Blind puppies need homes, OH

Posted March 17, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: wtam.com, Mar 13, 2010

The Saint Francis Animal Sanctuary in Vermilion, Ohio is trying to find loving homes for several special dogs.

Director Deb Parker says careless breeding at an Ohio puppy mill has left a litter of young doggies blind.

Parker explains the puppies were born with a condition called microphthalmia, which happens when two dachshunds with the dominant “dapple” gene, are breed together.

Parker stresses that even though these puppies are blind, they are normal in every other way, and are likely to have a normal life span, and provide great companionship for a caring and patient owner.

Parker says her sanctuary is one of the few in the United States that accepts pets regardless of their special needs or the expense involved to treat and care for them.

She blames puppy mills for breeding thousands upon thousands of dogs each year that are sold for inflated prices in pet shops. They often go unwanted and are later put to death.

Saint Francis Animal Sanctuary has many more pets that are in need of homes. The shelter can also use additional volunteers and monetary donations.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Adoptable Dogs, Health, Puppy Mills, Recent News, Rescue, adoption
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20,000 Pounds of Natural Dog Food to Go to Idaho Humane Society

Posted March 8, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: Earthtimes.org, Mar 8, 2010

Dynamite Marketing will deliver more than 2,000 pounds of its Super Premium natural dog food to the Idaho Humane Society on March 10 at 10:30 a.m. The donation is valued at $3,000 and is enough to feed the approximately 200 dogs for 125 days.

The gift is the result of Dynamite’s Facebook contest, in which Dynamite pledged to donate a pound of natural dog food for every Facebook fan who has signed up since Jan. 1.

In addition, Dynamite will enter the names of all Facebook fans into a drawing, and will donate 200 pounds of natural dog food to the shelter of the winner’s choice.

The gift is in keeping with Dynamite’s tradition of making charitable donations to motivate sales. Last year, the company offered its top distributors a choice of a personal prize such as a trip to Maui or double the value as a donation to charity. The result was $22,000 in charitable donations.

“People who buy our products are passionate about their animals and about making the world a better place,” said Callie Novak, Dynamite vice president. “We attract people who are driven by projects that help animals, improve soil, save lives and make the world a better place. We knew that for many of them, giving to a charity actually would be more of a motivation than a personal prize or special offer.”

“We are extremely grateful for the donation, as well as the visibility that the competition has brought to the humane society,” said Chris Wiersema, development director at the Idaho Humane Society.

A family-owned business that has specialized in animal nutrition for four generations, Dynamite Marketing makes products for virtually every member of the animal kingdom. It has long developed natural dog food and nutritional supplements for prize-winning working dogs and show dogs across the country.

Dynamite uses only natural ingredients, made in the United States for better quality control. Throughout its history, it has always looked at alternatives to animal by-products, antibiotics, chemical preservatives, fumigants, artificial coloring and other additives that have later caused health problems.

Dynamite products are available through more than 4,000 individual distributors across the country.

Additional information is available at www.DynamiteMarketing.com or by calling 1-800-697-7434. The company is based in Meridian, Idaho.

Categories: Adoptable Dogs, Feeding, Heros, Natural/Healthy Pet Foods, Press Releases, Recent News, adoption
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Dog and cheetah make quite the odd couple, OR

Posted March 7, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: KomoNews.com, Mar 4, 2010

Wildlife Safari in Winston has rare animals from across the globe – like rhinos, lions and even an Anatolian Shepherd.

And the rare thing about the Anatolian Shepherd female at Wildlife Safari is not her breed, but her roommate – who just happens to be the fastest predator on earth.

“It’s a very popular question of why we have a dog and a cheetah out there and it’s a common practice that a lot of institutions across the United States are doing right now in an effort to tell this very conservation story,” said Dan Brands, Curator at Wildlife Safari.

As a single birth cheetah cub, Sanurra was abandoned by her mother, which opened the door for these two to be brought together.

“Rather than let Sanurra grow up alone we were able to bring in a dog as a sibling, basically like her sister, and they have been together ever since,” said Sarah Roy, cheetah supervisor at Wildlife Safari.

This odd pairing was no accident, as an Anatolian Shepard is very protective and that natural instinct could be the key to saving the wild cheetah population.

“Anatolians will be like that no matter how they are raised, whether it’s with goats or whether it’s cattle. So the farmers get these dogs as puppies and a big barking dog is plenty to keep a cheetah away from their livestock. And in turn, farmers are shooting less cheetahs because right now they are a shoot-on-sight animal,” said Roy.

While these roommates may be considered the odd couple at Wildlife Safari, caretakers says it’s like nothing they’ve ever seen.

“When we take the dog for her daily walk, the cheetah sits on her house and waits for the dog to come back and if we take Sanurra down to the village for the day, Ellie cries and whines for her cheetah to come back, so they do miss each other,” said Roy.

That type of bond could change the road ahead for cheetahs in Africa.

