered also that at the end of the war most of our surviving horses were sold off to French butchers. Here was a strong story, I felt, the story of how it was to be a horse in the First World War.

And so I wrote War Horse, like most of my novels a book that is as much for adults as for children. Now, 25 years later, War Horse has been turned into a play at the National Theatre. It would be difficult to imagine a production of greater ambition and complexity.

The puppetry miracles are wrought by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company. There’s a touch of the abstract in these awesome, larger-than-life creatures whose components include a flexible bamboo framework, translucent skin and the brilliant manipulations of teams of puppeteers – yet they emerge as intensely real, both physically and emotionally, in the toss of a mane or the pricking of the ears or in the basic flexing of the loins in preparation for a charge.

Other puppet imagery also emerges, ranging from the comical – in the form of a cranky farmyard goose – to the horrific – in the moment when a carrion crow descends on a dying horse.

This is an astounding production with emotional resonance, performed by an exceptional company of actors.

Full review at National Post.

Michael Morpurgo website

Images from the production

A Dead Moose in the Room

Earlier, we blogged about Matthew Scully’s important book, Dominion, which condemns factory farming, trophy hunting and other activities involving animals. At the time, Scully was speechwriter for George W. Bush.

He is also the man behind last night’s Republican convention speech by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, which is interesting in light of Scully’s moral opposition to hunting and Palin’s love of the activity.

“We hunt as much as we can, and I’m proud to say our freezer is full of wild game we harvested here in Alaska,” she recently told Newsweek. Probably better than a short life in a factory farm, but there’s more.

Another report detailed the home where her parents “live amid hundreds of sets of trophy antlers and a taxidermy collection that includes a giant moose head and a full-grown mountain lion.” Then there’s the aerial hunting of bears and wolves. The AK Wildlife Alliance discusses the state’s pandering to corporate and special interests such as the Safari Club, which Scully lambasted in his book.

Time had this to say:

“But the story is more complicated than just the recycling of a Bush staffer into John McCain’s fold, and it tells you more about how McCain’s camp intends to use Palin than it does about the continuing influence of the current White House.”

“The clues are in the text itself. Scully started working on the vice-presidential speech a week ago, before he or anyone else knew who the nominee would be, and it’s not hard to pick out the parts that would have been the same regardless of who delivered it. Scully unspooled two centrist themes via Palin that have been key to the McCain message: the idea that the Republican nominee puts service to country ahead of career and the notion that he’s the true representative of Middle America. Both themes implicitly push Obama and Biden to the left, and Scully made them explicit with lines accusing the Democrats of élitism and talking down to working-class voters… Palin was shown as an average mainstream American looking to bring change to Washington, further bolstering McCain’s overarching message of reforming the wasteful Federal Government.”

‘Scully was a good choice to help moderate Palin’s right-wing image. A veteran of the early Bush White House, his specialty was crafting Bush’s pro-life message in a way that would not offend soccer moms or mainstream Catholics who get nervous around some of the more extreme Evangelical rhetoric.”

“Don’t be surprised, though, if the combination continues… If Palin was viewed as the most likely right winger to sell in the swing states, Scully is the right pick to help repackage her from a base pleaser into a bridge builder.”

Matthew, you got some ’splainin’ to do.

More on this story at The Statesman.

Caribou Barbie image from Mudflats.

Visit the Marking Time blog for an eloquent review of the Scully/Palin speech.

Some interesting observations on the Scully/Palin connection and hunting over at My Face is on Fire.

A choice of nightmares: Hunting and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Tour de Dog

David Sylvester and Chiva are a human and canine best friend team exploring North America by bicycle to encourage and to teach responsible animal/human relationships.

The goals of Tour de Dog are to raise awareness about the challenges and problems animals shelters and control facilities face and to improve their images and capabilities.

Their plans are to tour animal shelters and control facilities throughout North America, and champion the cause through speaking engagements, blogging, reporting and fundraising. David would like to produce a video documentary of human/animal relationships, and implement improvements for shelter facilities in need.

“In the picture below, Chiva is seen in the gas chamber. Pipes were hooked up to car exhaust and the animals were left in the dark to suffocate. Chemical gas chambers are still used today in the United States to euthanize animals.”

Biking Dog Blog