Animal Advocates of BC = very bad American Dog Magazine = very good

It is so disappointing when you think a group ascribes to the same ideals as you, only to find out that hidden somewhere they have an agenda that is dirty, dark and vile.So it seems to be with the Animal Advocates Society of British Columbia - they are an animal advocate organization out there who has been fighting against the British Columbia SPCA and is actually currently being sued by them.They also appear to do a lot of stuff for puppy mills, chained dogs, horse rescue, and have a large section of their website called the "Animal Advocate Watchdog News" - a newsreader that sends out action alerts constantly.But it turns out they'd also like the extinguishment of all bull type breeds for much the same reason that PETA does - in order to save them from suffering, and so that they can't hurt any more children because they're all so dangerous to humans. What a pile of bullshit, eh? And they claim that they love animals?

http://www.animaladvocates.com/dangerous-dogs/

http://www.animaladvocates.com/dangerous-dogs/bc-breeding.htm

This is what the president of the Animal Advocates Society Says on these 2 pages -

"Society should have banned all fighting breeds of dogs long ago. It is too late for hundreds of people, mostly little children who died slowly, having their scalps, and faces, and limbs torn off. We can think of only one death worse than that for children, and that is at the hands of a sexual predator.

Any society that does not prevent its children from being killed by dogs bred deliberately to be dangerous, is a sick society.

Defenders of these breeds of dogs accuse AAS of being anti-dog. We are anti-dangerous breeds of dogs, not of individual dogs. For the love of dogs, we don't want so many of them to live short, brutish lives, to be killed by pounds after they have destroyed, or tried to destroy, a human life. We don't want them to be chained, isolated, lonely, depressed, angry, crated, penned or muzzled. We don't want to hear
anymore stories of young males picking up their Pit bull by its chain and slamming it into a wall to make it "dangerous". We don't want to have to go photograph a poor Pit bull, chained in yard, and know that we can't rescue it because it might be highly dangerous. We don't want to be told anymore about the fights held on reserves and how the bloody bodies of the users are left to die or thrown in the river. For the love of dogs, we want this abuse to stop.

For the love of children, we want children to be safe from fatal attacks."

Judy Stone, President, AAS

Fear mongering at it's most degrading - because it's being said by people who should KNOW BETTER.


But on that same note, I received in the mail today my first issue of a new magazine that looks absolutely fabulous! It's called "The American Dog Magazine" - I saw it online a few weeks ago and subscribed immediately. It used to be 2 different magazines - the "Chicago Dog" and the "Colorado Dog" - and they've merged both those magazines into one new magazine - and it's super! The topics in this issue are amazing, and the contributors are one's we all recognize - Julia Szabo, Victoria Stilwell, there's even a short article in there by the former Tammy Grimes - presidennt of Dogs Deserve Better.

There's also several articles about dog law and being advocates for animals - and there's several very pro pit-bull articles - which is really interesting considering that the magazine is coming from Colorado - which is the state that houses the much pit-bull killing Denver.

I'm going to take my copy to Atlantic News to see if they'll consider carrying it there because I think it's a magazine a lot of people here in the HRM would really like - and everyone likes a new magazine to read!

Charlie and Daisy being unimaginably Cute

Tonight Charlie and Daisy were being just unbelievable cute on my bed doing some mouth wrestling - Charlie does this high pitched whine and Daisy does this growling thing and they can just play and play. It is so cute, and I finally got a minute or so of it on video tonight. It is just to die for it is so - there's no other word for it - it's just 200 hundred pounds of cute.

Christmas Day Close-ups

The little dogs had a good time at Christmas supper - I took a little piece of a bully stick with me for each of them, and they got to each of it without any interference from the big dogs - no one tried to steal them, so they were able to chew to their hearts command, which they did! So everyone had a good time. Enjoy the photos...

Animals suffer during power outage

A dog barks at the Metro SPCA which was without power on Christmas Day. The animal shelter had no power for at least 30 hours.

Sick puppies and other animals shivered in the cold at the Metro SPCA on Christmas Day after spending about 30 hours without heat at the Burnside animal shelter.

Some rooms had lights but there wasn't enough power getting into the Scarfe Court building to generate heat for the more than 30 dogs and many cats and a handful of bunnies housed inside.

In an interview barely audible over the howling and barking dogs, Sean Kelly, the chairman of the shelter management team, said he'd repeatedly called Nova Scotia Power to get someone to come out to restore power, but got nowhere.

