Since last summer, our online community has been closely following the story of Harry, a two-year-old Golden Retriever who had been fighting an aggressive sarcoma since Thanksgiving, 2006. It was during this same period that Harry’s two feline friends were battling acute renal failure from adulterated pet food.

Harry and his sister Lucy had been adopted at the same time, and Lucy was his constant companion throughout his too-short life, and his support through his radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

Sweet Harry was not only a lover but also a fighter, but in the end, this little boy crossed the Rainbow Bridge this past week - far too soon. We all love his mom’s stories and pictures of Harry and Lucy and the Golden Bone, and our hearts go out to a little dog who is now looking for her buddy.

This YouTube video celebrating Harry’s life was thoughtfully created by one of the members of our community who lost her own best buddy to cancer. Her tribute has a universality that touches all of us who have been fortunate to have had our lives enriched by these precious souls.

Godspeed, Harry. Saint Francis is watching over you.

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You’ve come to journey’s end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You’re only sleeping

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don’t say: «We have come now to the end»
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you’ll be here in my arms
Just sleeping

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West

Into The West was performed by Annie Lennox over the ending credits to the third film in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy: The Return Of The King. This song was in part inspired by New Zealand filmmaker Cameron Duncan’s tragic early death from cancer. The song’s first public performance was for Duncan’s funeral. This won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 2003 Academy Awards.

Fioretti di San Francesco (The Little Flowers of Saint Francis) is a florilegium - a collection of excerpts - divided into 53 short chapters, on the life of the fabled saint, which was composed at the end of the 14th century.

The anonymous Italian text, almost certainly by a Tuscan author, is a version of the Latin Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius, of which the earliest extant manuscript is one of 1390 A.D. The text has been ascribed to Fra. Ugolino da Santa Maria, whose name occurs three times in the Actus.

The text has been the most popular account of his life and relates many colorful anecdotes, miracles and pious examples from the lives of Francis and his followers.

It is said that one day while Francis was traveling with some companions they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to “wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds”. The birds surrounded him, drawn by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. Francis spoke to them:

My sister birds, you owe much to God, and you must always and in everyplace give praise to Him; for He has given you freedom to wing through the sky and He has clothed you…you neither sow nor reap, and God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains for your thirst, and mountains and valleys for shelter, and tall trees for your nests. And although you neither know how to spin or weave, God dresses you and your children, for the Creator loves you greatly and He blesses you abundantly. Therefore… always seek to praise God.

Fioretti tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf “terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals”. Francis had compassion upon the townsfolk, and went up into the hills to find the wolf. Soon, fear of the animal had caused all his companions to flee, though the saint pressed on. When he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis.

“Brother Wolf, thou doest much harm in these parts and thou hast done great evil…” said Francis. “All these people accuse you and curse you…But brother wolf, I would make peace between you and the people.”

“As thou art willing to make this peace, I promise thee that thou shalt be fed every day by the inhabitants of this land so long as thou shalt live among them; thou shalt no longer suffer hunger, as it is hunger which has made thee do so much evil; but if I obtain all this for thee, thou must promise, on thy side, never again to attack any animal or any human being; dost thou make this promise?”

In agreement the wolf placed one of its forepaws in Francis’ outstretched hand, and the oath was made. Francis then commanded the wolf to return with him to Gubbio.

Meanwhile the townsfolk, having heard of the miracle, gathered in the city marketplace to await Francis and his companion, and were shocked to see the ferocious wolf behaving as though his pet. When Francis reached the marketplace he offered the assembled crowd an impromptu sermon with the tame wolf at his feet. He is quoted as saying: “How much we ought to dread the jaws of hell, if the jaws of so small an animal as a wolf can make a whole city tremble through fear?”

Gubbio was freed from the menace of the predator. Francis, ever the lover of animals, even made a pact on behalf of the town dogs, that they would not bother the wolf again.

These legends exemplify the Franciscan mode of charity and poverty as well as the saint’s love of the natural world. Part of his appreciation of the environment is expressed in his Canticle of the Sun, a poem written by the saint in Umbrian Italian shortly before his death in 1226, which expresses a love and appreciation of Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Mother Earth, Brother Fire, and all of God’s creations personified in their fundamental forms. In Canticle of the Creatures, he wrote: “All praise to you, Oh Lord, for all these brother and sister creatures.” His Canticle is believed to be among the first works of literature, if not the first, written in the Italian language.

