Pets on my Mind

Make sure you watch or tape Oprah Winfrey's show tomorrow at 4 p.m. to learn the truth about puppy mills. So many people ignore where those cute, fluffy puppies come from that they spend hundreds on in pet stores or at flea markets.

Anyone who loves their pet, especially their cute and cuddlies, won't want to miss this episode on WMC Channel 5.

 It's one of the big causes for the Humane Society of the United States. To learn more about puppy mills visit the group's website.

Is it because she lived in a low rent part of town, far away from the nice malls, the parkways full of SUVS driving to McMansions that Mimi, the pit bull who never screamed while gasoline was poured on her and she was burned alive, isn't on anyone's radar screen?

Will the public cry out when she didn't? Will they demand justice for the dog and jail for the woman who poured gasoline on her and did this to her? I hope so. What kind of person can do this? Is this someone you want on the streets?

I hope this woman doesn't get away with this crime. There's a chance she could unless people speak up that her death is a priority.

She needs to be charged. People who saw what she did, heard what she said, need to come forward and do what's right. If they don't it says a lot about all of us as a society, what we're willing to tolerate and what we're not.

This new public service announcement from the Humane Society of the United States is gripping. It brings in the plight of pit bulls and the bait dogs. Check out Russell Simmons with Be Kind founder Frances Hayward and Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle.

Click on this link to learn more about Be Kind

I often wonder when horrible things are happening to innocent people and animals, where is Jesus in all of that? Where's the lightening bolt to kill the killer? Where's the hero riding in to stop the evildoer? Where is God? Michael Vick says he found him.

I guess some people have to reach what they consider to be their darkest hour, their lowest point before they find him. I would argue that Vick's lowest point isn't the end of his football career, or entering a guilty plea or the public shame. It was every time he touched a dog with malice in his heart.

Most people who know me know that I think pets are God's emissaries. They are here to teach us about unconditional love, devotion and how to keep a sense of fun, joy and curiosity in our day-to-day lives.

And some people may look at those pit bulls Michael Vick and his buddies trained as some sort of killing machines, but I will tell you that at their hearts they could have been loving pets, just like the ones that greet you at the door every day. But they were molded and shaped and their world became a dark, ugly place. They weren't born killers. They were manmade.

For those that couldn't turn that dark corner, they received horrific deaths. A bullet to the brain would have been too quick. It wouldn't have captured the machismo that comes when you show how big and tough you are by torturing an animal that disrespected you and made you look bad. You make sure everyone sees how tough you are that you can kill a creature that didn't have the will to tear up another dog.

So now, Michael Vick says he found Jesus. I wonder, if he ever looked into the eyes of the dogs he trained and the ones he held under water as he drowned them. Jesus was there. Every time he killed an innocent creature, he turned his back on God and on humanity. So I guess in the worst moments, when the dogs were hurting the most, Jesus was there. He was stroking the heads of those that were suffering to let them know that soon the pain would stop. Vick was too busy being a monster to realize that someone was stroking his head too. Now he can feel it. When the yelping, whining and the thrashing stopped, he felt it.

a href='http://commercialappeal-web.com/pets/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/mwpits10.JPG' title='By Mark Weber'>Let's hear it. I want to hear what you all think about Michael Vick. You know what I think. He should get the maximum penalty. Anyone who defends him is an idiot, a self-serving, want to get in front of the cameras idiot. What's to defend? Seriously? Anyone who did the things Vick and his cohorts has admitted to doing is scum. It takes a certain level of low-life to torture and abuse things that are weaker than you and at your mercy. Three things that will make my blood boil: Anyone who hurts a child, an elderly person or an animal. They are the most vulnerable in our society and if you hurt one and I know about it, I'll be your worst enemy. Forgive him! Please. Compare what he did to deer hunters! Don't make me laugh. And if one more person says he chose the wrong "hobby" I swear I'll scream. Hobby? Hobby? Hobbies are gardening, knitting, bike riding, fishing and even hunting. They are not slamming dogs into a pavement and holding their heads underwater until they drown. Idiots.

Everyone should watch HBO's Real Sports documentary on pit bull fighting. If it doesn't open your eyes and make you angry I want to know why. Know what bothers me? How they keep saying it's mostly happening in the south, the rural south. Once again, the south looks backward, hayseed and cruel. I will go down swinging fighting that stereotype.

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Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about what is happening to this breed. I am so angry about it. I am so grateful to those investigators who uncovered what was happening at Michael Vick's home and the courage to go after such a big, powerful celebrity. I think the time is right for all animal lovers to unite in a single voice aimed at every local politician, law enforcement officer, businessman, whoever has the power and tell them one word ENOUGH!

