Petfinder Blog

I just read an interesting story in the Washington Post about a herd of 2,000 wild mustangs due to be euthanized by the Bureau of Land Management.

According to the article:

[Y]esterday, at a public hearing in Reno, Nev., to discuss the issue, a solution arrived on a white horse, so to speak.

Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, made known her intentions to adopt not just the doomed wild horses but most or all of the 30,000 horses and burros kept in federal holding pens. Lifelong animal lovers, the Pickenses just a few years ago led the fight to close the last horse slaughterhouse in the United States.

Until now, I'd only known of T. Boone Pickens as a super-rich advocate of energy independence. How nice to hear that he and his wife are not only animal lovers, but people who use their wealth to quite literally save animals' lives.

But a little Internet digging revealed that, in fact, any qualified person can adopt a wild horse or burro. Find out how after the jump.

For many of us who love animals, "Save the Whales" were probably the first words we ever learned that showed us protecting other creatures could be a collective and even political effort.

But as we got older and started taking action close to home and saving the dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, etc. -- and as laws such as the Endangered Species Act were passed and society in general became more aware of ecological and animal-welfare concerns -- well, we probably figured the whales were okay.

Well, guess what? They're not.

The Japanese are still hunting whales by the thousands, under the banner of research (i.e. using a legal loophole -- you can learn more about the controversial practice here).

Petfinder's sister company, Animal Planet, has been documenting the efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a fearless group of activists who quite literally put themselves between the harpoons and the whales in order to save these giant, gentle creatures.
 

Everyone knows that there are adoptable cats and dogs on Petfinder -- but we list many other homeless pets in need as well. One example: ferrets.

One of the liveliest household animals, ferrets can always keep their pet parents entertained with their antics. But when households have questions about the care of ferrets or can no longer care for the pet, there are ferret-specific rescue groups with expertise that can help.

Texas Ferret Lovers Rescue is part of the Ferret Lovers Club of Texas, a group that provides expertise to the general public, pet stores and existing and potential ferret parents. This is an invaluable service that not only strengthens the bond ferret guardians feel to their pets, but can also offer the support needed to help a ferret stay in his or her current home. But when ferrets are in need of re-homing, the rescue division of the club steps in and helps.

Visit Texas Ferret Lovers Rescue on Petfinder.

As you've no doubt heard, Barack Obama said in his victory speech Tuesday that his daughters had "earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."

The Obamas told Entertainment Tonight on Sept. 30 they planned to adopt a "rescue dog," and we hope they'll keep that promise. (Of course, readers of this blog were nominating dogs for the Obamas back in July!)

Tuesday's election brought other good news for animals as well.

• In California, voters passed Proposition 2, which ends cruel confinement of farm animals.
• In Massachusetts, voters passed the Greyhound Protection Act, banning commercial dog racing.
• And in  South Tucson, AZ, the Tucson Dog Protection Act passed, which will dramatically improve conditions for racing greyhounds.

All of these represent incredible advances in animal welfare. Now let's just hope the Obamas adopt a shelter dog -- that would really be the Change We Need in the lives of homeless pets everywhere!

There are more than a dozen Petfinder member organizations who specialize in rescuing and re-homing senior dogs.

Personally, I am grateful to any organization that handles senior pets of all kinds. Exactly four years ago, when I was looking for pictures to use in an Adopt-a-Senior-Pet Month promotion, I came across a little senior shepherd mix. I fell in love immediately, and Dexter has been one of my best friends ever since.

He was 10 years old when I adopted him -- he's now 14. He moves pretty slowly these days, but his adorable gray face always attracts attention from passersby on our walks. Below is just a sample of Petfinder members specializing in senior dogs.

St. Louis Senior Dog Project, St. Louis, MO

Senior Dog Rescue of Oregon, Philomath, OR

Libby's Haven for Senior Canines, Canterbury, NH

Senior Dog Adoptions, Cold Brook, NY

The Senior Dog House and Rescue, Columbia Fall, MT

The Sanctuary for Senior Dogs, Cleveland, OH

Whatever your politics, I have no doubt you're excited to vote today. And if you live in California, Massachusetts or South Tucson, AZ, you have the chance to make a difference for animals.

In California, vote yes on Proposition 2 to end inhumane confinement of farm animals. Want to learn more? The New York Times has an interesting article about Prop 2, which includes arguments by its opponents; you can also check out the Web site Yes! on Prop 2.

(Even if you don't live in California, you can vote with your wallet to help farm animals by buying food that is Certified Humane Raised and Handled, a designation awarded by the non-profit Humane Farm Animal Care.)