It is an affirmation of Francis’ personal theology as he often referred to animals as brothers and sisters to Mankind, and rejected material accumulation and sensual comforts in favour of “Lady Poverty”.

Image: Saint Francis instructs the Wolf, Carl Weidemeyer-Worpswede, 1911

Prime Minister Harper’s security detail has a different breed of assailant to guard against while he attends the meeting of NATO leaders in Bucharest this week: the city’s infamous stray dogs.

The New York Times published the following article on the subject, which is very similar to one published by Italian Corriere della Sera and by the International Herald Tribune. It is suspected that Romanian authorities sent a press release in order to create panic around the non-killing law, which could be approved next week by the Parliament. Romanian animal protection organizations are extremely concerned about the campaign started by Romanian newspaper Evenimentul Zilei, which is likely to jeopardize their efforts to have a non-killing law based on the “neuter and release” strategy.

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article:

Special squads of dogcatchers are already stationed along the road from the airport to the Palace of the Parliament, where the meeting will be held this week, to prevent the beasts from harassing delegates on foot or nipping at the wheels of their motorcades.

Meanwhile, the rest of the city remains under a worsening canine occupation.

The city government reports that 9,000 people are bitten each year here by dogs, though those numbers include bites by strays and pets. Officials will not venture a guess at the number of strays, and estimates of the semi-feral population in the local news media range from 30,000 to 200,000 dogs.

But everyone agrees that the problem has been growing recently, thanks to a January law that prohibits the city from euthanizing the dogs. Also unable to spay or neuter the dogs and return them to the street, city officials are facing severe overcrowding at the pound and a paralysis of policing.

“Because the shelters are full, we cannot capture the dogs,” Simona Panaitescu, director of the city’s administration for animal supervision, said of the canine Catch-22. “We are stuck in the middle.” The city used to nab 1,500 dogs each month, according to Ms. Panaitescu, of which 80 percent were put down and 20 percent adopted.

Apparently, the impounded dogs are to be released on the streets again, once the NATO Summit has concluded.

The local debate flared up earlier this year when two women were mauled by stray dogs in separate attacks. A Japanese businessman was killed in January 2006 when he was bitten in the femoral artery.

The stray dogs of Romania are one of the longest running stories in Eastern Europe. Their population first exploded when the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu demolished thousands of houses to make way for an ill-considered reconstruction plan. Residents forced to move into tiny apartments had no room for their dogs, which they then put out on the street.

Throughout Romania, dogs can be seen trotting along the sides of roads and peering from perches on trash bins. At night, their baying and barking provides a constant backdrop, like the honking of car horns in big cities.

Ioana Pirvulescu, a representative of the animal-welfare group Four Paws in Bucharest, said she hoped that a new law permitting authorities to parole spayed and neutered dogs could pass as soon as next week, after the NATO meeting ends.

“Most of the dogs are peaceful and quiet dogs,” she said. “Living on the street is not easy. In a few years, they will disappear.”

She’s right; with an effective TNR (trap-neuter-return) policy, that might just happen.

Another side to the story

Visit Save the Dogs to read what the mainstream media are not telling you.

There are persistent rumours of silent night-time massacres around Bucharest Airport to rid the area of stray dogs and cats before the Nato Summit. Save The Dogs is unable to verify the rumours, even if in the past the authorities have used drastic methods to make a city seem more western when big international events were scheduled. What they can confirm is the intense activity of the dog-catchers observed by the President Sara Turetta in the area of the main road that leads to the airport recently. The association has frequently picked up stray dogs and cats from the airport, an area chosen by many Romanians to abandon their puppies and kittens.

Reports and videos

While the Canadian Parliament dithers over Senator Bryden’s do-little Animal Cruelty Bill S-203, Ontario is stepping up to a much-needed and long-overdue overhaul of its 90-year old provincial legislation.

Long-time animal protector, Hugh Coghill, the Chief Inspector with the Ontario SPCA, struggled to compose himself as he spoke to reporters.

“It’s a great day for the animals in Ontario, and that’s what we’re focused on,” he said, then took a deep breath. “Sorry. Been waiting a long time for it.”

The province’s Animal Protection Act is considered by many to be a point of shame for the province. Animal advocates claim it currently does little to ensure creatures receive the proper care and the people who mistreat them get punishments they deserve.

