The Dog Song

I’m just a walking my dog
Singing my song
Strolling along
Yeah it’s just me and my dog
Catching some sun
We can’t go wrong

Well just go right to the pound
And find yourself a hound
And make that doggie proud
‘Cause that’s what it’s all about

Playful, quirky, hilarious, endearing: not attributes of your typical political agitator. But singer-songwriter-producer-activist Nellie McKay merits the description. Her music is whimsical, colorful, catchy and as engaging as it is restless. Toying with antique genres and yet undeniably contemporary, it flirts with multiple styles of delivery while maintaining a sharp social conscience.

For these and other eccentricities, McKay has gained a devoted fan following. On stage and off, she’s an outspoken advocate of animal rights, a friend and ally to any arch political quip and — lucky for us — artistically uncompromising.

Excerpted from TED dot com

Image: “Lost Girls”

Nellie McKay website

Mudwrestling

This evening, Stephen Ledrew interviewed candidates, Michelle Wasylyshen, the Sussex Group PR consultant who was engaged by the Toronto Humane Society to pull together a Save the THS slate of candidates for the upcoming board election and who is, herself, running, and Dr. Johanna Booth, a veterinarian running for the board as part of the Faces of Change slate.

As with all things CP24, the pace of the interview was urgent with questions and answers coming thick and fast.

There were some easy initial questions about the special general meeting to be held on May 30 to elect the new board. This is an important meeting because the old board was requested to resign as a result of the findings of an investigation of the shelter by the OSPCA that began last November.

Stephen asked who was eligible to attend the meeting to elect the new board. Michelle was first out of the starting gate, stating, “everyone”. Well, in fact, it’s only people who had memberships prior to the end of last November and who fall within certain other criteria.

Stephen asked what the issues were, and Michelle piped up: “lack of governance”,  so he probed further: “Like what, Michelle?”

She cited the fact that the previous executive director (Tim Trow) had also been the board chair then, glancing at her sheaf of talking points, slid directly into her script about a recent OSPCA photo-op (Frank Klees and Peter Kormos are challenging the mandate of the OSPCA and Michelle wangled a pic of herself with the politicos). Her governance discussion segued into a statement that a change to the OSPCA would benefit everyone, hardly something her slate had thought of before the Newmarket debacle presented a grandstanding opportunity this week.

Johanna pointed out some specific issues with the Toronto Humane Society, having been there for eight months as a veterinarian. Governance was totally lacking, she said, with no one willing to help the hundreds of volunteers and staff begging for assistance with the animals, and this prompted them to pursue change for the THS.

At this point, Stephen opined that both slates seemed to want reform and asked whether the real issue was the euthanasia mandate.

Johanna agreed that the euthanasia policy was a key issue for the suffering, dying animals since, under the current board’s watch, the THS had refused to euthanize (Ed. note.: statistics were kept artificially low by allowing animals to die in their cages rather than through proven life-saving programs which had, in fact, been cancelled).

Michelle interrupted, saying that her slate would use euthanasia as a last resort not a first resort and that was the difference between the two slates. (This blogger’s opinion is that her statement is a total fabrication.)  Curiously, she also advised that “there are people on your slate (Faces of Change) who are no-kill, and that is just non-sustainable”.  This might not go over well with voting members and donors who want their dollars directed to programs to shelter, rehabilitate and rehome animals.

Johanna corrected her, saying that euthanasia was, in fact, a last resort for the Faces of Change.  Michelle interrupted her: “Some say it isn’t…” but then Stephen cut her off.

You can look at the Faces of Change candidates and their plans here, by the way.

Johanna added that euthanasia is only appropriate if there is an untreatable medical condition and the animal is suffering, or if there is a behavioural issue that cannot be rehabilitated. She and Dr. Karen Nasir, another Faces of Change veterinarian in the running, concur on this, and their team members have voiced their agreement.

Michelle tried to interrupt again, but Stephen cut her off and opined that both Michelle and Johanna were saying the same thing about euthanasia, so why the opposition?

According to Michelle, it was because of “so much politics in the past” but stated that her slate has no ties to the past.