And thanks to Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell, who notes in his November "Newshletter" that voters in two states have a chance to help racing greyhounds:

• Massachusetts voters can vote yes on Question 3 to pass the Greyhound Protection Act, which would phase out commercial dog racing by 2010. (Learn more at YesOn3.com.)
• Voters in South Tucson can vote yes on Prop 401 to pass the Tucson Dog Protection Act, which would not ban dog racing, but would improve the treatment of racing greyhounds and help protect the public from dog-borne diseases. (Learn more at TucsonCitizen.com.)

And of course, no matter where you live, you can always help by adopting one of the 2,200+ greyhounds on Petfinder!

I have been lucky enough to have the pleasure of visiting Tabby's Place in Ringoes, NJ, in person a few times. Therefore, I can attest to the sheer beauty of it -- both in aesthetics as well as its mission. Tabby's Place opened its doors in October 2003 and is able to care for almost 100 cats.

These aren't just any felines -- they are all senior or special-needs cats. Ranging in age from 1-19 years old and having special needs from FIV to cancer, the cats get the best possible care while being housed at Tabby's Place.

According to their Web site, they provide communal living environments for cats, with plenty of horizontal and vertical space for exercise and play as well as outdoor enclosures for cats to enjoy fresh air and sunlight.

Today marks the start of an historic animal abuse case brought against Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus by three animal-welfare groups and a former circus employee.

The ASPCA, the Animal Welfare Institute, the Fund for Animals (a partner of the Humane Society of the U.S.) and former Ringling Bros. employee Tom Rider charge that Ringling Bros. violated the Endangered Species Act by chaining its elephants for prolonged periods and training them with bull hooks, among other abuses.

I won't go into the details of the case, but Ringling Bros. has started its own Web site about the trial, where you can view a PDF of the complaint. You can also click on the names of the animal-welfare groups above to see their press releases about the case, or read a news story here or here.

But I'm interested in a comment by a lawyer for Ringling Bros.' parent company, who said: "Animal special-interest groups are distorting the facts by making false allegations about the treatment of Ringling Bros. elephants as part of a long-running crusade to eliminate animals from circuses, zoos and wildlife parks."

Leaving aside the question of zoos and wildlife parks, should elephants and other animals be banned from use in circuses?

October 25 is Pit Bull Awareness Day, so in its honor, we're highlighting a group doing amazing things for Pits: BAD RAP, which stands for Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls.

The San Francisco-based organization provides rescue services as well as extensive educational opportunities.

BAD RAP made national news last year when it was called in to evaluate 48 dogs from the Michael Vick case. Several groups stepped forward to foster the dogs, and 10 Pits came back to the Bay Area with BAD RAP. The dogs' amazing progress is detailed in the group's Vick Dog Blog.

In addition to its hands-on rescue work, BAD RAP offers a gamut of services to the local community as well as to animal welfare professionals. Most notably, it offers weekly Pit Ed classes to help educate the parents of these special dogs. According to the BAD RAP mission, Pit Ed participants "learn basic handling skills, dealing with breed traits and responsible ownership protocol."

As a member of the outreach team, one of the best parts of my job is planning and attending our Adoption Options seminars.

Adoption Options is one of our biggest initiatives and is a traveling educational seminar that brings training and networking opportunities to our shelter and rescue members throughout the country.

We do 20 per year and try to travel to areas that don't have affordable access to training. We bring with us some of the nation's best-known speakers and discuss the hottest topics in animal welfare. Each attendee also gets breakfast, lunch and an Adoption Options T-shirt -- all for $10 per person. The program is sponsored in part by our friends at the PETCO Foundation.

I just returned from Memphis, TN, where 80 dedicated animal welfare professionals came out to network and discuss adoption policies, dog behavior, shelter medicine and how to most effectively use Petfinder.

A great story came out of this day.

All animals are special. Some are extra-special, and have needs that go beyond the scope of normal pet care. For pets in loving homes, getting these needs met can be challenging at best. When these pets end up homeless, it's often impossible.

Pets with Disabilities in Prince Frederick, MD, gives animals who have been injured through trauma or disabled by illness the time, care and attention they need -- often for the first time in their lives.

The animals in their care include cats who are FIV-positive or blind and dogs who are deaf, paralyzed or missing a leg -- and pets with just about every condition in between.

Not only does Pets with Disabilities nurture the pets in its care, it also lists adoptable special-needs pets for other shelters, rescue groups and veterinarians. The group also offers support to the families of these special pets, including advice on pet wheelchairs and an active message board.