But today, the government introduced legislation that will strengthen the Act with new measures, including new rules on the province’s 50 roadside zoos that will impose higher standards for owners and allow the Ontario SPCA to inspect them and making animal cruelty a provincial offence carrying stiffer penalties.

“It’s going to be good news for all people who love animals,” Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Rick Bartolucci said. “I would hope that those people who have stewardship of animal care will say we’ve gone from worst to first with this legislation.”

“We always try to get people to look after their animals in a proper and humane way. And if they don’t, this legislation gives us the tools to be able to deal with it in a far more effective manner,” says Coghill.

For many, this overhaul is long overdue as Ontario has some of the most lax animal protection laws in the country. Currently, the province’s small zoos aren’t held to any standards, with many animals forced to live in filthy and flimsy pens without clean drinking water. Animal cruelty is only considered a provincial offence if the creature is involved in a commercial breeding operation.

The standard of care for animals in a commercial operation includes adequate food, water and space. However, these guidelines don’t apply to pets, who are considered possessions.

While opposition parties are pleased to see a proposed change to this legislation, they’re still waiting to see if the Liberal overhaul has any real teeth and adequate funding.

“Right now, they don’t have the budget to do the work that they’re supposed to be doing,” Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton said.

“If we’re going to take this issue seriously, the Ontario SPCA has to have a consistent level of funding that will allow them to do the work — something that isn’t there now.”

The proposed legislation has several aims, including:

• making it a provincial offence to cause distress to an animal
• stiffer penalties, which include jail terms, fines and lifetime bans on animal ownership
• inspection rights at facilities where animals are kept for sale or exhibit
• banning animal fighting
• and protecting veterinarians from liability when reporting allegations of cruelty.

To read the full OSPCA Act, as it currently stands, click here. To read the proposed changes, click here.

Nowhere is the sheer uselessness of the current Canadian Parliament more evident than in its handling of animal cruelty legislation.

An animal cruelty bill headed for final reading in the House of Commons on Friday has been condemned by opponents as “19th-century legislation adjusted for inflation.”

Bill S-203 is a sham

If Bill S-203 is passed in April or May, when it comes to a third and final reading in the House of Commons, our animal friends will suffer. The bill, which purports to update Canada’s Animal Cruelty Act, is a sham. Some of its critics say that its only function is to earn brownie points for politicians.

The bill’s critics include practically every animal protection group in Canada, from the SPCAs and humane societies to the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association and grassroots organizations.

The Canadian public wants better. Just read the letters to the editor every time humane society inspectors break up another miserable puppy mill hell. People will tolerate all kinds of objectionable behaviour towards humans. But when a yobbo drags his dog behind an SUV, the overwhelming public sentiment is to string him up.

And yet after more than eight years of trying, Canada’s elected Members of Parliament can’t pass a decent animal cruelty bill into law.

The current legislation, dating from 1892, is ineffective in both scope and penalty. Efforts to update it began in 1999 but quickly ran into a buzz saw of opposition from farmers and hunters.

Eventually a watered-down version passed the Commons and went to the Senate – only to be bogged down again. Animal researchers wanted to be exempted as did alligator wrestlers. Aboriginal groups worried that a ban on brutal treatment might impinge on their traditions. Jewish and Muslim groups fretted that tougher laws might affect ritual slaughter practices.

At that point, Liberal Senator John Bryden came up with the worst of all possible worlds – a new bill that would keep the loophole-ridden 1892 law as is but make the penalties (which in practice are rarely applied) harsher.

“(Prior attempts) died primarily because the bills tried to do too much,” Mr. Bryden said. “I put a bill in that didn’t change the law, it addressed the penalties.”

Harper’s Conservatives enthusiastically embraced his private member’s bill. The New Democrats and Bloc Québécois did not. Predictably, the Liberals were split.

Ajax-Pickering MP Mark Holland tried to introduce a much stronger Bill C-373. But rural Liberals tended to support Bryden’s do-little Senate version. In February, his Bill S-203 sailed through the Commons justice committee with Liberal support. Some said they didn’t much like S-203 but would pass it anyway and then fix it another year. The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies says that there’s faint hope of that happening.