Categories: Recent News, behavior
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90 dogs rescued from alleged Upper Pittsgrove Township puppy mill

By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: NJ.com, Mar 6, 2010

Animal welfare workers freed 90 dogs Saturday from what officials are calling a puppy mill on a Monroeville Road property, when the owner surrendered them to the New Jersey SPCA.

That agency was part of a joint operation that also involved the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Cumberland County SPCA and Gloucester County Animal Shelter.

“Many of the dogs were suffering from severe skin, eye and dental infections, and many were matted with feces,” an HSUS statement read.

The statement also said some needed “immediate veterinary attention” and were taken to an emergency veterinary clinic.

New Jersey SPCA spokesman Matt Stanton said his agency has charged 73-year-old Louanne Koval on several animal cruelty-related counts in running the puppy mill at 456 Monroeville Road.

Stanton described Koval as a “breeder turned hoarder,” one who may have thought she was doing right but allowed things to get out of hand.

He said he didn’t know if Koval’s operation had ever been licensed and legitimate.

The breeds being kept there “included dachshunds, hairless and powder puff Chinese crested, Yorkshire terriers and some mixed breeds,” the HSUS statement said.

Stanton said the property also contained a bison and several llamas, but they were not involved in the alleged cruelty case.

Col. Frank Rizzo, New Jersey SPCA Superintendent, was quoted in the statement as saying officers from his agency had visited the property several times over the past month and “attempted to work with the owner to improve the welfare of the animals.”

Rizzo said that “despite charging the owner with eight counts of animal cruelty, the situation just never improved.”

The dogs are being taken to area animal shelters, which will work with HSUS to help them recover and prepare them for adoption.

Stephanie Shain, Senior Director for the HSUS Puppy Mills Campaign, said such sites are far from uncommon.

Puppy mill populations can range from 50 to 1,000, she said, and about 10,000 puppy mills are operating in the United States at any time.

Shain reminded people purchasing dogs to research the breeder’s or owner’s credentials and see what conditions are like on site.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Puppy Mills, Recent News, Rescue
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Author Exposes The Abuse and Suffering at Puppy Mills in New Book

By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: kfbb.com, Mar 6, 2010

Imagine forcing your dog to live his or her entire life in a small wire cage, with no toys or comfort and little hope of survival. Believe it or not, that is what life is like for dogs that live in puppy mills across our nation and right here in Montana.

It is the topic of a new book written by one local woman. Dozens of people gathered at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Great Falls Saturday, to attend a book signing with local author, Carol Bradley. Her new book, “Saving Gracie” is a true story about her dog’s rescue from a puppy mill in Pennsylvania.

The book follows Gracie, a cavalier king charles spaniel, who is worn out from bearing puppies at a puppy mill and her journey into a loving new family. Gracie’s story explores the disturbing world of large volume kennels but also takes a look at the generous people who helped her along with way.

Bradley says, “The book kind of peels back the curtain on puppy mills. These dogs suffer from a variety of diseases. They often live in dark barns filled with rats and venom. They sometimes are starved. It’s incredible the ways the dogs are treated considering how expensive the puppies wind up being.”

The book was inspired by the Camp Collie case that took place in Montana back in 2002. That is when a tractor trailer packed with neglected collies was discovered as it passed through the border station near Shelby. Local residents ended up caring for close to 200 collies until their owners were convicted of multiple counts of animal cruelty and the dogs were finally free to be adopted.

Saving Gracie is available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or any web site where books are sold.

Carol Bradley is an award-winning former newspaper reporter who studied Animal Law as a 2004 Nieman Fellow at Harvard. She spent 26 years covering the U.S. Congress and state legislatures in Tennessee and New York, and writing features and investigative stories for the Great Falls Tribune.

Bradley has written about many aspects of animal welfare, including horse slaughtering, rodeos, animal hoarding, and animal cruelty. She grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee and lived in Nashville, Knoxville, New York and Washington D.C. before moving to Great Falls, where she now lives with her husband, Steve L’Heureux, and their two dogs. Saving Gracie is her first book.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Health, Puppy Mills, Recent News, Recommended Reading
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Dog survives 300ft jump off cliff, UK

Posted February 25, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Feb 24, 2010

A “remarkable” dog had a lucky escape after jumping off a 300ft cliff to chase a seagull and landing in the sea below.

Poppy the springer spaniel ran over the edge of the clifftop during a walk at a beauty spot in East Sussex.

She plunged into the water but survived and managed to swim to shore where she waited until a RNLI crew arrived.

The three-year-old’s owners – Kelly Ixer, 26, and Ben Markwick, 31, said they were “indebted” to the lifeboat team.

On the day of the accident, the couple – who have a three-week-old son, Henry – had suggested Mr Markwick’s sister Lia and her partner Stephen Winslade, who were staying with them in Ansty, West Sussex, should take Poppy out for some exercise.

Mr Winslade, 31, said: “She ran to the edge and just disappeared.