Pets with Disabilities is more than a rescue and adoption agency -- it's a lifelong source of hope and support for the pets and their adoptive families.

Visit Pets with Disabilities on Petfinder

Great news for dogs in Miami-Dade County: Commissioners voted yesterday to make it "illegal to tie a dog to any standing object outside a home unless the dog's owner is present" (Miami Herald).

There was a heated debate before the resolution passed 11-1, with some arguing the law discriminates against families who can't afford to build fences.

"I resent the implication that says if you can't afford it, or can't have a dog without tethering it, you shouldn't have one at all," said Commissioner Barbara Jordan, the
only one to vote against the measure.

A captive audience can lead to amazing things. When half of that audience consists of inmates serving time and the other half are adoptable pets waiting for their new homes, it leads to remarkable changes.

SOS Pen Pals in Richmond, VA, works with six different correctional facilities in the state of Virginia. According to their Web site, they promote inmate rehabilitation and increased positive communication and interaction between correctional center staff and the rest of the inmate population.

The Pen Pals program gives inmates job skills to help their transition out of the corrections system. The animals chosen for the program live in the prison with the carefully chosen inmates to learn the skills they need to transition into life in a home. For the cats, this means socialization and for the dogs, training.

Two animal trainers oversee the program and focus on positive reinforcement. Through the program's efforts, more than 4,000 pets have found new homes!

Visit SOS Pen Pals on Petfinder.

New blog feature! Each week we'll highlight Petfinder rescue-group members with unusual adoption programs, fun event ideas and other things that make them distinctive.

Dogs for the Deaf in Central Point, Oregon, selects dogs from shelters and rescue groups and trains them to be Hearing Dogs.

The dogs are trained for four to six months at their facility. Once a dog has completed training, the group does several days worth of in-home training for both the dog and his or her new family to get everyone acclimated. Dogs for the Deaf stays in touch with the family for life.

One of their clients describes her Hearing Dog:

"D.J. is my electric blanket, my vacuum cleaner, my Activities Chairman, my alarm clock, my protector, my significant other." --Jane F.

Hearing Dogs are invaluable to the people who depend on them, but what happens when a dog isn't quite up to the task? They have a "Career Change"!

Dogs for the Deaf created this special program for the dogs who are determined not to be suitable as service dogs. One example is Sasha (pictured): a 4-year-old Australian cattle dog/blue heeler mix who was released from training because some sounds scare her. Sasha and other Career Change dogs still make wonderful pets, and the group works to place them into adoptive homes.

What a great way to make the rescue cycle come full circle! Check out Dogs for the Deaf on Petfinder.

Do you know a shelter or rescue group doing something creative and/or different? Let us know at outreach@petfinder.com.

Today, Oct. 1, is World Vegetarian Day. Consider giving up meat for this one day.

There are two reasons to be vegetarian. First, a vegetarian diet shows compassion for animals, because most farm animals are mistreated before they grace your table. That's reason enough for many of us.

(My husband and I became vegan about two years ago, which means we don't eat any animal products. We also try to buy non-leather shoes and handbags -- although that gets problematic at times, so I'm kind of a compromised vegan.) [Editor's note: Joan and her husband look GREAT and are living advertisements for veganism--Emily]

There's a common sense reason to give up meat for a day, too. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization has said that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Habitat destruction associated with raising cattle and other animals for meat is also an issue.

It would be good if more of us found we could live without meat for a day -- then one day a week -- then maybe more than that. So give it a try. As an animal lover, and as an environmentalist, you'll feel good about your decision.

Black cats are hard to find homes for. So are pairs of cats. Also, adolescent cats. What happens when all three of those are combined? You get some very long-time fosters.

Friends of Homeless Animals in Hawthorne, NJ (where I found my special-needs cat, Gretel), has been fostering best friends Teddy, a 15-month-old black male, and Duffy, an 18-month-old male tabby, for many months now.

They are handsome and affectionate, bonded to each other and great with other cats, but are passed over time and time again for younger and more stand-out cats.

What suggestions do you have to make Teddy, Duffy and other hard-to-place cats more eye-catching to potential adopters?

The animal cops on TV are heroes to animals -- but so are vets, humane educators, volunteer coordinators and others who work in animal welfare. So how do you break into the field?

I interviewed Ed Powers, Petfinder's vp of strategic planning (and my dad), to find out. He's been working in animal welfare for 26 years, and has been an animal caregiver, animal cruelty officer, director of humane education and director of operations for the Animal Rescue League of Boston.