Stephen was incredulous: “No one?”

“Well, one board member, but that was in the 90s.”

There was a segue to street interviews so that Stephen didn’t have to ask some really tough questions, but you can check out the facts at the blog links below.

“We’d like the politics to be set aside and a focus put on the animals,” said the street interviewees.

Then some callers weighed in.

The first caller pointed out that Johanna had done some fascinating work during her career and asked why she was running for the board.

Johanna responded that she had been working with animal rescues and spay/neuter and decided to go ahead and get a veterinary degree. She went to work afterwards volunteering to spay/neuter street animals in Panama. She’d worked for eight months at THS and had tried to improve conditions for the animals there. She felt that she could bring the needed change as a board candidate.

Stephen turned to Michelle, pointing out that THS had worked with the Sussex Group, the firm which employs her. Michelle said that, yes, Sussex Group works with organizations in “crisis situations” and is recognized nationwide. That’s all she said, not actually getting to the question of her own motivation for running for the board.

Another caller questioned the tie between her Save The THS slate to the old board, since president Bob Hambley and THS lawyer Pell Capone had attended slate meetings.

Michelle hedged, and Stephen prompted her to “answer the question, Michelle.”

“They attended one information session”, she said, then veered off again about “other people associated with the OSPCA” before Stephen cut her off.

“There’s so much misinformation out there,” Michelle said. “We’re 100% separate from the old board. I’ve spoken to Hambley once.”  Hopefully, the members have already connected the dots.

Explain, Michelle, the letter from Bob Hambley to members, allying himself and old-timer Margaret Ann Johnson with your slate of 13.  13+2.  15 board positions. Does your slate now embrace them or are you still playing good cop/bad cop?

(Elsewhere, Michelle has commented that no reasonable person would expect current board president Bob [Hambley] to endorse a slate that has no room for him on it should they be elected.)

Johanna brought the discussion back by pointing out that the Faces of Change slate is backed by a large cadre of volunteers who have walked the walk, they know the staff, they have a plan, and they are on the ground and grassroots.

Stephen suggested that, from a member’s point of view, it’s nice to be able to choose 15 individual candidates rather than feel forced to vote for an entire slate.

Johanna agreed that if there hadn’t been a slate structure, “you wouldn’t have had the politics.”

Michelle chimed in:  “Then who would you can from your team? We have fundraising, legal, and so much governance…”

And here I was, thinking it was about the animals, Michelle.

For more on the THS election, visit One Bark at a Time, and read this story about the THS’ decision to close the kitten nursery right at the beginning of kitten season, a move by the current board and management that could cost many innocent lives. Update: Under some pressure, Hambley has backtracked and now states that the kitten program will be a decision for the new board.

The following analyses from the animal welfare blogosphere are also required reading for anyone with a vote in this important election, courtesy of Social Mange and Tailspin:

THS election

Shenanigans

Ledrew, kittens and PIPEDA

Vote for compassion and honesty

The Inmates Run This Asylum

This evening, on Animal House Calls, Ann Rohmer skewered marketing guru Rob Godfrey, volunteer chair of the OSPCA board of directors.

Despite today’s searing headlines and public outcry about 350 killings that started this morning (had it not been for a leak at the Newmarket “shelter”, they would have gone relatively unnoticed or so it might have been hoped), Rob assured Ann that twenty animals have been deemed “safe for sure”. Keep upping those number, Rob, to, say, 350 minus the ones that OSPCA has managed to kill already.

See, the ringworm that infests the Newmarket facility is an unusual, rare strain of ringworm, and besides, since it’s a shelter, some of the animals were unhealthy to begin with and are beyond treatment. That could mean a dog needed dentistry, say, or a cat was FIV+, therefore beyond treatment according to the OSPCA which routinely kills for space and convenience, but definitely treatable by other shelters and veterinarians.

Rob acknowledged that a number could be treated if they were isolated, and admitted that veterinarians and others have stepped forward to do just that.

We’ve asked them before, he complained, and no one stepped forward.

It’s only today, he said, that good veterinarians have stepped forward. “That shows the power of the media.” (Submissive rollover).

