Briar Storms,  also known online as Briar Theelsmom, 60, died on September 11, 2014 in King County, Washington, after a long struggle with cancer.

Said Humane Society of the U.S. senior law enforcement specialist Eric L. Sakach, “She asked that I post a Facebook message after her passing to let all her friends know that she’d ‘left the building.’ She also wanted me to mention a few things about her past work that would give you a better idea about who she was. Maybe you knew Briar as an unabashed liberal, as a Frank Zappa fan, as someone with a wicked sense of humor, or as someone who really cared about the environment and who was passionate about animals. Those things are all true, of course, but how many of you knew that Briar was also an accomplished photographer and undercover investigator who infiltrated the greyhound racing industry in order to document the cruel use of rabbits as live bait by trainers? That’s not all. I can now tell you that Briar was one of a handful of courageous undercover investigators who worked with HSUS beginning in the late 1970s and beyond to successfully infiltrate clandestine, organized dogfighting rings involving some of the biggest players in that illegal bloodsport. Months and months of difficult and often dangerous work in different parts of the country enabled us to amass needed intelligence and obtain photographs documenting the scope and brutality of a violent subculture that few knew existed. Those efforts helped to educate the public and pass needed legislation. I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with Briar on a number of those operations.”

The ANIMALS 24-7 archives indicate that Storms and Sakach were involved in undercover investigations beginning in 1977 which over the next 19 years brought the arrests of more than 500 dogfighting and cockfighting suspects.

Using the screen name Tropical Storms,  Storms was in recent years a noteworthy contributor to Dawn James’ Craven Desires blog about pit bull attacks and dogfighting, describing some of her undercover investigations in detail.

“The dogs want to be there and love to fight,” Storms posted. “They really have no choice, as they have been selectively bred for over 200 years to do, or want to do, nothing else. The only bulldogs I’ve ever encountered who did not want to fight were ‘cold’ individuals who had no more clue about their genetic ancestry than your average multi-line mutt. In other words they were just normal dogs, if not very smart ones.”

Of the risks of doing undercover work, Theelsmom said, “If you don’t constantly and consistently have your wits about you, long before you ever get there, you do something else. There is no shortage of animal issues in need of attention and you would choose one of those areas rather than this one.”

Ashton Blackwell with her childhood pit bull Rosie.

by Ashton Blackwell

         Ever since I was a little girl,  I loved dogs.  I accumulated an impressive menagerie of stuffed animals and dog books,  and I excitedly educated anyone who would indulge me on my almost strangely encyclopedic knowledge of the breeds.  My parents received ingratiating misspelled notes regularly,  begging them for a dog of my own.  I wanted a golden retriever, like my grandmother’s beloved and surpassingly gentle Penny––the perfect dog for a little girl.

         Instead, we had pit bulls––but they were most assuredly my father’s dogs.  A tough and self-sufficient man,  he was drawn to the breed for their indomitable attitude and fearlessness.   In short, he was drawn to their “gameness,”  as pit dog men say.  Our first two pit bulls were even-tempered with children and cherished,  but the third proved to be an ill-fated choice who narrowly missed bringing about a family tragedy.

Abigail

         Without so much as a growl of warning, “Abigail” attempted to seize me by my throat when I was ten.  My father,  having at no point been under any illusions about the breed,  pre-emptively had his hand under her collar and pulled her back before she could make contact with my neck and kill or disfigure me.

         Despite this traumatic experience, my foundational love of dogs and compassion for dogs in helpless situations led to my later working for one of the largest no-kill humane societies in the U.S.,  and volunteering with several prominent shelterless rescue/foster agencies.

         The sum of my experiences brought me to speak out against blind and frivolous pit bull advocacy.

         People are fond of dressing pit bulls in silly costumes like bunny ears or princess tiaras to mock the stereotype that the dogs are vicious,  and by extension mocking those who have not jumped on the exculpatory progressive bandwagon.

Compare to Richard F. Stratton

         Compare this to the cover of The Book of the American Pit Bull Terrier,  written by renowned pit dog man and breeder Richard F. Stratton. It pictures a chained red-nosed pit bull lunging forward,  tongue lolling between wide and capable jaws,  singularly focused on a stimulus out of the frame.

         Chapter Two of This is the American Pit Bull Terrier is called, “The Clinging Death.”  There Stratton writes that the dog is a “threat to other dogs,” and that while “ordinary canids rely heavily on threat display in a fight… [the pit bull terrier has been bred to] almost completely lose the threat display.”

         In other words, the violence of a pit bull terrier has been genetically shaped to be unpredictable.

         Continues Stratton, “Just as a student of the greyhound should learn something about dog racing in order to fully understand his breed… so should the person with a serious interest in the pit bull learn something about dogfighting.”

         A further telling quote from Stratton:  “Countless centuries have been involved in developing the American pit bull terrier into a fighting machine beyond comparison… So strong is this love for battle that a well-bred individual of this breed will never cease fighting,  not even when taking a beating,  not even when tired and thirsty and hot.  This is the trait that is called gameness by pit dog men, and it makes the breed indomitable!  It is manifested when you have to save a small individual of the breed from a larger one who had him down throttling the life out of him. If he is a typical pit bull,  he will cry pitifully to get back to the other dog…”

         Such politically incorrect,  but factually correct,  words would shock the general public,  who have been trained to docilely think “It’s the owner, not the dog.”

Peddlers of propaganda

         The peddlers of the pit bull propaganda that has saturated and misguided public opinion  have been deeply irresponsible.  Pit bulls have found their way from the dogfighting pits of their origin into middle American living rooms and picket fences under the guise that they have been unfairly discriminated against.

         Pit bulls have been enshrined as victims by bleeding-heart “rescue angels,”  and by blinkered adopters whose guilt and goodwill do them no service.

         Rescue organizations unfortunately tend to attract emotionally compromised people,  many of whom have savior complexes.  A pitiful refrain I heard in rescue was, “I like animals better than people;  at least you can trust them.”

Media does not get much more mainstream than Better Homes & Gardens.

        I am sure I will be attacked for writing this,  and will be called an ignorant bigot,  but the truth is I have more personal experience with pit bulls than practically anyone short of a breeder.  I have also done more for dogs than most people ever will:  I committed an inordinate amount of my personal energy and finances to them,  opened my home to them,  even crawled into disgusting kennels to give a chance to the most pathetic and frightened of them,  shaking in back corners of disorientingly loud shelters.  I risked being bitten the hundreds of times I administered food or dog aggression tests for admission candidates to the no-kill facility.

         The cruelty I witnessed made me cry,  including ingrown collars, malnourishment,  and abandonment.

Peer pressure

         When I started working in rescue,  I had a healthy aversion to pit bulls. However,  through peer pressure,  I gradually unlearned it, or at least became more open to believing that my experience with our family pit bull was a fluke,  or that she was a bad egg,  or that I simply did not understand what I had done wrong to elicit the violent behavior of the dog.

         (See “Parallels between the messages sent by advocates for aggressive dogs, and the messages internalized by victims of domestic violence,”  by Branwyn Finch,  http://wp.me/p4pKmM-OU.)

         But regardless of the ideological mandate that pit bulls “deserved” good homes just like any other dog,  there was a good deal of cognitive dissonance codified in the actual policies of the no-kill humane society.  Pit bulls were to be admitted only if stringent behavioral criteria were met.  The shelter had to manage its resources intelligently and compassionately,  and an unstable pit bull occupying a kennel for ten years would reduce the amount of adoptable dogs the shelter could save from kill shelters.

         Not only that,  such pit bulls were tacitly understood to be serious liabilities.