“She is really well trained and well behaved but I think she ran so fast there was no chance of her stopping.

“I threw myself down and looked over the edge and saw her paddling.

“I could see there was a beach she was heading for.”

Amid the panic, he raised the alarm on his mobile phone while Miss Markwick, 29, called down to Poppy.

Categories: Health, Recent News, Rescue
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Dog Survives 40 Days Stranded In Mountains, CA

Posted February 23, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: kdka.com, Feb 22, 2010

A very strong-willed dog has returned to its owner after surviving 40 days in the freezing wilderness of the Santa Cruz Mountains, CBS station KPIX-TV reports.

Buck, a black lab, got lost near his home Jan. 6. Owner Terina Held thought he got swept up in a swollen river during a rain storm. Flyers went up and calls were made to shelters, but Held gave up after five weeks of searching.

“We figured he was probably dead or what not. Or someone fell in love with him and (they) weren’t going to give him back,” Held recalled.

But the story changed on Feb. 16 when neighbor Mark Smith took the day off to go hiking on his birthday. Smith and his dog Copper heard whimpering and found the weak, emaciated black lab stranded on a patch of dry river bed not far from where Buck went missing.

Smith scooped him up, waded 200 yards through an ice-cold creek, and carried Buck to safety.

“I would think that anybody who loves animals and was walking and seeing what I saw probably wouldn’t have hesitated to do what I did,” said Smith.

Buck lost 50 pounds as he lay in the cold without food for more than a month. Held is relieved to have her companion back at home.

“I know he knows that we love him, and maybe he didn’t want to leave us hanging dry,” said Held. “Maybe he wanted to make sure to give us more love before his dying day.”

Categories: Heros, Human/Canine Bond, Lost Dog, Pet Loss/ Grieving, Recent News, Rescue
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Desperate need for help – Gaston Shelter, NC

Posted February 21, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

This post is quite old but the situation at Gaston AC has NOT improved.

Permission granted to forward and cross-post!!

There is an immediate need for a rescue coordinator volunteer at the Gaston County Animal Shelter. Unfortunately, all dogs/cats lives coming into the shelter DEPEND on this non-paid position as shelter management does not have the foresight to see or care about saving dogs/cats lives; it is not now nor has it ever been a priority at this shelter to see that the dogs/cats make it out alive. Shelter management sees the overpopulation of pets as a nuisance to deal with, not as living beings that should be shown compassion and love. It is the animals who are punished, not the uncaring people that continue to allow their animals to breed.

The shelter is only open from 11-5 weekdays (no extended hours for people to come before or after work to see the animals) and only open one Saturday per month. They euthanize EVERY day, sometimes twice depending on how crowded it is. Rescues pulling these animals are usually the only chance they have as many are deemed unadoptable by the judgment of shelter workers without a thorough or repeatable evaluation process. They are proclaimed adoptable or “other” as soon as they are dragged through the door into a building that reeks of urine/feces/death and where dogs are barking and pleading for their lives. It’s truly a traumatic environment that causes all but the very confident animals to retreat and cower into their death sentence of being proclaimed unadoptable. It is especially traumatic for the cats as they are thrown into a pen at the end of the run, so they have to be walked down the loud/echoing aisle past all the barking/shrieking dogs before they are tossed (literally) into a pen with a 5 -10 other cats. When it rains the entire pen gets flooded. There is no heat or air conditioning in the cement/concrete building.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE is there someone who has time to devote to try to get the word out about the dogs/cats coming into this shelter and try to find them a rescue??

It is a HUGE undertaking, but these poor animals have no one else to depend on – the kennel workers and animal control officers at the shelter do not care about these enough to devote any time to this effort at all. They don’t care that they get gassed at the end of the day – plain and simple. It’s so very sad for these animals and the conditions that they have to endure for the 3-5 days that they are there. It is truly a jail for animals and they need our help.

If you or someone you know can help, please have them contact:
Leah at lepodz@yahoo.com or Marcie at buckeyepetlover@gmail.com

It doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you can use a computer and telephone during the day. Rescues from out-of-state and the surrounding tri-state area need to be able to speak to someone during the day via email and telephone to coordinate getting the pets pulled from the shelter, taken to foster homes or boarding kennels, and make arrangements for transport. The Rescue Coordinator does not have to physically do these things, but they must be able to communicate freely with people who can.

The few of us trying to do this have been shut down from emailing and taking calls at work, so we are trying to find a person who is either retired, semi-retired, out-of-work, or who works from home that has some time to spare during the day to help the pets in need.

We can give you all the contact information you need: rescue names, emails, phone numbers; names and numbers of people who transport, pull from the shelter, foster, etc.

Please forward this to anyone you know who might be in a position to help. We are DESPERATE to find someone IMMEDIATELY, as we currently have no one able to freely correspond throughout the day.

Animals will die, for lack of being able to communicate in time, if we can’t find someone to help.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Adoptable Dogs, Recent News, Rescue, adoption
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