Why did the crisis arise in the first place, asked Ann.

Well, it was human error and failure to follow protocols, and the manager in question has been released so that’s fixed. Did I mention that it was an unusual, rare strain of ringworm?

Besides, the whole thing’s been misreported by the media. See, it always had to be on a case-by-case basis, which is downright slow and inconvenient because all of the animals could have been sent packing over the Rainbow Bridge on the weekend before any nosey reporters or animal activist types got their hooks into this story.

But (insert look of concern) it’s now a Public Health Issue. Six shelter workers have contracted ringworm and gone and spread it Dog knows where. Ken Brown of York Region Public Health has suggested that the threat from the shelter animals is sheer nonsense (this blogger’s words, not his).

At this point, we were relieved that Ruby Richards called in from Durham Humane Society for some sober discussion. They’ve had two outbreaks of ringworm in ten years. The last time it happened, the shelter closed for two months while the animals were treated.

Ruby told us that ringworm isn’t a fatal illness. Shelter staff took precautions and no animal was ever euthanized.

Rob was speechless through all this.

No, at Durham, staff and volunteers were prepared for the possibility of becoming infected with this minor itchy ailment, because they believed in helping the animals.

It’s like athlete’s foot, said Ruby.

We were still spinning from the OSPCA spin, though, so Ann asked Rob what the Real Truth was.

There are some severe cases, and it’s been recommended by two veterinarians that these animals be euthanized, Rob advised. And a whole bunch of experts too.

Ann asked what other issues the animals had besides ringworm but, well, Rob didn’t have an answer, so we’ll all just have to take the word of the two mystery veterinarians that some number of animals will be euthanized for some undisclosed reason.

These decisions have been made by experienced professionals including veterinarians, Rob said. Accountants too.

He also commended Rick Bartolucci (who told Frank Klees today that his ministry had no jurisdiction over this as OSPCA is a charity) had been “great”. I expect Premier Dalton McGuinty would be “great” too since he’s also disavowing any legislative power to police the animal police.

Ann asked how the OSPCA is going to win back the faith and trust of the public, not to mention the donors.

Well, Rob said, we’re still the policing organization fighting animal cruelty. And we take in sick and injured animals.

Last time I looked, the OSPCA’s euthanasia rate was easily 50% and, if you bring a cat in, they’ll tell you it has a 1% chance of being adopted and then only if it is very, very cute.

“We’ve been transparent about all this. We’ve been around for so many years and never hidden the reason we euthanize. Sometimes it’s best.”

Breaking news!

The OSPCA is now asking qualified residents and local vets who can treat ringworm to contact them with their services to offer to help save the remaining animals – Tanya Firmage, the acting director of animal care, is asking qualified residents to contact the Ontario SPCA directly via Anne Buonaiuto at 905-898-7122 or email abuonaiuto@ospca.on.ca. Please forward this information to anyone  you know who may be able to help.

THS has also reached out to the OSPCA. THS staff and volunteers are willing to go to Newmarket to help treat the animals.

OSPCA, the solutions are staring you right in the face.

Donors and sponsors, the facts about the OSPCA are staring you in the face too.

Don’t forget about the Friends for Life Walkathon coming up (or not) on May 16, sponsored by IAMS and PetHealth. No dog required.

Help OSPCA Animals.

St. Guinefort, the Dog Saint

From De Supersticione, by inquisitor Stephen de Bourbon:

The sixth thing to say is about insulting superstitions, some of which are insulting to God, others to man. The superstitions which attribute divine honors to demons or any other creature insult God. Idolatry is one example, or when wretched women sorcerers seek salvation through the adoration of saddles (sambuca) to which they make offerings, through the condemnation of churches and relics of the saints, through carrying their children to ant-hills or other places in search of healing.