         My own manager had fostered a young pit bull,  even promoted him to be adopted on the local news.  Yet that pit bull attacked her so violently in the abdomen that she required hospitalization.

         The lifetime resident dogs at the shelter are all pit bulls.  While their happy-go-lucky images are promoted on advertising materials, in the shelter there are strict rules about how these same dogs are to be handled by staff.

“Stranger issues”

         Pits with “stranger issues” only tolerate the presence of a few staff members and are aggressive towards all others.  An adoption of one of the pits with “stranger issues” resulted in a quick return when she bit her new owner a few days later.

         The pits are walked on a carefully designed timetable and route system to avoid run-ins with other dogs. When this was mishandled a couple of years ago,  two pit bulls made contact and injured each other so badly that they both had to be euthanized.

         On another occasion an adorable-looking three-month-old pit mix adopted out for Christmas in Santa regalia was returned less than a year later after savaging the family’s other dog,  landing the victim dog at the emergency vet and leaving the family traumatized.

         However,  you will rarely if ever hear of such cases from rescues. The real nature of pit bulls is too unsavory for the feel-good,  therapeutic culture that predominates today.  Pit bulls are pushed on the public as if they are like any other breed,  as if there are no features that make a pit bull any greater of a risk than a Labrador to the general public.

See also “Why pit bulls will break your heart,” by Beth Clifton, http://wp.me/p4pKmM-HI

 Someone else’s problem

        It is telling that no one at the humane society where I worked had adopted the flagship dogs:  they are to be someone else’s problem.  Someone else is to make room in their home,  out of compassion for an unstable and dangerous animal whom no one even wants to deal with in the rescue world.

         Through the rescue networks,  problem dogs are disseminated out into American neighborhoods to people who are hold profoundly mistaken assumptions about their natures.

         I know many clownish pit bull mixes that I believe to not be of serious public safety concern––but I also know that most dogs with serious behavioral problems in rescues are pit bulls, foisted onto the public as a noblesse oblige duty rather than being euthanized.

         Managing a dangerous dog safely in a human settlement––that is, ensuring that the dog does not wiggle out of the door when you are getting the mail and shake the life out of the neighbor’s dog,  or attack a visitor,  or jump the fence and tackle a child off of a bicycle–– is an extremely stressful, and inherently high risk proposition,  regardless of how well-meaning an adopter may be.  One instance of complacence or bad luck can spell disaster.

Resources

         Though there are many resources for people who want to “responsibly” own an aggressive dog,  in truth it is often,  if not always,  the right choice to euthanize the dog.  This ensures that the dog cannot kill,  dismember,  disfigure or cause injury to other neighborhood dogs,  cats,  children,  the elderly,  and even able-bodied adults.

         Expecting laymen to be able to train and manage aggressive dogs to the level of canine police academies is borderline insane,  not to mention vindictive (http://samthedogtrainer.com/articles/dealing-with-aggressive-dogs/).  The intense supervision and constant awareness it takes to manage a dangerous dog seriously compromises the guilt stricken owner’s quality of life––and personal safety,  as well as the safety of family,  friends,  neighbors,  visitors,  passers-by,  and other pets.

         Though today my parents cite it as one of the most harebrained,  sentimental and irresponsible decisions of their lives,  they did not euthanize Abigail after her domestic violence episode with me.  My father was an experienced dog owner,  and I think his emotional attachment to the dog compromised his judgment that he could neutralize the risk she posed by managing her kenneling very carefully.

Final undoing

         This proved to be true,  but there was a final undoing in store. When I was seventeen,  I was walking Abigail––having grown confident in the intervening years that I could handle her––and I was nothing if not hard-headed as a teenager.  Our neighbor approached me to chat,  with her little girl in tow.  The years without incident and my deep want to be good to the dog and think well of our pet had made me insensitive to the threat she still posed.

         As a result of my foolishly anthropomorphizing her as reformed,  I let my guard down and was not expecting it when Abigail leapt up and bit little Rose in the mouth.  In a horrifying flurry of screaming and blood in her blonde hair,  Rose was rushed to the hospital.  Long overdue, Abigail was euthanized two weeks later,  after a required quarantine period.

         Those are just a handful of stories I have about my experience with pit bulls.  I have more from dog parks and friends’ dogs who always seem to leave a wake of conflict at social events. Not all of the pit mixes in shelters are “game bred”––gameness is polygenetic and diminishes through outcrossing––but enough of them are to warrant serious counseling to potential adopters.  I strongly recommend people against this breed. They are a wildly inappropriate pet for a child,  and I believe there needs to be a more honest public discourse about what these dogs are bred for and capable of.

Unlike a firearm

         Pro pit bull propaganda and advocacy has become systemically entrenched in the mainstream media and shelter culture– much to the detriment of well-meaning adopters, who deserve peace in their homes and hearts.  But even as a libertarian-leaning conservative hostile to most government regulation, I do not see breed specific legislation regarding the pit bull as a ghastly trespass against individual liberty.

         Unlike a firearm that is only discharged through the action of a human agent,  a pit bull has its own primitive mind.  It is from gladiator stock,  and it has a genetic imperative to fight.  That it is so increasingly an accepted feature of American family life is telling of the power of the media to neutralize people’s instincts towards self-protection,  with fables of moral equivalence and painstaking non-judgment in spite of backward “stereotypes” spelling the reinforcement of yet another domestic threat.

(See also “Why pit bulls will break your heart,”  by Beth Clifton, http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/09/10/why-pit-bulls-will-break-your-heart/.)

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Severo Luera

MALAD, Idaho––An arrest has been made in connection with an April 2013 triple murder in rural Idaho near the Utah border, believed to have been linked to dogfighting.

Oneida County Sheriff Jeff Semrad on February 12, 2015 announced in a written release distributed to local media that Severo Luera, 35, of Tremonton, Utah, had on January 30, 2015 been served “on an Idaho felony warrant in connection with the triple homicide in Holbrook on April 4, 2013.”

“Police did not refer to Luera as a suspect and did not specify what his relationship to the alleged crime might be,” reported Mark Green of Fox 13. “The release stated the investigation is ongoing and that further comments would not be made regarding the case at this time.”

Booked for investigation

Already in custody in Utah for alleged misdemeanor drug offenses, Luera was held without bail in the Box Elder County Jail, awaiting extradition to Idaho for arraignment, said the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, which is to handle the prosecution. The extradition process was expected to take about 10 days.

Luera “was booked for investigation of first-degree murder and aiding and abetting charges,” Pat Reavy of the Salt Lake City Deseret News reported, citing an unnamed Box Elder County Jail official.

Luera reportedly had prior convictions including for possession of a vicious dog, a class C misdemeanor, in Garland City, Utah, in 2010. Earlier, Luera was convicted of misdemeanor drug possession in 2001, of unlawfully selling or supplying alcohol to minors, also in 2001, and of felony drug distribution in 2002, for which he was sentenced to serve a year in jail.

“I think it’s pretty clear there will be more arrests coming,” Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen told media.
“It’s an active investigation,” said Semrad.

Murder followed dogfighting busts

The triple murder followed major dogfighting raids in six other states on successive weekends, and preceded several even larger dogfighting busts that were apparently based on information gathered during the first round of arrests.

Oneida County, Idaho Sheriff Jeff Semrad

Still unclear is whether there was any connection among the persons apprehended in the other states, the murder victims, and/or suspect Luera.

Brent L. Christensen, 62, Trent Jon Christensen, 32, and Yavette Chivon Carter, 27, were found shot to death inside their home one mile west of Holbrook, population 400. They were apparently killed as long as 24 hours before a man who came to pick up several dogs found Carter’s two-year-old daughter sitting on the front steps.
Walking inside, the unidentified man found the bodies, and found a two-month-old baby girl beneath Carter’s arm. “It looked as if she was protecting the baby when she was killed,” Oneida County Sheriff Jeff Semrad told media.