“We all look forward to the day when our laws concerning the abuse of animals are brought into line with acceptable sentences. However, it is never wise to be too hasty in changing the Criminal Code, given the far-reaching and sometimes unexpected consequences that can flow from our decisions.” ~~ Senator Donald Oliver, Nova Scotia

Under S-203, there would be no legal definition of what an animal is, and animal neglect would have to be proven to be predetermined or willful in order to be prosecuted.

MPs planning to vote in favour of S-203 say that, granted, it’s not a great improvement over the old laws, but it is “a step in the right direction” that’s “better than nothing.” That is pure bull. S-203 is a useless and vacuous piece of legislation, a blocking tactic that will stall forward movement and do nothing to help animals.

Intent to harm must still be shown, and this makes it nearly impossible to get convictions, especially in cases of negligence. Fewer than 1 per cent of animal abuse complaints are successfully prosecuted, and S-203 will do nothing to change that. What good are stronger penalties when we can’t get convictions? And only animals that are somebody’s “property” are “protected” - not stray or wild animals.

A recent report by IFAW shows Canada has the worst animal cruelty laws among the 14 countries surveyed, including the Ukraine and the Philippines.

Compared with other developed countries, Canada’s Third World mentality on animal cruelty issues is beyond shameful.

A better solution: Bill C-373

The member’s bill that would actually do something to help animals is Holland’s Bill C-373.

Holland’s bill introduces the term “negligent” and defines it as “departing markedly from the standard of care that a reasonable person would use.” It prohibits the killing of any animal (owned or unowned) without a lawful excuse. (Lawful excuses include hunting, fishing, farming, euthanasia and self-protection.)

It outlaws killing an animal brutally or viciously, whether or not the animal dies immediately — which means that the boys in Edmonton who tied a dog to a tree and beat it to death would not get off on the basis that it died on the first blow (according to the examining vet) and therefore didn’t suffer. Other provisions deal with aspects such as fighting and baiting. Perhaps best of all, C-373 moves these laws out of the property chapter of the Criminal Code, reflecting the contemporary view of animals as sentient beings, rather than possessions.

MPs know that most Canadians support progressive animal abuse legislation. Those who disapprove of cruelty to animals may be interested in discovering how their MPs voted.

Excerpted from Thomas Walkom (Toronto Star, April 2), Matthew Jay (Ottawa Citizen, April 2), and A.S.A. Harrison (Globe and Mail, March 25)

Update on April 10

By a vote of 189-71, Bill S-203 passed final vote in the House of Commons on April 9th. It will become law once it receives Royal Assent and Proclamation.

More than 130,000 Canadians signed petitions specifically opposing Bill S-203. A 2006 poll found 85% of Canadians want modern and effective legislation that makes it easier for law enforcement agencies to prosecute those who commit criminal acts of animal cruelty.

Stated Pat Tohill, WSPA Programs Manager: “During the debate, many MPs argued that S-203 was only a first step. Many said they would support MP Mark Holland’s Bill C-373. Most said they would support further amendments to Canada’s animal cruelty laws. We will be holding MPs to their commitment to support further amendments to Canada’s cruelty laws. Canadians will not wait another century before animals are protected from heinous acts of cruelty in Canada.”

A more comprehensive animal cruelty bill has been passed by Canada’s House of Commons twice in the past ten years, receiving the support of all political parties only to die in the Senate.

The opposing votes were from NDP and some Liberal members and one Bloc MP. Conservatives stood steadfastly in support of this shameful bill that retains the archaic and problematic offences enacted in 1892.

To those MPs who supported Bill S-203, you can tick that off your list for another hundred years. Shame on you.

Check out the Don’t Be Cruel website to see how your MP voted.

At a Zen Buddhist temple in southern Japan, even the dog prays.

Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha’s Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar.

It took him only a few days to learn the motions, and now he is the talk of the town.

“Word has spread, and we are getting a lot more tourists,” Yoshikuni said Monday.

Yoshikuni said Conan generally goes through his prayer routine at the temple in the capital of Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture without prompting before his morning and evening meals.

“I think he saw me doing it all the time and got the idea to do it, too,” Yoshikuni said.

The priest is now trying to teach him how to meditate.

Well, sort of.

“Basically, I am just trying to get him to sit still while I meditate.”

Ontario has the weakest zoo regulations and animal protection laws in Canada.

There are more than 45 zoos in Ontario - more than any other province - and approximately 60% of all Canadian zoos are in Ontario.