"We had volunteers come in today expecting to clean a few kennels and help a few animals and instead they were hit with a huge amount of work and seeing the dogs like this. Everyone's just demoralized beyond belief," he said.

About a dozen tall laundry baskets piled high with soiled blankets were lined up in front of two industrial laundry machine sets, while the blanket storage area was almost empty.

Kat Horne, a member of the management team, said the shelter is using more blankets to keep the dogs and cats warm. Two thin-coated American Staffordshire Terrier mixes were shivering in the sick room. They wear coats at night to keep warm, but would have to wear them during the day.

The moans of one particular dog — a large husky German Shepherd mix named Reegan — could be heard from the front entry, even though he was tucked away in the last cage in the isolation room at the opposite end of the building.
"When they can't see, it freaks them out," making a stressful situation even worse for the animals, Ms. Horne said.

"What we really need is Nova Scotia Power to come and do something like they were supposed to yesterday," she said.

There were no Metro-area outages listed on the the power company's online outage page.

Company spokeswoman Glennie Langille confirmed the shelter's power situation this afternoon.

She said the shelter's outage was a "one off" and that the crews were focused on larger outages.

At 2:30 p.m., she said a crew was on its way to fix the problem.

The Public needs to see more of this work about the NS SPCA

I found this page on the NS SPCA's website today - "Give Me Shelter"
SPCA Says It's Time to Take Your Pets Inside - another press release, this time from November 24, 2008 - and it's all about bringing your pets and other domesticated animals inside when the weather starts getting bad in the wintertime this winter. And it features a dog that was found last winter named Jane.

It shows Jane when she was found in King's County last February when it was -42 celcius and she was completely matted and couldn't keep her front paws on the ground because it was so cold and she was freezing to death and her fur was completely stuck together with balsam fur - and it was a fluke that she was even found before she died because no one had even called in a complaint about her.

It was lucky though that the Special Constable did find her though - because when she was taken to a veterinarian to be assessed these kidney stones were found inside her - it was obvious that she hadn't had any care for a very long time - so she obviously had been in very serious distress for a long time.

And its completely thanks to the Special Constables and cruelty officers of the NS SPCA that Jane now has a great home and is going to live a long and wonderful life - and has a happy ending - which she never would have had otherwise.

Now that is a fabulous story. And its unfortunately sort of buried - it's a press release, but for some reason - it didn't get picked up anywhere - and to me that's a shame. It even has media contacts at the end for who to contact. I seem to remember that the SPCA has a paid PR person now too - so stories like this should be getting out - because this is a great story and one that should be told - people would give money to an organization that does work like this.

Boston's story too, was a great one. Maybe the NS SPCA should start a blog - I think that would be a good idea - I bet there'd be people willing to set that up and maintain it.

But this is a beautiful way to go into Christmas Eve, with this story - of Jane who was saved, isn't it? She looks so beautiful now. I hope she's having a great life. And I hope that there's a lot of other Jane's out there that will be helped too.

Babies!

NOTE - In looking at these photos after I've published this post - you're going to have to actually click on the pictures to actually SEE the babies - they're at the top of the photos - they're the tiny little orange blobs!

I don't talk about my fish too much - but I am also the proud owner of a 30 gallon tank of mostly platys - and a couple of guppies too, and a couple catfish and one very flashy and large bristle nose pleco that I almost never see.
I have in the past had some cichlids that I absconded from my lunch room from my work that were a few hours from dying - but they did nothing but chase each other around so that they could try and fight - so I passed them on to true cichlid afficiandos who could handle their kind of special behaviours.
Platys and guppies are much more my style - very laid back and happy and just want to swim around and eat whatever floats by. And they are very beautiful

And in the last 24 hours, someone has had babies - which no one has done in a while - so I hope no one eats them!

Buttercup and Jackie felt like playing today

Both Jackie and Buttercup felt like playing with their toys today - and they were just SO cute. And Buttercup with her Elmo toy was just - over the top.
I made a slide show of them playing with their toys. Unbelieveable. This is why people love little dogs. Charlie and Daisy were feeling pretty mellow today - so they just stayed on the outskirts of the melee.