64 pit bulls

Sheriff’s deputies found 64 pit bulls chained in two dog yards. Both dog yards were visible in photographs taken from two county highways intersecting near the scene, and found 38 marijuana plants, with a cumulative street value estimated at $95,000. Bruce Christensen, brother of Brent, told media that Brent had served prison time for drug-related offenses. Brent L. Christensen was also reputedly a professional dogfighter.

“Evidence at the scene suggests dog fights were held at the site,” reported Debbie Bryce of the Idaho State Journal.

“So, we have a dog fighting ring going on here and pretty good grow operation. And so we just don’t know right now. Is it drug related, or not? Maybe it’s not related to either one of those things,” Semrad said. “We believe that they knew who the killer was. There’s no evidence there was a robbery.”

“Names of interest”

Semrad said the investigation had discovered names of interest from other parts of southern Idaho and northern Utah.

The Oneida County Sheriff’s Department in August 2007 found as many as 34 pit bulls believed to have been bred for fighting on the premises of alleged marijuana growers Andy Ray Willard and Tiffany Willard, near Malad, the only incorporated city in the county. Both Willards were convicted in November 2007 of manufacturing a controlled substance. Andy Willard was sentenced to serve two years in state prison; Tiffany Willard was eligible for probation after serving 180 days.

Dogfighting charges were not filed, after the 34 pit bulls disappeared soon after the Willards were arrested.
Semrad indicated that the murder victims were not involved in the Willard case, but the Willard case did involve other suspects.

“These are dangerous people, and the individual we arrested [apparently Andy Willard] has told us that. That’s why he doesn’t want to cooperate and give names, because he’s scared,” Semrad said soon after the dogs vanished.

“We did locate what we thought possibly were some of the dogs that were stolen but the attorneys for the Willards would not allow them to cooperate with us and identify the dogs, because they were worried about federal charges,” Semrad told KPVI News, of Pocatello, in November 2007.

Pit bull at the Holbrook murder scene.

Holbrook pits were rehomed

Oneida County Commissioner Max Firth donated food for the pit bulls who were impounded after the murders. The pit bulls had apparently not been properly fed in some time. “Occasionally they would grind up the meat of a dog who died and feed that to the other dogs,” Semrad e-mailed to Local News 8, of Idaho Falls. “We found a dead dog in the freezer and a grinder nearby,” Semrad said.

Removing the pit bulls from the premises on April 8, the Idaho Humane Society reported on April 9 that most were “in very poor body condition,” malnourished, with open wounds and skin, eye, and ear ailments resulting from neglect of basic care. Some had untreated broken bones.

Taken into custody by the Idaho Humane Society and transported to Boise, the pit bulls were rehomed beginning in May 2013, with the assistance of the California-based organization BADRAP and the Best Friends Animal Society, of Kanab, Utah.

Holbrook dog yard.

Possible motives

Possible motives for the Holbook murders might have included silencing suspected witnesses or retaliating against suspected informants.

No new information pertaining to the motive was released with the news of the Severo Luera arrest.

But there were earlier hints that some of the alleged dogfighters involved in the 2013 raids had homicidal inclinations. As many as 10 shots were reportedly fired early on Easter Sunday, 2013 near Benton, Mississippi, when more than 100 officers and agents with the Marshall, Benton, and DeSoto county sheriff’s departments and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations closed in on a dogfight that allegedly included “major players” in dogfighting nationally. Fifty-two people were reportedly arrested and 26 pit bulls seized at the scene.

“I don’t know if it was a lookout [firing shots to warn the dogfight participants] or if it was a psycho who realized at 2:00 a.m. in a crowd of 200, he could shoot into the woods and maybe kill a cop with no one being able to figure out who did what,” Humane Society of the U.S. director of animal cruelty policy John Goodwin told ANIMALS 24-7. “A bunch of guys got away,” as many as 70 according to local police, “and we suspect the weapon that was fired got away too,” Goodwin said.

John Goodwin with impounded fighting pit bull.

Hardcore fighters

“This was definitely a gathering of some of the most hardcore dogfighters in the country,” Goodwin added.
Five more suspects and 18 pit bulls were rounded up on April 5, 2013 from locations in Tracy and Carmichael, California. The California suspects were charged with possession of fighting dogs, drug and weapons-related offenses, and child endangerment.

“These are the kind of guys who operate under street names,” said Goodwin. “This wasn’t the old school, big-name dog man crowd, but rather the core of the new high roller gang-affiliated dogfighters. They came of age when the underground magazines [published by and for the “old school” dogfighters] were starting to disappear, and are much harder to track.”

But HSUS senior law enforcement specialist Eric Sakach remembered the oldest of the California arrestees, James Leiva, 60. “I testified against Leiva in a dogfighting case in Lake County, California, in 1999. He was found guilty and served 16 months in state prison,” Sakach said.

Each raid seemed to lead to another

The Benton raid came a week after the biggest seizure of alleged fighting dogs in nearly four years, disclosed on March 25, 2013, brought the total number of alleged fighting dogs seized by law enforcement in the first 100 days of 2013 to more than twice as many as were impounded in all of 2012.

Convicted dogfighters Pete Davis & Melvin Robinson.

Meanwhile nearly 100 pit bulls were found by the FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Missouri State Highway Patrol in raids on sites in Kansas, Missouri, and Texas. Pete Davis, 38, and Melvin Robinson, 41, both of Kansas City, Kansas (across the Missouri River from Kansas City, Missouri) each pleaded guilty later in 2013 to dogfighting-related charges.

Davis had prior convictions including a fine of $400 for allowing one of his dogs to maul two smaller dogs who were being walked by a neighbor and her seven-year-old daughter.

The raids resulting in criminal charges against Davis and Robinson came about six weeks after the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, Federal Drug Administration, and local sheriff’s deputies seized 99 alleged fighting pit bulls from seven sites in five North Carolina counties.

$2 million restitution order

All of that, however, was only preliminary to the August 2013 seizure of 367 pit bulls from alleged fighting dog breeders in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.

“Several of the dogs were pregnant. Animal welfare groups ended up with 451 dogs by the time the puppies arrived. More than half the dogs have been adopted or being prepared for adoption, but the remainder died from health problems or had to be euthanized because they were too aggressive toward humans,” reprised Philip Rawls of Associated Press on January 16, 2015, after U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins of Montgomery, Alabama ordered seven convicted defendants to pay $2 million for the pit bulls’ care.

Donnie Anderson, of Auburn, Alabama, “described by the judge as “the kingpin of this conspiracy,’ was sentenced in November 2014 to eight years in prison,” Rawls continued. “Anderson worked out an agreement with federal prosecutors to pay $580,000 in restitution for the care of his 147 dogs, and the judge approved it. The judge said in an earlier hearing that 78 of Anderson’s dogs either died from injuries or had to be euthanized.”

Ricky Van Lee of Biloxi, Mississippi, was ordered to pay $627,389 for the care of his 68 dogs.

“Lee is serving four years in prison,” Rawls wrote. “Michael Martin of Auburn must pay $458,752 for the care of his 55 dogs. He has a five-year sentence. The judge ordered four others to pay smaller amounts that pushed the total to $1,987,411. One defendant, who had two dogs seized, became ill in court and his restitution case had to be postponed. Prosecutors are recommending $17,840 in his case.”