The majority of zoos in Ontario are “roadside zoos”—small, substandard facilities that typically house animals in poor, barren conditions, and lack trained professional animal care staff and the financial resources necessary to ensure proper animal care and housing.

Ontario does not regulate the keeping of exotic wildlife in captivity. One doesn’t even need a licence to keep a lion or tiger in their backyard. 2/3 of the animals kept in Ontario zoos are exotic species.

A licence is only required to keep native wildlife in captivity and the conditions are minimal, vague and poorly enforced.

To open a zoo, no training or education is necessary and no business plan or base level of funding required.

There are no public health and safety regulations or inspections to protect zoo staff, volunteers, visitors and neighbours.

It is not a provincial offence to abuse a zoo animal.

WSPA review

Ontario is expected to introduce legislation shortly, aimed at overhauling the sadly outdated 90-year-old law that regulates these misery camps. The updated legislation is intended to set standards of care for small zoos and give the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals the right to inspect the operations. The bill, if passed, will also likely ensure there are tougher consequences for people who abuse animals by making it a provincial offence to hurt an animal.

Newfoundland and Labrador spells out how specific species should be housed and treated, and Alberta recently brought in tougher zoo regulations. In other provinces, the SPCA can go into zoos and inspect the animals.

While some are worried about how the bill might impact rural animal-owners, the plan is being hailed by animal welfare groups who say the overhaul is long overdue.

“There are some pretty sad cases out there,” said Bill Peters, national director of the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums, who made recommendations to the Liberals about the new legislation. “Their standards are pretty deplorable. Some of the animals are being kept in conditions that you simply don’t want to see continue.”

Ontario’s small zoos are considered to be among the worst in the world. Investigators say they have found animals living in filthy conditions, without clean drinking water or adequate stimulation. Animals that are social and used to living in groups are kept in isolation while other more dangerous animals - like tigers and lions - are kept in flimsy cages that allow children to stick their hands right in.

In June, 2006, WSPA surveyed three of Ontario’s roadside zoos. The worst, it says, was Lickety Split Zoo in London, where footage was captured of a kangaroo unable to stand on its hind legs, a horse with cracked hoofs and several unlocked animal cages.

Some Ontario zoos won’t have much difficulty upgrading to meet new standards, Peters said. The ones who can’t should be shut down, he added. They don’t have the facilities or the educated staff to house exotic animals humanely, Peters said. “They’re simply not taking care, in any adequate sense, of the animals that they’re responsible for.”

Kristin Williams, with the Ontario SPCA, said the Liberals have given the organization cash for a voluntary inspection program but there is nothing the SPCA can do if a zoo refuses to allow an inspection. “Unfortunately, the current Ontario SPCA Act is woefully inadequate,” said Williams, who made recommendations to the Liberals on the new legislation. “It’s also very antiquated. The way people feel about their companion animals has evolved. The province wants to address those concerns and is “interested in giving the Ontario SPCA greater powers to resolve the issues that are suspected with animals in captivity.”

The new legislation comes after backbencher Liberal David Zimmer introduced a private members’ bill to regulate roadside zoos, a bill which died on the order paper when his government prorogued the legislature last year.

Melissa Tkachyk, campaigns officer with the World Society for the Protection of Animals, said she’s thrilled the province has finally decided to revamp the 1919 law. It’s time the province took a more proactive approach to the protection of animals, she said. “Of course, we always want to see things happen quicker but there has been a huge break and they haven’t got back to the legislature yet so we’ve got to be patient.”

Opposition Leader Bob Runciman is also eagerly awaiting the bill. The Conservative veteran - who has spearheaded bills to increase the penalties for people who abuse cats and dogs - said the devil will be in the small print of the legislation. The Liberals could run into trouble if they make the law too broad and subjective, allowing it to be applied to rural residents and their farm animals.

Well, that’s assuming McGuinty and his crew pass the bill this time.  Last year, McGuinty decided to end the legislative session 3-1/2 weeks ahead of schedule. Runciman’s bill took a back seat to the McGuinty crew’s overwhelming desire to get the hell out of Dodge and go blow some of that swag snagged the previous Christmas when they awarded themselves salary, RRSP and severance hikes totalling 31 per cent.

Source: Zoocheck
According to the WSPA report on zoo failures (2006), passing zoos in Ontario are the Toronto Zoo, Jungle Cat World, Muskoka Wildlife Centre and Zooz Nature Park in Stevensville, Ontario.