This is what they did recently in the diocese of Lyons. When preaching there against sorcery and hearing confessions, I heard many women confess that they had carried their children to St. Guinefort. I thought he was some saint. I made inquiries and at last heard that he was a certain greyhound killed in the following way. In the diocese of Lyons, close to the vill of the nuns called Villeneuve, on the land belonging to the lord of Villars-en-Dombe, there was a certain castle whose lord had a baby son from his wife. But when the lord and lady and the nurse too had left the house, leaving the child alone in his cradle, a very large snake entered the house and made for the child’s cradle. The greyhound, who had remained there, saw this, dashed swiftly under the cradle in pursuit, knocking it over, and attacked the snake with its fangs and answering bite with bite. In the end the dog killed it and threw it far away from the child’s cradle which he left all bloodied as was his mouth and head, with the snake’s blood, and stood there by the cradle all beaten about by the snake. When the nurse came back and saw this, she thought the child had been killed and eaten by the dog and so gave out an almighty scream. The child’s mother heard this, rushed in, saw and thought the same and she too screamed. Then the knight similarly once he got there believed the same, and drawing his sword killed the dog. Only then did they approach the child and find him unharmed, sleeping sweetly in fact. On further investigation, they discovered the snake torn up by the dog’s bites and dead. Now that they had learned the truth of the matter, they were embarrassed (dolentes) that they had so unjustly killed a dog so useful to them and threw his body into a well in front of the castle gate, and placing over it a very large heap of stones they planted trees nearby as a memorial of the deed.

But the castle was in due course destroyed by divine will, and the land reduced to a desert abandoned by its inhabitants. The local peasants hearing of the dog’s noble deed and innocent death, began to visit the place and honor the dog as a martyr in quest of help for their sicknesses and other needs. They were seduced and often cheated by the Devil so that he might in this way lead men into error. Women especially, with sick or poorly children, carried them to the place, and went off a league to another nearby castle where an old woman could teach them a ritual for making offerings and invocations to the demons and lead them to the right spot. When they got there, they offered salt and certain other things, hung the child’s little clothes (diapers?) on the bramble bushes around, fixing them on the thorns. They then put the naked baby through the opening between the trunks of two trees, the mother standing on one side and throwing her child nine times to the old woman on the other side, while invoking the demons to adjure the fauns in the wood of “Rimite” to take the sick and failing child which they said belonged to them (the fauns) and return to them their own child big, plump, live and healthy. Once this was done, the killer mothers took the baby and placed it naked at the foot of the tree on the straws of a cradle, lit at both ends two candles a thumbsbreadth thick with fire they had brought with them and fastened them on the trunk above. Then, while the candles were consumed, they went far enough away that they could neither hear nor see the child. In this way the burning candles burned up and killed a number of babies, as we have heard from others in the same place.

One woman told me that after she had invoked the fauns and left, she saw a wolf leaving the wood and going to the child and the wolf (or the devil in wolf’s form, so she said) would have devoured it had she not been moved by her maternal feelings and prevented it. On the other hand, if when they returned they found the child alive, they picked it up and carried it to a swiftly flowing river nearby, called the Chalaronne [tributary of the Saône], and immersed it nine times, to the point where if it escaped dying on the spot or soon after, it must have had very tough innards.

We went to the place and assembled the people and preached against the practice. We then had the dead dog dug up and the grove of trees cut down and burned along with the dog’s bones. Then we had an edict enacted by the lords of the land threatening the spoliation and fining of any people who gathered there for such a purpose in future.

Source: Paul Hansall, Internet Medieval Source Book.

More on dog saints at Dissident Editions.

The Creatures

Franz Marc was an Expressionist painter who formed Der Blaue Reiter group with Wassily Kandinsky. They were part of an artistic movement who were searching for spiritual truth through their art. Marc believed that colour had a vocabulary of emotional keys that we instinctively understand, much in the same way that we understand music. This language of colour was one tool that Marc used to raise his art to a higher spiritual plane; another was his choice of subject.

Franz Marc painted animals as they symbolised an age of innocence, like Eden before the Fall, free from the materialism and corruption of his own time. Animals in Marc’s art are seldom painted in isolation. They are viewed as idealized creatures in perfect harmony with the natural world they inhabit.

I am trying to intensify my feeling for the organic rhythm of all things, to achieve pantheistic empathy with the throbbing and flowing of nature’s bloodstream in trees, in animals, in the air.