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Black-footed ferret. (Black-footed Ferret Recovery Program photo)
“Having lived next door to an accomplished and ambitious ferret rescuer for several years, I can testify from direct experience with many ferrets that I never met a ferret, wild or allegedly domesticated, whom I did not like. But I never met a ferret, either, who belonged in captivity, least of all as a “pocket pet.” And the ferret rescuer, long deceased, was of the same opinion.”
––Merritt Clifton

        NEW YORK CITY––The New York City Board of Health on March 10, 2015 voted 3-2 with three abstentions to retain a 25-year-old ban on possession of ferrets.

The vote left New York City and Washington D.C. as the two largest cities to prohibit ferrets, outside of California, where ferrets have been banned since 1933. The state of Hawaii also prohibits ferrets.

“Ferrets are legal in much of the country, but some board members said the slinky weasel relatives don’t belong in dense, largely apartment-dwelling New York City,” reported Jennifer Peltz of Associated Press.

“The city has long defined ferrets as wild animals and generally prohibited them,” Peltz continued. “The ban became specific in 1999,” despite organized opposition causing then-New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani to remark that, “This excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness.”

Yet, Peltz observed, “New York City pet stores stock ferret food. Health Department staffers said four ferret bites have been reported in New York City from 2008 to 2014.”

Why FoA backed the ferret ban

“We opposed rescinding the New York City ferret ban,” Friends of Animals campaigns director Edita Birnkrant told ANIMALS 24-7. “I spoke directly with officials at the  Department of Health about this numerous times and sent in an official position statement from FoA, detailing why we opposed overturning the ban on ferrets.

“We do not want another species to be legally sold in pet shops that come from breeders, and that’s what would happen if the ban had been overturned,” Birnkrant explained. “Pet stores would immediately start selling them throughout NYC.  The shelters are overflowing with pets that are already legal—why add another species to the mix? We know ferrets will end up dumped in parks, on the street, at shelters, etcetera, once they become ‘legal’ and are sold in every pet shop. It’s just a terrible idea.

“Some animal groups were supporting overturning the ban on the condition that the NYC Council pass a bill outlawing the sale of ferrets in pets shops,” Birnkrant continued. “But I knew that it was unlikely that such a ban would pass. Luckily, the ban is here to stay.

This 2005 conference ad spotlighted the use of ferrets as lab animals.

Humane community flip-flopped

The 1933 California ferret ban, like bans since rescinded in several other states, was practically unanimously supported by the humane community.

An especially influential endorsement came from the American Humane Association. The only national animal advocacy organization in the U.S. from inception in 1877 until Christine Stevens (1918-2002) founded the Animal Welfare Institute in 1952, the AHA had opposed ferret proliferation almost from inception.

Stevens and AWI opposed commercial ferret breeding chiefly to keep ferrets out of laboratory use; ferrets had briefly come into vogue as laboratory test subjects after scientists learned that they could carry human influenza strains, but were dangerous to handle, and were mostly replaced by rats after rats proved susceptible to the same diseases.

As other national humane organizations formed, they added strong voices in opposition to the efforts of ferret breeders, fanciers, and the exotic pet trade to popularize ferret-keeping. Among those strong voices were the Humane Society of the U.S. (1954), Friends of Animals (1957), and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (1981).

“They’re feisty little animals,” HSUS vice president for wildlife John Grandy told media in 1987. “They’re very quick, they dart when they move, and they have strong jaws meant to kill. I’ve watched them bite. It doesn’t appear to be angry, but then it opens its mouth and you’re bit.”

Ann Landers

Other influential opponents of ferret proliferation included syndicated advice columnist Ann Landers, whose columns were distributed from 1955 until her death in 2002; the American Veterinary Medical Association; and Faith Schottenfeld, author of Environmental Risk Communication as an Educational Process (2008), who as a New York State Health Department risk communicator in the 1980s reportedly collected details of 45 disfiguring ferret attacks on infants and small children, and more than 50 ferret bite incidents occurring in New York state alone.

But humane opposition to ferret proliferation and ferret bans have eroded over the past quarter century, under increasingly well-organized pressure from breeders and fanciers, some of whom share affiliations with entities representing breeders of other species, including the Bluegrass American Pit Bull Terrier Association, Endangered Breeds Association, and Responsible Dog Owners of the Eastern States.

Even HSUS and PETA now have web pages giving instructions on ferret care, with scant mention of the reasons why they formerly opposed legalizing ferret possession.

“The black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) dissappeared from the wild as consequence of the erradication of prairie dogs from 98% of their range (prairie dogs are the main prey of the ferret, and they live year round in the prairie dog burrows) and exotic diseases. The grasslands of Janos maintain one of the largest prairie dog towns in North America, and was thus chosen as a reintroduction site in 2001. Since, 300 ferrets have been released there, including the one shown in the picture, taken during the 2009 release.”
(Black-footed Ferret Recovery Program)

Black-footed ferrets

The turnabout on ferrets may have begun with the 1981 re-discovery of black-footed ferrets, a non-domesticated species with a voracious appetite for prairie dogs, which had been considered extinct. Once found wherever prairie dogs occurred, from New Mexico and Texas into the Canadian prairie provinces, black-footed ferrets were collateral casualties of ranchers who aggressively poisoned prairie dogs until they occupied less than 10% of their 19th century range. Until 18 black-footed ferrets were trapped near Meeteetse, Wyoming, in 1981, the last one reported had been seen in 1931 between Flagstaff and Williams, Arizona.

Arriving at the National Zoo in 1980 as a paid intern,  JoGayle Howard,  DVM (1951-2011) bred the 18 black-footed ferrets trapped in 1981 up to a population big enough to permit reintroduction to the wild in 1991. At Howard’s death the 18 black-footed ferrets she began with had more than 6,500 known descendants, many of whom had become charismatic stars of nature documentaries and news coverage.

Black-footed ferrets, a North American native species, are only distantly related to the Old World ferrets and ferret cousins including fitches, stoats, and weasels, who have been semi-domesticated for perhaps as long as 3,000 years, and were introduced to the New World in 1690.

In the early U.S., as in Europe, ferrets and their close kin were used chiefly for hunting, ratting, and fighting, except for fitches, who were and occasionally still are bred for their pelts.

Women hunting rabbits with a ferret and net, from the Queen Mary Psalter, dating to 1310-1320.

Legislative history

The first statewide ferret bans appear to have been instituted as part and parcel of the first statewide hunting regulations, adopted in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Allied with clergy who saw sport hunting as a threat to church attendance, and with conservationists alarmed at loss of wildlife, early humane societies lobbied to ban recreational hunting altogether.   Hunters responded by forming associations of “sportsmen” and “hunter-conservationists,” who made common cause with the clergy and humane societies to prohibit some of the most egregiously cruel and destructive hunting practices.

“Ferreting,” unlike hunting with dogs, had few influential defenders. Editorialized the Janesville (Wisconsin) Daily Gazette in 1906, “The squeal of a rabbit when it catches sight of the ferret’s two glowing eyes advancing toward it is pitiful, and this alone prevents many sportsmen from using the animal.”

Rabbit hunting with a ferret and hounds, illustrated by Gaston Pheobus, the Count of Foix and Viscount of Bearn, circa 1387-1391.

“Bad sportsmanship & inhumane”

Agreed the Fort Wayne News & Sentinel in 1921, praising the introduction of a ban on ferreting in Indiana, “The ferret law, which prohibits the possession of a ferret without the permission of the Fish & Game Commission, will help to reduce the wastage of game through a practice which is bad sportsmanship at best and in many cases inhumane.”