The slideshow is below for your enjoymentThis is a closeup I was able to catch today of Jackie's good eye - you can not only see me and Charlie in it - but you can also see the scar of the ulcer that formed on it this summer that we were able to catch within about one hour of Jackie scratching his eye ball - it happened that fast and he was in obvious complete agony. It just goes to show how fast it obviously happened up in Cape Breton, how much it obviously hurt, and how serious it quickly became - and this is scar that is left all these months later - but at least he still has some vision in his good eye - he can see food in your hand about a mile away!

Daisy saying - "don't pay any attention to those little dogs - just scratch my ass!"

Boston the Husky has a home for Christmas!

I made a post in the last couple weeks about Boston - the husky who the Dartmouth SPCA shelter had fallen in love with because of his gentle nature, hard life and special needs - and they were turning over heaven and earth to find a soft place for him to spend his retirement time in - I just got an email saying that he's found his perfect forever home in time for Christmas!

Way to go staff at the Dartmouth SPCA! And way to go Boston and his new forever home! I hope they have the best Christmas ever!

SPCA Press Release about Celtic Pets Verdict

The NS SPCA has put out their spin on the animal abusers MacIsaac's verdict in the Celtic Pets case in a press release on their website.

It puzzles me - because I know it would have been written partially by the same people who were at the scene last year when the seizures were done - so they would have witnessed the horror first hand - their lives would have been changed forever by what they found at the kennel and the unoccupied house on animal abusers Zonda MacIsaac's property - having to remove those poor cats from the raw sewage in the basement, and then having to take the dogs out of the shit stacked kennels - and the too small crates in the house - all of the matted and feces filled dogs - they would have looked in their eyes and made a pact with them on that day saying that their suffering wouldn't have happened in vain.

And then here we are almost a year later, and we have a press release from them saying "The Nova Scotia SPCA is pleased to report that two Port Hawkesbury women have pled guilty under the provincial Animal Cruelty Prevention Act for their part in the widely publicized “Celtic Pets” animal cruelty case earlier this year."

the NS SPCA is PLEASED with the way the verdict turned out. I cannot believe that that could be true. I think they should be appalled with the way the verdict turned out. I think the animal abusers MACISAAC'S should be PLEASED with the way the verdict turned out - but the SPCA certainly shouldn't, because they haven't taken animals out of harm's way.

Both animal abusers Zonda and Alice get to continue to abuse animals because they are allowed to keep companion animals. What about their lives has been punitively changed by the verdict? It was even put into the official court records that animal abuser Alice is a "dog whisperer". I wonder what she was whispering into Jack's ear when the ulcer in his eyeball was exploding and his eyeball was disappearing into the socket and he was in unbelievable unbearable pain - while he was living in her house. And now she has 2 dogs to give that kind of attention to - and then when they die - probably prematurely because of the care they're given - she'll be able to go get another one, then another one - until the 20 years are up - and then she can start collecting again until she gets up to the 40 or so that she had when she was raided in February.

Sean Kelly said about the 2 charges that they were charged with federally - "less than 1% of people who are charged under that act ever get found guilty,” - so that's why those charges were dropped. If that's the case - then they have a federal cruelty animal act at all? If 99% of the charges never stick - then why have that Act at all? That is preposterous. Am I the only one who sees that as being ludicrous? There was obvious cruelty going on in those 2 buildings in Port Hastings. There were 127 animals seized - why were only 4 charges laid - 2 of them being federal charges - and those 2 were dropped because only 1% of those types of charges ever lead to a conviction. There is something wrong here.

And please don't think that I am complaining about the Special Constables who went and did the seizure, or the shelter workers, and volunteers who looked after the animals - I consider them to be as much victims of this whole debacle as the animals - there has been no justice in this case for any of the animals, or for the humans who witnessed the horrible abuse.

Another sentence in the press release that has really struck me hard - and something that has heretofore never been said before in such a way by the NS SPCA is this -

"In total, 51 dogs and 79 cats were seized, many of whom later died or had to be euthanized due to illness and/or severe behavioral issues as a result of their neglect."

What are they saying here? How many is "MANY"? We know about the SIX that they killed because they were supposedly too aggressive for the staff to handle - but "MANY" sounds like more than six to me. So how many is "MANY"? I am really worried about that. How MANY did die?

And finally - I can't believe that they would put anything like this is a press release about a verdict such as the MacIsaac verdict - "Mr. Kelly stated further that while this is a celebratory outcome for the Society, “tougher animal cruelty legislation would make that verdict more meaningful.”" - I can tell you that there is nothing to celebrate about this verdict. At least I don't think there is.