Tiger is a typical example of Franz Marc’s painting style. It is a fusion of several influences: the expressive and symbolic use of colour that he discovered in the paintings of Van Gogh and Gauguin combined with the fragmented and prismatic compositions of various Cubist styles.

Blue is the male principle, astringent and spiritual. Yellow is the female principle, gentle, gay and spiritual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour to be opposed and overcome by the other two.

The Tiger and its surroundings are composed of geometric shapes whose similarity suggests both the camouflage of the tiger in its natural habitat and the harmony between the creature and its environment. Colour is the main element used to separate the tiger from its background. Strong yellow and black shapes outline its form to convey the markings of the beast. The geometric shapes that make up its form are carefully scaled and simplified to represent the tiger’s features and its muscular body, while their rhythmic movement is echoed in the stylized shapes of the rocks and foliage of the background. This is indeed an idealistic view of nature – an image designed to lift its subject above the brutality of nature in the raw.

Franz Marc yearned for a life on a higher spiritual plane. In fact, before he took up art, he studied theology with a view to entering the priesthood. Ironically, his death was a sad contradiction of his hopes and dreams. He volunteered for service in the army at the start of World War 1 and never painted again. He was killed by a piece of shrapnel in 1916, during the assault on Verdun, the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.

The Creatures:  a poem by Glen Downie, a Toronto poet who won the 2008 Toronto Book Award for his collection of poems, Loyalty Management. He has also published fiction, non-fiction, reviews and six books of poetry.

Samurai Genji Cat Goes to the Bridge

This May 1, the cherry blossoms bloomed to mark the passing of my oldest friend in human years. Genji Cat was ninety when he crossed the Rainbow Bridge. He was named after the princely hero of  Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of the Genji, which some speculate to have been the very first novel.

Nearly nineteen years ago, my best girlfriend and I were watching Pet Sematary one dark and stormy night; the movie set out the exploits of Churchill, a British Grey cat who had come back from the dead.

The very next morning – I think it was in May, 1991 – a tiny grey kitten wandered into the backyard. He was so small, he fit in the palm of my hand. His fur had the silvery shimmer of a Russian Blue. It was a spooky coincidence!

No one put up signs in the neighbourhood about the tiny lost kitten so I kept him.

My friend suggested that we call him Churchill, but I was in a Japanese mood and named him Genji since he did, after all, have some princely attitudes. Of course, his name was unpronounceable for most of my relatives.

The name was a bit grand for the tiny kitten, but he quickly grew into it. His coat remained that beautiful Russian Blue silvery grey, so his nickname became Silver Boy.

One thing he loved to do above anything else was climb up on the bathroom sink in the morning and ask for the tap to be run at a drip. He preferred that to drinking water out of a bowl. It is serious entertainment for some cats!

He also enjoyed sitting on the edge of the tub while I was having a bath. He’d dip his tail in the water, but he could never quite figure out to do after it was soaked so he’d let it drip throughout the house. Over the years, the Tub Kitten and I had many conversations about that.

Genji had managed to sneak out the back door and over the fence twice in search of Ladies And Adventure, with one incident when he was the ripe old age of 15, involving 4 days off work and several hundred flyers. Some people called to say that they’d spotted a cat a block or two away with an unusual silvery grey coat. He was as nonchalant as could be when he finally returned, lounging on the neighbour’s patio in the June heat meowing at me, with only the tip of his tail twitching.

As time progressed, his once mighty samurai body melted away to skin and bones. Still, he had a good appetite, an eye for the back door and the ladies, and was spry.

This past week, like many old cats, he went downhill very, very quickly. A couple of days ago, I had the sudden realization that he might not make it to the weekend. He could still jump on the bed in a wobbly way. He was hardly eating, and he was crying a lot. The last bit was hard to gauge, as he had been a vocal boy for many years, preferring to sing at three in the morning, or to let me know that it was 6:30 and time to run the tap in the bathroom for him.