Do something about this. Rid your city, your county, your state, your country of this vile bloodsport and wipe if off the face of the Earth. This is going to take a concerted effort of cooperation from officials of all levels, starting with the animal control officers up to the governor of each state.

If laws aren't clear locally, make them so. Let's make some tougher ones. Here are a few suggestions.

1. ANTI-CHAINING laws. Our Memphis City Council wouldn't even touch the subject in their latest round of animal law changes. Why not? Could it be they don't want to offend their constitutents? Make a law that demands adequate fencing around a back yard to secure a dog, particularly a dog you train to attack humans or other animals. Can't afford it? Get rid of the dog. A lot of us can't afford the acreage and facility to house and care for a horse, therefore we aren't allowed to own one. We've been to lax in our mindset about these dogs. We just shake our head at their plight and keep driving. Chaining also enables people to create pit bull farms in their back yards. They can stake out 7 breeding females and one male and just keep them pregnant. It doesn't matter if they are ever vaccinated or covered in so many fleas and ticks you can hardly touch them. They are there for one purpose, to deliver puppies to be sold. Breeding dogs are often left to starve to death if they can't work anymore or they just die on their chain. Easy enough to fix. Just get another female and lock her on the chain and start again.

2. Make it a political issue: There are all sorts of candidate forums coming up. There are 79 candidates alone for City Council. Time to ask them when they ask for your vote, what their plans are to fight pit bull fighting and overbreeding in this city. Attend their forums. Put them on the spot. Make them answer about what they plan to do. Have a person at every rally, every question and answer session. Now is the time, when they need your vote, for you to get a commitment from them. It's a big election year. Let's use this to our advantage.

3. Ban pit bull breeding. I'm not saying ban pit bulls. Let me say that again. I'm not saying ban the breed! I'm saying ban the wholesale distribution of these dogs like corn at a farmer's market. Want to know why there are so many being sold out of cardboard boxes on street corners? Want to know why their are double the number of pit bull ads in Sunday's paper over any other breed, including the Labrador Retriever - America's most popular as judged by the AKC? I'll tell you why. Money and expendability. Pit bulls are a dime a dozen because everyone is looking for that one, the fierce one, the one that will fight with his littermates. The one that won't give up, that shows some gameness. They can cull the rest and start working on that one. May have a fighter here.

If not, if the dog won't work for them, if it crouches in fear or pees on itself because it's so afraid, that's when a whole other level of cruelty emerges. The dog is seen as a traitor, disloyal therefore it has to die a horrible death. It has to be punished for its disloyalty. It has to suffer. Did you hear the different ways Michael Vick killed his dogs. Drowned, electrocuted, slammed to the ground. They have all sorts of medical supplies to stitch them up to fight, but I guess they can get a hold of any Fatal Plus to give them a peaceful death.

If you ban pit bull breeding, then you cut their marketshare. If all pit bull puppies are confiscated, then they start losing money. Simple economics. They'll have to find another way to make a living. Pretty soon, which in this case it will take years, it just won't be economically feasible to raise them. Maybe they will just go back to being the breed of choice among people who want a solid family pet instead of the breed for the criminals.

4. Task force. Joint, city, county and federal tax force that digs into these urban crime areas and flushes them out. Start looking in the back yards. I can tell you a couple to look in. Follow the dogs. If one looks like a fighter, stake out the house, especially at the first of the month when people are paid. Maybe a Friday or Saturday night. When that dog leaves the house, follow it. Bet they aren't taking it to a park.

5. Prosecute everything. License, animal cruetly, neglect on anything you find in a breeding back yard. Cite them, double-check them. Take their dogs. Zero tolerance. Until people are afraid of their government intervening on their illegal activities, they will just keep it up.

What else? Let me hear some suggestions. We'll send them all to these politicians who are running for office.

Here's a story from the Raleigh News & Observer written by reporter Matt Dees. Wonder if this would work in Memphis.

DURHAM, N.C. - It is a counterintuitive enterprise, building a fence around something to set it free.

But Amanda Arrington and a small band of volunteers have been at it for months. Their tally so far: seven fences, 17 free dogs.

The fences allow the chains around the dogs' necks to come off.

"I think any dog that is continuously chained 24-7 is either going to be a sad broken dog, or they are going to assert themselves in a negative manner," said Arrington, 30. She launched the Coalition to Unchain Dogs last year, shortly after moving from Texas to Durham.

Her group builds fences for people such as Mildred Exum, who otherwise couldn't afford it. The one condition: The dogs must be spayed or neutered to avoid worsening the overpopulation problem.