Yet ferreting persisted, especially among some of the same elements as dogfighting, despite strong legislation against it. Ohio, for example, banned ferreting in 1885, but setting ferrets on rabbits remained common in Ohio at least until 1920, when the Democrat & Times, of Philadelphia, Ohio, credited the Tuscarawas County Fish & Game Association with cutting “use of ferrets this season down to the minimum.

“A great restraining factor,” the Democrat & Times continued, “is the penalty staring violators in the face. The lowest fine that can be imposed for even having a ferret in one’s possession while going to or returning from a hunt, or while hunting, is $25. The greatest fine that can be imposed is $200,” about a third of the price of a new car at the time, “and magistrates have shown a disposition to enforce the maximum fine rather than the trivial $25 for such an un-sportsman-like offense.”

The legal loophole that allowed ferret breeding and selling to continue in many jurisdictions was an exemption frequently granted for ferret use in rat control. But even this was considered problematic.

Advised the Tampico Tornado, of Tampico, Illinois, in 1892:

“Everybody knows that a ferret will drive away rats, but everybody does not know how to manage a ferret, which must be done carefully, for should the ferret get away, he will be more destructive than a hundred rats.”

This was more-or-less the experience of Australia, New Zealand, and other island nations after ferrets, stoats, and weasels were introduced in the 19th century as an attempted brake on feral rat and rabbit populations. While ferrets, stoats, and weasels all prey mostly on introduced rodent species and rabbits, as intended, they hunt rare native species as well, as opportunity presents, and hit the native species especially hard if the non-native species decline abruptly––as in the wake of poisoning campaigns and the introduction of diseases such as rabbit calicivirus and mixomiatosis.

“Pocket pets”

The notion of keeping ferrets as “pocket pets” appears to have been a late 20th century invention. Documented introductions of ferrets into homes with children present tended to involve gruesome consequences.

The Blackheath Gazette, of London, England, for instance reported on September 24, 1897 that a ferret bought by one Frederick William Vinall to catch rats instead killed his four-month-old daughter.

The Alden Times, of Alden, Iowa, in 1924 described how a ferret brought indoors by 15-year-old Philip Greenbaum, of Sioux City, escaped and disfigured his nine-year-old sister.

Inescapable are parallels to the evolution of reportage about pit bulls. From the first appearance of mass media reporting daily events to the mid-1980s, both ferrets and pit bulls were frequently and forthrightly identified as dangerous animals, inappropriate as human companion animals, and associated primarily with human misuse of animals in sadistic “sport.”

Then organized efforts emerged to re-invent both ferrets and pit bulls as “pocket pets” and “nanny dogs,” oblivious to the weight of historical evidence that neither animal had ever been any such thing.

Arnold Schwarzenegger displays ferret in “Kindergarten Cop.”

From Arnold Schwarzenegger to Paris Hilton

While sympathetic depictions of black-footed ferrets eroded opposition to proliferation of domesticated ferrets somewhat, humane perspectives and relevant legislation disintegrated––as with legislation to discourage pit bull proliferation––after Hollywood became involved.

“Ferret owners are rejoicing,”  American Ferret Association founder Freddie Ann Hoffman said of the October 7,  2003 election of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace recalled California Governor Gray Davis. Hoffman credited Schwarzenegger with helping to popularize ferrets in his 1990 film Kindergarten Cop,  while blasting Davis for pledging to veto any bill to legalize the possession of ferrets that might clear the state legislature.

Post-Kindergarten Cop, which was apparently the first successful Hollywood film to mix ferrets with children, ferrets appeared in the Jim Carrey vehicle Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and in The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), the first installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The ferret at the Inn of the Prancing Pony, in “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

In The Fellowship of the Ring one of the rough characters at the Inn of the Prancing Pony briefly feeds the ferret as the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin enter and look anxiously around for the inexplicably absent wizard Gandalf.

The Fellowship of the Ring appearance contextually reprised the historical use of ferrets in ferret fighting and rat-catching contests, often held on tavern pool tables.

Ferrets since then have appeared on screen mainly as “pocket pets,” including in cameo roles as “familiars” in the Harry Potter films The Goblet of Fire (2005) and Deathly Hallows, part 2 (2011).

Caged ferret in the Harry Potter film “Deathly Hallows, part 2.”

Ferrets as “pocket pets” also got a boost in 2004 from socialite Paris Hilton, whose two ferrets were confiscated by the California Department of Fish & Game after Hilton showed them off in an interview.

Ferret mayhem

While the American Ferret Association claims that there are now about 12 million domesticated ferrets in the U.S., a number for which there appears to be no credible substance, the AVMA estimated in 2012 that about 334,000 households nationwide have ferrets––about 10% of the number of households that keep pit bulls.

The record of mayhem involving ferrets is nowhere close to the record involving pit bulls, who at this writing have killed 312 of the 586 people killed by dogs in the U.S. and Canada since September 1982, including one person today,  and have disfigured 2,326 of the 3,243 people who have been disfigured by dogs.

But among animals of comparable size commonly kept as pets, only venomous snakes inflict as many serious injuries relative to the numbers in homes.

Darby Borough

A reminder of this reality came in Darby Borough, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on January 23, 2015.

Reported Cindy Scharr of the Delaware County Daily Times,   “Police have charged the parents of the 1-month-old infant whose face was eaten by ferrets with child endangerment. A warrant was filed charging Burnie James Fraim, 42, and Jessica Lynne Benales, 24, with five counts of endangering the welfare of children. The infant girl was attacked as she sat strapped into a car seat in the living room of the couple’s home.

Continued Scharr, “The couple has five children, all under the age of five…The house was reportedly infested with fleas and mites. The family also had six cats and two dogs. The ferrets were destroyed after being tested for rabies. The older children were removed from the house and are being cared for by relatives. The infant remains at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Surgeons are attempting to reconstruct the child’s face and placed stents in her nose to allow her to breathe.”

One of the more recent & more bizarre efforts to “rebrand” ferrets.

Bossier City,  Louisiana

The Fraim/Benales case recalled the December 2006 plea bargain settlement of similar charges brought against Mary and Christopher Hansche, of Bossier City,   Louisiana. The Hansches pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of improper supervision of their child, and surrendered possession of a pit bull and a ferret.

Explained Associated Press, “The Hansches were arrested on December 7 after they woke up and saw that one of their pets had gnawed off four of their month-old daughter’s toes. Mary Hansche, 22,   said the ferret did it;  police said Christopher Hansche,  26,  thought the dog was responsible.”

The humane movement of the 19th and most of the 20th century understood itself to be a movement to prevent cruel and negligent treatment of both animals and children.

From that perspective, keeping, breeding, selling, and promoting the possession of either ferrets or pit bulls would have been unthinkable; encouraging either ferrets or pit bulls to be kept around children should have been a prosecutable offense in itself.

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Wayne Pacelle’s blog of March 17, 2015

by Lee Hall

Barrett Duke, a founding fellow of the Research Institute at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, on March 17, 2015 received accolades from Humane Society of the United States president Wayne Pacelle in his personal blog “A Humane Nation.”

Explained Pacelle, “It’s part of my commitment, and that of The HSUS, to integrate – or to reintegrate – other voices and perspectives within the humane movement.”

Humane movement?

This is the same Barrett Duke who warned Baptist Press readers: “Imagine what will happen if the government feels compelled to indoctrinate our children about the new civil right of ‘same-sex marriage.'” But Duke didn’t leave it to the imagination:

“If the radical homosexual agenda is codified into law,”  Duke said,  “our own government will be arrayed against us and our struggle to protect our religious freedom. We can fight this battle now or we can fight it later, but we are going to fight this battle.”