Last night, I noticed a swelling on his jaw that I hadn’t seen the day before. It had to be an infected tooth. But at his age and in his condition, I didn’t feel that dentistry was an option. With no muscle mass, the tentative way he was now getting around, and his most recent refusal of food or milk, it was only a matter of a very short time. So I called the vet for a morning appointment.

I made him as comfortable as I possibly could, and said goodbye to him. He had loved lying on the pillow, wrapping his paw around my finger and purring on end, so we did that. He had always been a velcro-kitty Lover Boy. He wasn’t up to purring, but his breathing seemed easier.

It’s wonderful that we have the option to ease an old friend across the Bridge in comfort and dignity, but terrible to have the responsibility. There are those of you who grasp this immediately.

During the night, my two shiba inu’s were a great help. Cherry blossom princess Kyoto was the first to figure out that something was really wrong with Genji this time. She groomed him on the bed, and slept right up against him during the night. Kamikaze rescue puppy, Karinoe, watched during that Dark Night of the Soul.

The next morning, at his usual early time, Genji had somehow made it up onto the bathroom sink, and was waiting for his water. I let the tap drip for a very long time for him. And I will never forget how fragile he was.

After his last visit to the vet, I bought a little pot of forget-me-nots. It seems as though the last time I looked, the only flowers poking their heads up were brave little crocuses. Now, suddenly, everywhere there is a riot of colour. How did I miss that?

I had stepped out into the back yard at two in the morning last night and, as if for the occasion of Genji’s life passage, the weeping cherry had suddenly come into bloom. In the stark porch light, its new blossoms were quite striking, like warm spring rain. Today, I see that the Japanese kerria, quince and flowering almond are all blooming.

It seems unfair that, this May 1, Genji has departed and, while everything else is coming to life, he is missing it.

But it’s not about us.

Godspeed, sweet Silver Samurai Boy. Enjoy the cherry blossoms with your many friends beyond the Rainbow Bridge.

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.

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.

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.

But Is It Journalism?

Kim Honey, a Toronto Star food scribbler, managed to generate readership for her employer this past week by regaling us with her dispatch of a little bunny at a foodie survival get-together.

Well, it wasn’t a survival course, exactly. It was a cooking class for locavores. That’s last year’s trendy buzz in these anxious days of global warming. Since it wasn’t rabbit hunting season, the writer bought a farmed one, although one not yet committed to a neat, square styrofoam package. So it was left to the writer to do the deed.

All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? ~~ Buddha

After cuddling the creature to calm it, and telling us that grown men, soldiers even, broke into tears when faced with the choice of killing a defenseless animal, the writer failed to render the bunny senseless on her first try. She handed it over to the chef, who humanely clubbed it another three times.

We’re not sure what redeeming qualities Kim’s rambling article had. We doubt that it was intended to enlighten us on the obscenity of factory farms, slaughterhouses and speciesism. Was she advocating that Torontonians eschew the strip mall foodmart and, instead, trap raccoons for the stewpot because it’s somehow trendier? We think so. Why else would a locavore drive all the way from the Big Smoke to Hanover at today’s gas prices, to learn bunny bashing?

The city is overrun with cottontail rabbits. You can’t walk out the back door without staring down a couple of haughty raccoons, and Lake Shore Blvd. is like Canada’s Wonderland for geese. ~~ Kim Honey

We checked out a few of her other foodie scribblings for further clues. She’d written a couple of times about the orgasmic glories of foie gras, but she didn’t mention participating in the inhumane gorging of the goose. She just loves eating fat. And cake icing.

She also did a piece for the Globe awhile back about abusing animals in art for shock value. She mentioned some of the more notorious pieces, including the Toronto Casuistry incident.

At the crux of the controversy is the question: What is the definition of art? And who decides what is art…? Is it up to the individual who creates the piece to declare it as art, or should society decide whether the work has any validity? ~~ Kim Honey

We’re guessing her rabbit piece wasn’t a whole lot different.

Sadly for Kim, not everyone was in breathless agreement with her article. Her editor allowed her space the following day to whine about the emails she’d received. It was silly. We’re surprised the Star ran it.

Let’s hope she sticks to rhapsodizing over cake icing.

Read more at Taste T.O.