This is his advice:

1. Volunteer
Ed says anyone can begin by volunteering at their local animal shelter or veterinary clinic. "Start out by getting some good hands-on experience with animals," he says. (You can even sign up in Petfinder's volunteer database.)

2. Do your homework
While you're doing this, do some research online, at the library or at your local animal shelter. This way you can get a good feel for what you are doing. Research types of jobs, what they do and what it takes to get there.

Michael Killen and Jim Kreitzburg, the animators behind Taco Bell's talking Chihuahua and the California Cheese cows, created this moving PSA about the cruelty of dogfighting.

Killen says on his Web site that he'd been deeply affected by the Michael Vick case. He writes that he asked himself, "What if we did a commercial speaking from the perspective of the dogs?"

The resulting PSA doesn't contain graphic scenes, but it makes its point with the simple question: "Who's the animal?"

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote about his experiences growing up on a farm and how they shaped how he feels about factory farming.

In my opinion, Kristof doesn't do a very persuasive job of revealing his caring, compassionate side. Quite the contrary: He seems to me to be a less compassionate person for his experiences.

If, as he says, he grew to admire some of the animals in his family's care, how could he go on to enjoy eating the animals he admired?

Teens, especially girls, love animals. I've noticed there are lots of young people, again mostly girls, who volunteer at animal shelters and boycott products that were tested on animals.

But when it comes to adoption, most of my peers give me a frightening wake-up call. I've heard of many teens who got their pet from a breeder, pet store or, in one case, for $10 at a flea market.

Sometimes we have debates in class that give me a pit in my stomach. One time, some girls were saying that they loved their dog and bringing it to the groomer, where they put the little bows in the dog's fur.

Somehow, this led to that ASPCA commercial with Sarah Mclachlan. "That commercial makes me feel so depressed," one of the girls piped up. "Yeah," said the other, "I change the channel when I watch that because it makes me guilty about my animals."

I would like to invite everyone to visit our message board this week! We're hosting a special moderated forum on co-exisiting with wildlife. Katherine Uhler of the Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation Center can answer your questions about keeping yourselves, your pets and your wild neighbors safe and healthy.

This topic hits home for me, as I live in the beautiful mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania, where it is not uncommon to look out my window and see deer, turkey, squirrels and the occasional bear roaming past our home.

It seemed only fitting that on Monday morning I walked outside and saw a baby porcupine waddling his way across the lawn and up a small maple tree to enjoy a morning snack of leaves. So of course I grabbed my video camera to capture this rare opportunity. Enjoy! And remember to join us in the forums!

Outraged New Yorkers freed seven dogs who'd been left in a sweltering car on Monday; when the dogs' owner returned, she was issued a summons for animal cruelty and the dogs were taken to Animal Care & Control of NYC.

(WABC7 Eyewitness News has the full story, as well as video of the brawl that nearly erupted when the woman returned to her car to find angry neighbors walking and watering her dogs.)

It was unbearably hot on Monday, and it's quite likely the dogs would have died in the car had the neighbors not intervened. But I am not sure the ending to this story is entirely happy. 

The New York Times ran an op-ed piece yesterday about one of my pet peeves: the use of chimps in entertainment.

Images of grinning chimps in commercials and movies make the public think our primate relatives "have a safe and comfortable existence," writes Steve Ross of Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the Pennsylvania Bar Institute's Fifth Annual Animal Law Conference, which Petfinder co-sponsored.

Topics included recently passed and pending animal welfare legislation, developing an animal cruelty case, laws regarding assistance animals, ethical issues for shelter/rescue boards and estate planning.

It was really great to meet so many attorneys dedicated to changing and enforcing the laws that protect our companion animals. Many of the attorneys, I learned, volunteer and work in rescue themselves. A huge "thank you" for all that they do.

With all the news about the recent Tennessee puppy mill bust, I remembered the first time I'd ever heard about puppy mills; it was from my friend Andrew Weinstein, a colleague and a dedicated animal welfare activist who used to work as a corporate communications executive at AOL. I asked him to write a post about how he came to care so much about puppy mills. This is his story:

I had actually heard very little about puppy mills until about 10 years ago. My former wife and I had adopted a Rhodesian Ridgeback from a local rescue league here in DC, so we had a good relationship with the woman who ran the local chapter. One afternoon, I got a call from her asking if we might have any interest in adopting a second dog from them.

The dog we were presented with (pictured here) had a tragic story.