Banana peel

Duke insists laws to prevent hate crimes will be used “to harass those who hold religious convictions about the sinfulness of homosexual behavior.” To Duke, the Supreme Court’s examination of gay marriage in Hollingsworth v. Perry was the banana peel on the slippery slope to mother-son matings.

Barrett Duke

HSUS president Pacelle pointed out that Duke’s group endorsed a Tennessee bill that raises penalties for attending animal fights. Maybe somebody needs to tell HSUS that Dr. Duke has no use for legislation unless it co-incidentally fits the Southern Baptist Convention’s world view.  In The Radical Homosexual Agenda and the Threat to Religious Liberty, Duke exhorts readers: “We must stand up and protect our freedom to believe and to practice our faith according to God’s leading, not governments’.”

Pacelle wrote: “Voices like Dr. Duke’s are extremely important to our movement: the ERLC [Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission] engages in public policy on behalf of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant religion in the United States, with over 16 million members in over 46,000 churches.”

The logic seems to be that if a hater belongs to a group with “over 16 million members” and has anything in common with you, it’s time to kiss up.

Subjugation & slaughter

“I was struck by a powerful exposition,” Pacelle declared, wherein Barrett Duke proclaimed “Biblical truths” about animals. In Duke’s piece, animals are property of God:  “He has allowed humans to subjugate and even to consume them, but that does not include wanton abuse.”

Subjugate away!  Slaughter on!  For Heaven’s sake,  just don’t degrade Tennessee with animal fighting.

Concerned that animal welfare is unjustifiably pegged by right-leaning people as a liberal cause, Pacelle gently nudged the powerful expositor:  “What is the sort of approach on animal welfare that puts conservatives more at ease?”

Duke responded by recommending allegiance to a hierarchical view of creation, with humans above other animals.  Pacelle apparently agreed.  Regarding the growing body of work deconstructing that hierarchical model, Pacelle said,   “I don’t think this helped much in our outreach to faith-based people.”

Rusty the golden retriever

Pacelle then reprinted Duke’s “powerful exposition.”  It invoked “a golden retriever named Rusty that I got for my children in 2004…the dog everyone should have—loving, playful, and eager to please.”

After the saccharine opening,  Duke offered several reasons that animals matter.  Noah’s Ark, for example. Plus, Psalm 104 says God “causes” the grass to grow for the cattle.”  So,  Duke claimed,  “God isn’t simply passively watching nature take care of its own.”

Animals bring glory to God by their very existence,  Duke asserts,  and have “innocence and vulnerability”—concepts connected to the human impulse to establish a criminal-justice system.

On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal-Rights Philosophy Down to Earth, by Lee Hall, Nectar Bat Press (777 Post Road, Suite 205, Darien, CT 06820), 2010. 330 pages, paperback. $17.95.

Yet Duke believes animal sacrifice,  as practiced in Biblical times,  was a sensible requirement:  “Either the guilty person or an acceptable substitute must answer for human sin.”  God therefore created the sacrificial system in Israel and “commanded that this system regularly kill innocent animals in order to satisfy the demands of his divine justice.”

Such is the commentary now enshrined on the personal blog of president of the Humane Society of the United States.  According to Duke,  when it comes to biblical references,  “we are to accept their infallible guidance and truth.”

That would explain why the “Southern Baptists’ man in Washington” also states: “Our faith and the radical homosexual agenda are on track for a cataclysmic conflict.”

In short, Barrett Duke is a merchant of hate.  And just as you can’t say your chosen animal processors are “humane,”  simply because some are worse to animals than others,  you can’t say,  just because some hate mongers are not the worst, that your preferred hate monger is humane.

________________________________________

Lee Hall, an adjunct professor of environmental law, is the author of numerous books and articles on animal rights, including the new On Their Own Terms:  The Handbook. Animal Rights for the Classroom and the Community (forthcoming, 2015). On Twitter: @Animal_Law

Edith J. Goode & her lifelong companion Alice Morgan Wright (HSUS photo)

A historical postscript:

The humane movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries accepted,  lauded,  and celebrated the leadership of the openly lesbian Carolyn Earle White in the 19th century,  the lesbian couple Alice Morgan Wright & Edith J. Goode,  whom Humane Society of the U.S. historian celebrates at http://www.humanesociety.org/about/history/goode-and-wright-page1.html,  and the openly if quietly gay couple Eric Hansen and William Alan Swallow.

Caroline Earle White

Among the organizations these leaders founded and/or later headed were the Women’s Humane Society,  the American Anti-Vivisection Society,  the National Humane Education Society,  the humane foundations named after Wright and Goode,  the Missouri Humane Society,  the American Humane Association,  and the Massachusetts SPCA.

The American SPCA and the American Humane Association also had other openly if quietly gay leadership.

If the humane movement of a much less culturally tolerant era could demonstrate tolerance and acceptance to that extent then,  how can it be that the president of the Humane Society of the U.S. embraces and lauds a Barrett Duke today?

––Merritt Clifton,  editor,  ANIMAL 24-7

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Victim Claudia Gallardo

         STOCKTON, California; DAYTON, Ohio––Brian Hrenko, 60, now awaiting sentencing for an involuntary homicide committed by a pit bull, became briefly a pit bull rescue celebrity on March 9, 1995 after jumping off the San Mateo Bridge in a futile attempt to save his pit bull Nitro from drowning.

         “In the future,  everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,”  artist Andy Warhol predicted in 1968.  

Hrenko received his second 15 minutes of fame––or perhaps his third––on March 25,  2015,  when a San Joaquin County court convicted him of the April 11, 2013 fatal mauling of house cleaner Claudia Gallardo, 38, by a pit bull named Russia.

Hrenko,  who already had multiple prior convictions,  faces up to four years and eight months in prison for Gallardo’s death.

Convictions in Dayton

The Hrenko conviction preceded by 19 days the convictions on April 14, 2015 in Dayton, Ohio of Andrew Nason, 30, and Julie Custer, 27, in connection with the February 7, 2014 fatal mauling of Klonda Richey, 57, by their two Cane Corsos.

Nason and Custer pleaded “no contest” to the charges against them. Dayton Municipal Court Judge Carl Henderson then found them guilty on two counts each of failure to control dogs.

Also on April 14, 2015, in Wentworth, North Carolina,   Rockingham County District Attorney Craig Blitzer filed involuntary manslaughter charges against Daniel McCollum, 55, for the November 24, 2014 death of Jose Cruz Cazares Robles, 62, who was allegedly killed by a pack of 14 free-roaming blue heelers and hounds.

Authorities in Nye County, Nevada were meanwhile considering elevating the charges against Ricky Davidson, 40, who was initially booked for “keeping a vicious dog resulting in substantial bodily harm” after his three pit bulls jumped a fence and mauled Kenneth Lawrence Ford, 79, of Pahrump. Ford on April 14, 2015 died from his injuries.

Klonda Richey

Animal control failed to protect victim

Both the Gallardo death and the Richey death call into question the willingness and ability of law enforcement to intervene to prevent dog attacks before they occur, even when high-risk dogs are known to be kept in dangerous situations.

“Richey, who worked for Montgomery County Children Services and lived with about 20 cats, sought protection from the dogs and her neighbors for months before her death, according to records obtained by this newspaper from the county and courts,” reported Dayton Daily News staff writer Jessica Heffner.

“In total, 13 complaints were filed with the Animal Resource Center and another 46 calls were made to the Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center related to Nason’s home between December 27, 2011, and Richey’s death,” Heffner continued. “However, the animals did not have a designation as nuisance, dangerous or vicious because they had no history of biting someone or killing another dog, Mark Kumpf, director of the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center, previously said.

Montgomery County dog warden Mark Kumpf with pit bull advocate Jane Berkey.