I asked a board member tonight about this press release and was told this was not issued as a press release, it was "never actually issued as a press release, just as an update for the website" - even though it's listed in the press release section of the website. So everything about it is weird. Things about it just don't jive. I am so confused about it. I don't know why they would feel the need to comment on the verdict in this way, what are they trying to tell us? I don't know. I don't like to feel confused, I really want my information fed to me, and this didn't do it, it didn't make me feel goood inside - I have more questions than answers. And the questions aren't good ones.

Buttercup says "You got my hair cut on the wrong day!"

Right now we seem to be getting a blizzard here in Halifax, which is too bad - because earlier today Buttercup was to the beauty parlour and had a pretty close trim - so she is very unhairy at the moment.
These are a couple of photos of Jack on the back deck saying - "nope, I don't think I'm going to go down the stairs to have my pee - I'm just going to do it on the garbage can right up here on the deck!
When I took Buttercup in for her haircut I also took Charlie in too, and I gave him a bath - something which he always very unhappy about - although I try to make it as easy on him as possible. The Metro Dog Wash has one tub that's at floor level that you can walk the dog right in to - and so the human can also get in as well - and that's the one I always use for Charlie - but he still hates it.
But afterwards he immediately went out into the store area and picked this bully stick out of the pile and laid down and started intensely chewing on it as if to say "man, I really deserve this - so I'm going to eat this like I've never eaten a chew stick before" - and he did.
These are a couple photos of Buttercup at the end of her groom - isn't it interesting how when a dog is completely stressed out they can look their happiest? She is trembling and going nuts - but since she's so stressed out - that's when she can give her best smiles.
She shows her teeth and everything. She's so beautiful - I wish we all this good under severe trauma.
This is Charlie tonight still not very happy with me.
This is Jackie being pretty cocky - I think he's feeling like he's pretty sure he ducked a pretty big arrow today when the 2 dogs who left came back smelling like that awful place that he goes to sometimes where they cut his nails and mess with his hair - and this time the human didn't take him too!
This is Buttercup with her fabulous new face - I don't think her face has ever been cut this short before - and she looks really cute!

New Gail Benoit Video

There is a new Gail Benoit video on You Tube posted by an unknown individual showing someone thinking about buying a puppy from Gail, and then it goes to a phone call where Gail is trying to sell herself to the prospective buyer. It's a really interesting exchange - because it shows how Gail is trying to minimize what happened last summer when she sold 21 dogs - all of whom died after she bought 27 (here she says she bought 28 dogs) from Chapman kennels - and because of the way she treats dogs - they all got parvo and died. But she says in this video that she is always going to sell puppies and there's nothing anyone can do about - that is the business she is in.

Actually - there is something someone can do about it - and that is the Nova Scotia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty. If they could build a case of cruelty to animals that would stick in a court of law - and if the justice system would believe in the laws that have been written in Nova Scotia to actually get a conviction that includes a lifetime ban on the ownership of animals - that would shut down hers and her partners business. But unfrotunately - we have been shown in 2001 when they were convicted of cruelty then and banned from ownership (which was turned over on appeal because of technicalities) and recently with the MacIsaac's case - that neither the justice system believes in itself - or the NS SPCA seems to be able to build strong enough cases - to actually shut down humans who actually are purposely endangering animals.

All we are left with is SPCA's who seems to joyously kill animals that come into their shelters (ie Cape Breton SPCA) and animal control departments who seize and attempt to destroy animals that aren't actually dangerous to the public - making their owners take serious risks.

Even non-dog owners have a clue about bylaw enforcement

This letter was in the Chronicle Herald Community Herald this week - and for some reason I could not find it online anywhere - so I scanned it and am putting it here.

This lady is so completely right - bylaw enforcement seems to be completely inept - not just from the Animal Services component - but right across the board - their enforcement of fines is spotty at best in any aspect of the city's bylaws - that it makes sense that they'd be just as uneven in their relationship with the city's tax paying dog owners. Her mentioning the fact that they've done nothing to increase compliance for dog licencing but spent months and months trying to hammer out cat licencing is pure brilliance - because it's true. And completely pathetic on the part of the city. Someone should send this letter to every newly minted HRM Councillor.