The 12 failing zoos are the Bear Creek Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary, Bergerons Exotic Animal Sanctuary, Bowmanville Zoo, Colasanti’s Tropical Gardens, Elmvale Jungle Zoo, Greenview Aviaries Park and Zoo, Killman Zoo, Lickety-Split Ranch and Zoo, Northwood Buffalo and Exotic Animal Ranch, Papanack Park Zoo, Pineridge Zoo and Twin Valley Zoo.

WSPA 2006 report

Zoocheck documents abysmal conditions at Killman Zoo, Twin Valley Zoo, and Lickety-Split Ranch and Zoo:

Ontario Zoocheck Report #1 (2006)

An older Zoocheck report from 1995 documents Ontario zoo investigations, and includes extensive information on recommended standards.

Report on Ontario Zoos, 1995

A half-century after the Hart of London got taken down, something was in the water of Mississauga, a bedroom suburb of Toronto, this morning.

Police shot and killed a steer that escaped from an overturned truck, saying they had no choice because the animal was charging at people. “It charged at one of the officers, right at him, and he had no choice.”

The steer escaped from a cattle truck, along with two cows and a bull. The truck overturned at about 6:40 a.m., snarling traffic on the Queen Elizabeth Way near Highway 427. (For you out-of-towners, this is a conjunction of two major rush-hour routes into the Big Smoke on Canada’s south shore, right at the corner of Sherway Gardens mega-mall).

Two of the animals ended up in the backyard of a home on idyllic Brentano Boulevard. Initially, the animals were peaceful, calmly munching away at the shrubs in the garden.

“They were rubbing up against my father’s shed. They were fine in the backyard. I guess when they tried to get them out of the backyard, that’s when they got really restless,” said a resident of the normally bucolic suburb.

The steer got spooked when handlers tried to corral it and force it into a truck. One of a number of portable iron gates used to guide the animals into the truck fell, scaring the steer. This blogger notes that the horde of residents and police might not have been helpful either; just watch the Toronto Star video and draw your own conclusions.

The officer in question then fired something like 30 rounds into the animal after which a second officer helped finish it off with a few more shots.

“He was using a handgun because we weren’t planning on taking the animal down,” noted a constable. “It was a last-minute call by the officer. Most of the streets were closed off. He was not going to endanger anyone’s life.”

Nice job, Dudley Do-Right.

Toronto Star

Dana Lyons’ Cows With Guns website

We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.
~~ Irving Townsend

The anniversary of the 2007 pet food recall is a particularly bittersweet time of remembrance for the thousands who lost their companions to contaminated food, corporate greed and inept oversight. The pet food industry is a sham, dressing up the shabby left-overs from human consumption as nourishment for animals. Its regulation is a gutless farce. Compound this with the cost-cutting efforts of income funds masquerading as pet food purveyors, and the unregulated corruption that allows plastic to pretend to be protein, and you have a recipe for disaster. Our pets were, sadly, the canaries in this coal mine.

At the end of a long, dark year, as the healing sun begins to melt away the ice from our hearts, here is some music from heaven for the small, much loved victims of the recall and those who love them. It is Samuel Barber’s hauntingly beautiful Adagio for Strings. This music is truly touched by God.

Adagio for Strings is a work for string orchestra, and it is Barber’s most popular piece. It originated as the second movement in his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11, composed in 1936.

The recording of the 1938 world premiere, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Orchestra, was selected in 2005 for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the United States Library of Congress.

The piece was played at the funerals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and JFK. It was also performed in 2001 at a ceremony at the World Trade Center to commemorate the thousands lost there in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The composer also arranged the piece in 1967 for eight-part choir, as a setting of the Agnus Dei (”Lamb of God”).

The YouTube video features a stunning rendition by the BBC Orchestra, accompanied by images from 9/11 — appropriate because of the thousands of innocent animals who died or who are surviving with medical intervention and the dedication of those who love them.

Adagio for Strings mp3 download

Itchmo: In Memory Of

Pet Food Recall

A Dog’s Breakfast

Images: Pebbles the Yorkie, and from the Flickr Photo Gallery: Yeti (malamute) and Ashleigh (cat)

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games, according to a recent Daily Mail (UK) article.

Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around. Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.