Richey’s estate has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Montgomery County Commissioners, the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center, and the center director, Montgomery County dog warden Mark Kumpf, along with several defendants yet to be named.

Cane Corso breeders often fancifully trace the dogs’ ancestry back to Roman war dogs, but the Cane Corso is actually a mix of mastiff and pit bull that first appeared in classified ads offering dogs for sale in 1995.

“Yet another signal”

Both the Hrenko conviction and the convictions of Nason and Custer are “yet another signal to pit bull owners that harboring these animals exposes them to years of prison if anyone is killed or seriously injured,” Los Angeles attorney Kenneth M. Phillips told ANIMALS 24-7.

Phillips, the senior specialist in representing dog attack victims worldwide, represents Gallardo’s children “in a wrongful death case against the property owner company and management company, in conjunction with the law firm Girardi Keese,” he said.

Kenneth Phillips

Brian Hrenko

Hrenko had a long history of previous offenses, often involving pit bulls. Arrested in August 1986 for possessing a stolen revolver, Hrenko was released on bail despite an earlier conviction for felony possession of PCP.

Stopped for a minor traffic violation on May 15, 1987, Hrenko allegedly fought off and escaped from two San Jose police officers who suspected him of being under the influence of PCP.

San Jose police on May 28, 1987 traced Hrenko to a fortified cottage above the Guadalope Reservoir in the Santa Cruz mountains. Believing Hrenko was trying to reach an arsenal including an Uzi carbine, a Mac-10 machine pistol, two crossbows, two daggers and three pistols, the police detachment lobbed an explosive device into the cottage, and shot and wounded a pit bull who charged the officers as they approached.

Brian Hrenko

“Hrenko was booked into Santa Clara County Jail for investigation of possession of PCP for sale and for being an ex-felon with firearms,” reported San Jose Mercury News staff writer Betty Barnacle. “The only casualty in the early morning raid was the dog, who was removed from the property by animal control officers.”

A 38-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman, both allegedly PCP customers, were also arrested at the scene. The woman’s 18-month-old daughter was taken into protective custody.

Continued Barnacle, “Police said the main gate to the compound as well as walls of the cottage were festooned with what appeared to be skulls of animals, possibly pit bulls. Police thought perhaps the animals died of wounds not inflicted by bullets because Hrenko’s living room decor included photographs of pit bulls fighting.”

Nitro

Hrenko next made news on March 8, 1995 when his truck developed a flat tire on the San Mateo Bridge. His pit bull Nitro was with him.

“When Hrenko stopped to inspect the damage,” reported San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Benjamin Pimentel and Teresa Moore, “Nitro jumped out and over the railing of the bridge. Apparently without thinking of his own safety, Hrenko followed the dog, plunging 25 to 30 feet into cold water.”

The dog was not recovered, but the Coast Guard rescued Hrenko after his leap was reported to law enforcement as a suspected attempted suicide.

While the attempted pit bull rescue made broadcast news headlines, investigating officers eventually booked Hrenko on suspicion of possessing a loaded firearm in a vehicle, having a silencer,  possessing drugs for sale, and resisting arrest.

(See also http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/09/27/eight-facing-trial-in-death-by-dog-cases/.)

Please donate to support our work: http://www.animals24-7.org/donate/

(Beth Clifton photos)

1.  Shelter sued for rehoming pit bull who attacked woman––but NYC hires pit advocate as “community dogs program coordinator”

2. Why pit bulls will break your heart,  by Beth Clifton

3. Misunderstood Nanny Dogs,  by J. Thomas Beasley

4.  Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department #2 and behaviorist allege neglect of public safety in pushing pit bull adoptions

5. Audit hits San Antonio Animal Care Services for alleged neglect of public safety

6. Casualties of the “save rate”: 40,000 animals at failed no-kill shelters & rescues

7. How many other animals did pit bulls kill in 2014?

Ashton Blackwell with her childhood pit bull Rosie.

8. $37 million verdict ups the ante for pit bull attacks

9. Speaking out against blind & frivolous pit bull advocacy,  by Ashton Blackwell

Fatally mauled by pit bulls on the Chuckansi Picayune Reservation in California on November 9, 2014, Karen Shultz, 63, was both a Native American and a senior citizen.

10. Pit bull proliferation hits “Indian country”;  fatal dog attacks double

11. Record low shelter killing raises both hopes & questions

12.  Attempt to repeal pit bull ban crushed in Colorado

13. Losing in Aurora, pit bull advocates set their dogs on us, Blue Buffalo, & Home 4 the Holidays

(Beth Clifton photo)

14. When are alleged fighting dogs not pit bulls?

15.Parallels between the messages sent by advocates for aggressive dogs, and the messages internalized by victims of domestic violence

16. Don’t bully my breed,  but we will bully the victims,  by Beth Clifton

(Beth Clifton photo)

17. 32 years of logging fatal & disfiguring dog attacks,  by Merritt Clifton

18. Eight facing trial in death by dog cases

19. Unleashed:  The Phenonena of Status Dogs and Weapon Dogs, by Simon Harding,  reviewed by Alexandra Semyonova

20. Lenient animal control policies toward bully breeds were in background of four of five recent death-by-dog cases

21. Pit bulls were 32% of U.S. shelter dog inventory in June 2014

22. Stamford shelter manager is first in U.S. to be charged with reckless endangerment for rehoming dangerous dogs

23. Fitchburg becomes third public shelter to suspend operations due to liability concerns about pit bulls

(ASPCA photo)

24. Roswell resumes releases of dogs to rescue groups following 3-day suspension after pit bull attack

25.  U.K. amends Dangerous Dogs Act, but fails to close “Staffordshire” loophole

26. “Service pit bull” who attacked three people is re-impounded

27.  Shelters sued for attacks by rehomed pit bulls

28.  Weak dog laws blamed for deaths in Ohio & U.K.

29.  Why we cannot adopt our way out of shelter killing

30. Pit bull wisdom & dog pound foolishness,  by Liz Marsden

31. For Animal Rights & Human Rights: A Case for Breed-Specific Legislation,  by Lee Hall

32. The science of how behavior is inherited in aggressive dogs,  by Alexandra Semyonova

33.  Dog attacks surge 76% in England in 10 years, coinciding with exemption of Staffordshire pit bulls from the Dangerous Dogs Act

34.  Judge marks “Dog Bite Prevention Week” with $100 million award to pit bull victim

35.  Dog bite prevention weak 2015

36.  15 real-life tips for surviving a dog attack

37.  Anti-BSL Washington legislator Appleton misstates the law

38.  Father sentenced in case of 4-year-old killed by pit bulls because Miami-Dade law was not enforced

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Liz Marsden

by Liz Marsden

On April 29, 2015 I testified before the Rhode Island House Health, Education, and Welfare Committee against a bill, H. 5585, which if passed would require law enforcement agencies to transfer dogs impounded in raids on suspected dogfighters to “The SPCA” for adoption to the public or transfer to an “appropriate rescue organization.”

Impounded dogs are not the property of law enforcement agencies to transfer until either surrendered by their legal owners, usually as part of a plea bargain, or forfeited as result of a criminal conviction. Thus it is highly likely that any dogs who might be affected by H. 5585, seized from suspected dogfighters, will in truth be fighting dogs and/or offspring from “gamebred” fighting lines.

My testimony is applicable to many other items on legislative calendars at both the state and local levels throughout the U.S.

Worked with Michael Vick dogs

I have perhaps a unique perspective on the topic of dangerous dogs and fighting dogs, as I spent nearly 30 years working with humane societies and animal rescue organizations, and for ten of those years I was a professional dog trainer.