"I thank the Lord for 'em," Exum said. "They’re very, very nice people." Smiling, she watched her dogs hop all over each other, jockeying for Arrington's affections.

The transformation when the dogs are unchained is immediate, coalition members said.

Sullen turns to exuberant. Aggressive turns to giddy.

It’s amazing," Arrington said. "It’s like they’re alive again."

Some dogs aren’t as fortunate.

As much as the coalition members rejoice for a liberated dog, they are discouraged by the setbacks: owners who neglect their dogs after the fence is built, dogs that die before they can be helped, owners who take in new dogs they can’t afford to care for. One thing keeps the volunteers going.

“It is such a good feeling, to see the dogs put in the pen and run and play and lick and kiss, that you forget all the frustration," said volunteer Lori Hensley.

Arrington said she wants a statewide ban on keeping dogs chained all the time, though a bill in the Senate didn’t make it to the floor for a vote this year.

“What a law would do is help weed out some of the people that maybe didn’t need a dog anyway," she said.

Congress passed a bill yesterday with stiffer penalties for people who fight animals. Read about it here

This is from a rescuer in Tipton County

I received a phone call yesterday while I was at work. An old man in Covington had gone fishing this past Sunday and, when he was walking through some soggy fields to get back to his truck, he noticed something moving and whimpering down in a swampy ditch. It was a little beagle girl. He brought her back to his place but his wife wouldn't let the dog in. She slept for a few nights under a car until a friend named Angie Patton heard about her and went to go get her.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the more positive things to come out of the story on pit bulls is a grassroots effort to stop animals from being chained or tethered as a permanent means of containment. I believe it is cruel and goes against the nature of a dog to spend 24-7 in one spot, unable to roll in the grass, chase birds or participate in anything that involves enjoyment of life.

The dogs I see who are chained have worn away the grass and live on mud. They strain at the end of the chain, they whine, they bark and some become vicious. I don't see a lot of playing or social interaction. Most dogs I've met are social creatures. They want to be in a pack and they have a lust for life that I envy. But not the chained ones. It would be nice if someone took their dog off a chain daily, took it walking, kept it fed, petted, on heartworm medicine, on flea prevention. On cold nights or extremely hot days, the dog came in the house. But that's not usually the case. They may see an owner long enough to get fed. I've never seen a happy dog on a chain, at least not how I define happy.

One argument I've heard is that if you outlawed chaining it would deny poor people the right to own a dog. So, does being poor give you a pass to be cruel? Does poverty entitle you to operate on a different standard than the rest of us? Maybe the sad truth is that if you can't afford a fence or a kennel or are unwilling to let your pet inside of your home, maybe you don't need a pet.

I'd plant a nice bush in the yard. At least it doesn't suffer when it's left unattended.

I love pit bulls and anything that looks like the various purebred dogs that fall under that generic name. There, my bias is exposed.

This story was the hardest thing I've ever had to write. If any of you know me, you know how much I love animals and that I will chase a cricket in my house for an hour to get it out the door. Pit bull terriers have become my favorite breed through the years. They have such silly personalities and when their tails wag, so do their whole bodies. I've never met a more loyal dog or one more in tune with my feelings. They are precious.

Watching these dogs in these awful conditions has haunted me. I can't tell you how many times I went to the shelter and just walked up and down the cages looking at these sad abandoned faces. Sweet dogs that would never harm a soul caught inside this circle of hell. There just doesn't seem to be any end in sight.

This is one of those stories that I've been thinking about for years. Every time I saw a pit bull living this life of misery, neglect, lonliness or abuse, I just filed it in my head that I would do a story one day. There are lots of varied opinions about the breed and what to do about their situation. Not everyone is going to agree with this story. Some people felt like I needed to do a story on the positive side of the breed, the thousands that live in great homes.

Well, no one rises up to make changes on happy stories. People rise to the occasion when they see suffering. I needed people to see what's out there and happening and I'm hoping that anyone who loves an animal will join the discussion and let's figure out some way to help this dog.

One thing that I'm opposed to and I don't think solves any problem is a breed ban. This is not a breed issue or a dog issue, it's a people issue. Ban this breed and they will go after Rottweilers or Mastiffs or maybe your breed. All breed bans do is take loving pets out of the homes of law-abiding citizens. People who regularly ignore the laws (like animal cruelty laws, anti-fighting laws) will ignore this too. I usually tell people that crack is banned and yet there's plenty of it on the street. Murder is banned and it's still done. People who want a dog for a negative function, will find a way.

So, let's hear it. What are you willing to do to help and what do you think should be done?