The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.

Cat owners, terrified by the disease warning, are dumping their pets in the streets to be picked up by special collection teams. Paranoia is so intense that six stray cats -including two pregnant females - were beaten to death with sticks by teachers at a Beijing kindergarten, who feared they might pass illnesses to the children.

The crackdown on cats is seen by animal campaigners as just one of a number of extreme measures being taken by communist leaders to ensure that its capital appears clean, green and welcoming during the Olympics.

Polluting factories in and around the city are being ordered to shut down or relocate during the Games to ease Beijing’s choking smog and drivers are allowed out on to the roads only three times a week.

Beggars and street sleepers are being moved to out-of-town camps or given train fares back to their home provinces.

Meanwhile, taxi drivers have been made to attend lessons in how to greet passengers politely in English and a city-wide courtesy campaign has been launched to teach Beijing’s notoriously dour and grumpy citizens how to smile and be pleasant to foreigners.

The cull of Beijing’s estimated 500,000 cat population is certain to provoke international outrage as it comes just over a year after the Chinese were criticized for rounding up and killing stray dogs across the country.

Retired doctor Hu Yuan, 80, runs one of the few remaining refuges for abandoned pets in her ramshackle home in the ancient Long Tou Jing area of Beijing. She pays for neutering and food from her pension and donations. She said: “If I don’t take them in, the government will kill them.

“People believe what the government tells them and that is why they are abandoning more and more family pets. The situation is very bad now. When women get pregnant, the doctor will ask them if they have a cat in the house. If they reply Yes, they tell them, ‘You must get rid of it, it will be bad for the baby’.”

“Look at me. I live with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week and I am very healthy.”

The round-up has been particularly intense in areas around Olympic venues and in streets and alleys surrounding five-star hotels where guests will stay during the summer games.

Despite the health warnings, the round-up of cats has led to a surge in the number of restaurants in the capital serving cat meat.

Hundreds of cats were also being sent to Guangzhou in southern China, an area infamous for restaurants that serve meat from cats and dogs and exotic animals such as snakes and tigers.

Daily Mail UK

The Times has also picked up the story and Alley Cat Allies reports it here.

Qin Xiaona, head of the animal welfare association, told The Times: “This is nothing less than torture. And the situation is much worse than this for dogs.”

The drive was announced by the city’s agricultural bureau director at a recent meeting of the municipal parliament. He ordered that all stray cats must be caught and taken off the streets before the end of June to ensure the city looks its best for the two-week-long Olympic games starting on August 8.

Mrs Qin said: “The officials said they did not want the Olympic athletes to see a single stray animal. This is partly because the Chinese care so much about face.”

The 2006 Dog Cull

Thanks to thousands of letters from concerned animal lovers around the world, including from within China, a similar anti-dog crackdown in Beijing officially stopped in 2006. According to the South China Morning Post, Chinese President Hu Jintao “was unhappy about the complaints and international media coverage” of the crackdown and put a stop to it.

IFAW Dog Cull Coverage

An Eerie Silence

The media and the big animal welfare organizations have been eerily silent on the subject.

According to one of my favourite organizations, Best Friends, “there is no clear confirmation from inside China that this is indeed happening…”

“Irene Zhang, Manager of Animal Rescue Beijing, and a friend of Best Friends, has written that Ms. Wu, the Founder of Animal Rescue Beijing, has talked with the managers of the parks in Beijing, and was told that they are no longer seeing cats being trapped by the authorities, and that that activity has stopped.” (italics mine)

“Irene Zhang also reports that animal advocates have been talking with authorities about the conditions in the camps for the street cats, and have received quite a good response.”

“None of the animal welfare groups in China is raising the alarm about the situation of the cats. There is no indication on their websites that anything out of the ordinary is taking place.”

Skim down to the bottom of the article to the links to the Asian humane organizations, and if you click them, be prepared to weep.

What Can You Do?

Worldwide outrage about the recent dog cull in Beijing brought that travesty to a halt. Encourage the Chinese authorities to understand that Olympic athletes would be less concerned about seeing a stray animal on the streets of Beijing than with a massive cull to mask what goes on in the rest of the country.

Write to the Olympic sponsors, as well as animal welfare organizations such as HSUS, IFAW and WSPA. Money talks, especially when it is as lucrative as the Olympics, but so does the Internet.

Olympic sponsors