It just seems so stupid the blyaws they do decide to enforce - the dogs who actually are not dangerous - they decide to seize (without any charges being filed) - and destroy. I read some minutes from a November 8, 2008 Chebucto Community Council meeting where they're talking about the merits of insisting on removing a clothesline that goes over municipal property - that had in fact been there for THIRTY YEARS. Why all of a sudden did bylaw enforcement feel the need to issue a violation and demand the clothesline be removed? Deputy Mayor (at the time) Steve Adams and Debbie Hum ordered the enforcement order termporarily stopped they thought Bylaw Enforcement was being so ludicrous.

Life is a crapshoot

Today I received one of those obligatory forwarded emails that we all get from time to time - warning us about how we should never trust our dogs because if we do, at some point in their lives they're going to run out the front door and across the street and get hit by some bus that just happens to be coming down the street at the exact moment that the dog is going to say hello to the dog who lives across the way - and it's all because we've taken for granted that our dog never does anything wrong and has always come every time we've called him in the past - and how if we ever have our dog off leash ever ever then we are the worst dog owner to have ever graced this world and we should be put to sleep for ever thinking that we deserved to bring a dog into our home - because we are dooming our canine life companion to a certain death at some point in the next zero to twenty years. It could come today - or it could come when the dog is nineteen years old - but safe to say - it's going to happen. And it's all because we got lazy and trusted our dogs.

I abhor that email when I get it. I think it's a pile of shit. You can read the fear mongering who-haa at http://www.adopt-a-greyhound.org/advice/trust.html if it so moves you. What bothers me about it is the fact that you cannot live your life around all the horrible things that "might" happen to you in some evil moment in the distant future.

I personally figure that I am here for a good time and not a long time and that is how I live my life - and that is how I let my dogs live their life, too. Maybe it's because of all the suffering I've done and all the suffering I've seen - but I am not interested in any more suffering - if one of my dogs want to stick their head out of the car window - I'd let them do it. Daisy liked to do that for awhile - so I let her. She doesn't do it anymore - and that's okay too.


I don't do anything that breaks any laws - and I'm also not stupid - I don't have any of the dogs offleash from my car into the front door of my house because there are a lot of feral cats in my neighbourhood - and you'd see 2 dogs scatter pretty quick when my car door opened - looking for a good chase with a couple of tasty kitties. And Buttercup would go looking to bark at someone who'd say "aren't you cute!" And Jack would just go looking to pee on something - but it would take me a LONG TIME to get in the front door - which I am NOT interested in! So long story short - we are on leash!

But my dogs probably do a lot of stuff that other people would send their dogs directly to the pound for - and I say - they think it's fun - so more power to them. Daisy likes to counter surf a bit - so I leave things in strategic spots for her. Jack sounds like he wants to kill you when he's engaged in play. Charlie is 1/2 sheltie, so there is no wonder that I have so many wonderful shots of him with his mouth wide open in full bark mode. Buttercup is perfect of course. There'd be no reason to send her back - except of course for her titsch of dog aggression :)


My point is - people have got to loosen up in my opinion - in that story - that dog lived for like 7 years - what's 7 x 365 days. That's 2,555 days. I'd rather live 2,555 days that are a ton of fun than 15 years - 5,475 days that are a complete bore. That's what I think - I am here to live, and that's what I'm trying to give to the sentient beings that have somehow made their way onto my ship.

You should try and stick your head out of a car window when the car is moving - it is a ton of fun and feels amazing. Don't stick it out too far though because that can lead to decapitation - you don't need to be stupid. And it also helps if you squint your eyes up a little.

New Fabulous Zeus Photos!

Just in time for Christmas - I've been sent some fabulous new Zeus photos! Yea! We've all been needing a pick-me-up in the wake of the sad decision of the Nova Scotia court system on the Celtic Pets case - so it's wonderful that we are getting this gift of some photos of one of the few bright lights at the end of the horrible tunnel that started at that horrible kennel in Port Hastings.

Here is the report from his super forever home - "He is doing great!!! Such a great dog, has really become a welcome part of the family and is really genuinely appreciative. He is a happy dog that is spoiled absolutely rotten and loving every second of it. There is a wood stove at my parents house which he spend hours just lying beside with each other enjoying each others company."

That sounds pretty much perfect for an old dog who was looking for a retirement home - who could for more than a wood stove to lie beside and some humans around to give you scratches whenever you want them. I hope they all have a happy, and well deserved wonderful holidays!

Now for the photos!