(ASPCA photo)

I worked for the Washington Animal Rescue League in 2007 when eleven of the Michael Vick pit bulls were kept there for several months, pending permanent resolution. So I have much more experience with this topic than the average person. From this experience I strongly believe we need more restrictions on pit bulls and other dangerous breeds of dogs, not fewer. But I will focus my comments on the issues pertaining to offering fighting dogs for adoption.

Existing law in Rhode Island, and probably most other jurisdictions, states that a fighting dog is automatically designated “vicious,” and includes a requirement that “No person shall possess with the intention to sell, or offer for sale, breed, or buy or attempt to buy within the state a vicious dog.”

Rhode Island H. 5585, and similar legislation introduced in Louisiana, would say the exact opposite––again, that fighting dogs seized by law enforcement agencies are to be sent to “The SPCA” and then be placed into adoptive homes or with an “appropriate rescue organization.”

Is the point not to keep the community safer?

Is the point of designating a dog “vicious” not to keep the dog out of circulation and keep the community safer? How is selling any different from “rescuing” and “adopting” when we are discussing known dangerous dogs?

Kissing any newly impounded dog, let alone a known fighting dog, sets a bad example. (HSUS photo)

The term “SPCA” is vague, since that is a generic acronym for “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” WHICH “SPCA” is going to be accepting with open arms all of the vicious dogs in the state?

Will any government body be monitoring the whereabouts of vicious dogs turned over to the generic “SPCA?” There are now several hundred documented cases of adopted pit bulls––not necessarily known fighters, mind you, just pit bulls adopted from animal rescues––who have mauled and killed members of their adoptive families only days, weeks, or months after being adopted.

Imagine how much worse it could be if the dogs come from known fighting stock?

If such legislation passes, close monitoring of groups that “rescue” fighting pit bulls and other known dangerous dogs is essential for public safety. Who will pay for this monitoring program? The taxpayer? And what agency whose primary commitment is to maintaining public safety will do the work, accountable to whom?

(Beth Clifton photo)

“Success stories” vs. catastrophes

Proponents of pit bull “rescue” often try to point to the alleged adoption success of canine fighting “survivors.” I will refer to all pit bulls taken from known fighting situations as “game-bred pit bulls.” “Game-bred” means that the dogs come from a known line of fighters. “Game” and “gameness” are dog fighting terms that mean the dog shows the desired propensity to fight at the drop of a hat, to grab and shake and execute a killing bite, and to never give up until its opponent is dead or until the dog’s handlers pry the dog off the opponent with a “break stick.”

One can argue (and I do) that all pit bulls are game-bred because their very genetic lineage is composed of fighting dogs. But for this discussion, I will stick to the dogs coming from known fighting situations.

The number of “success” stories pit bull “rescuers” point to are paltry compared with the numbers of cases in which pit bulls kill and disfigure people every year in the U.S.––more than 600 in 2014 alone.

Vick dogs

But let us look at the “success” stories of the 48 seized Vick dogs, who were dispersed to eight rescue organizations for adoption, “rehabilitation,” or lifetime care in “sanctuaries.”

Impounded pit bull. (Miami-Dade Animal Services)

One was euthanized due to “severe aggression.”

Twenty-two went to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah.

Twelve of those were deemed ineligible for placement in homes, and were essentially sentenced to lifetime solitary confinement at Best Friends.

In 2010, two of those dogs broke out of their enclosure and were injured in a dog fight in which a third pit bull (not a Vick dog) was killed.

Ten of the Vick pit bulls who were sent to Best Friends were later adopted out to homes, some with children and other pets. If any of them have injured or killed anyone, I haven’t heard of it. But I worked with some of these dogs when they were at the Washington Animal Rescue League, and I would not have been comfortable recommending any of them for adoption. One of them is reportedly still so terrified of new things, after all these years of “rehabilitation,” that in my opinion keeping him alive is cruel.

Another Vick pit bull was equally terrified at all times and ended up escaping from a foster home and being killed by a car.

Scattered to the winds

The remaining 25 Vick dogs, those who did not go to Best Friends, were scattered to the winds among rescue groups in several states. Keeping close track of them is not something I have been able to do. I seriously doubt that anyone involved with this case knows where all of them are, how they have fared, or even how many are still alive.

(HSUS photo)

Another series of high-profile dogfighting raids occurred in August 2013. According to news sources, Federal agents raided locations in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi and seized 367 dogs, nearly all pit bulls. Many were found underfed and attached to heavy chains. Several of the dogs were pregnant. Animal welfare groups reportedly “ended up with 451 dogs by the time the puppies arrived.” According to officials, “more than half” the dogs have been adopted or are being prepared for adoption, but the remainder died from health problems or had to be euthanized because they were too aggressive toward humans.

(That’s right – animal “rescue” groups allowed 84 more game-bred pit bulls to be born while under their care.  Spaying, if possible, or else humanely euthanizing the pregnant females would have prevented that from happening.)

Do the math

So, let’s do the math. Half of 451 dogs is 225. Is anyone involved with this large raid – the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or the Humane Society of the United States––keeping track of where these dogs are now?

Tillie. (HSUS photo )

A volunteer-managed Facebook page devoted to the dogs offers only a smattering of “success” stories and adoption notices for dogs still waiting for permanent homes. These dogs are scattered throughout the U.S. among “rescue” groups. One of the dogs from this case, a female pit bull named “Tillie” who “can’t be around other animals,” is featured on a Rhode Island rescue group’s web site.

People often perceive pit bull rescuers, shelters, and animal control officers to be experts on pit bull behavior and safety. Potential adopters often believe they can rely on these perceived experts’ knowledge, judgment and temperament testing procedures to give them sound advice about pit bull safety and to match them with safe pit bulls.

But as at least 35 human fatalities since 2010, several hundred human disfigurements, and thousands of deadly attacks on other animals by rehomed pit bulls testify, that isn’t always the case. Shelters and “rescuers” often appear to place pit bulls over public safety, including in rapidly increasing numbers of cases resulting in six-and-seven-figure judgments against shelter and rescue agencies.

Dangerous dogs should be more heavily regulated, not less

When a consumer product injures and kills that many people, and generates comparable liability history, that product is taken off the market.

Trooper & Rhonda. (Beth Clifton photo)

Yet, when a dog breed does the same thing, people try to pass laws to protect the hazard, not the victims!

We need to reverse this trend and start facing facts, not only on behalf of the human victims, but on behalf of the other animals, most often smaller dogs, who are by far the most frequent victims.

Pit bulls and other dangerous dog breeds should be more heavily regulated, not less. A good start would be requiring spaying and neutering of pit bulls. But the groups that say they are “protecting” those breeds oppose any restrictions, even mandatory spaying and neutering. Meanwhile our shelters and pounds are flooded with unwanted pit bulls.

“How it’s raised”

A second and closely related glaring inconsistency is the frequent contention of pit bull “rescue” advocates that a pit bull’s behavior is determined by “how it’s raised.”

Indeed, “it’s all in how they’re raised” is now a common belief among the general public, because people have heard this phrase repeated so many times.

But if the risk is “all in how they’re raised,” how can anyone expect a known game-bred fighting pit bull to be a safe pet?

Or a pit bull from a shelter who has no known history?

Death and disfigurement cases, now occurring at the rate of nearly two per day, show that no one can predict what an individual pit bull will do. Time and time again, pit bulls have attacked without warning, for no reason known to the victims or bystanders, and without ever having shown prior aggression. Some of these dogs literally go from licking a victim’s face to biting the victim’s face off.

Schmee. (Beth Clifton photo)

Telling gullible adopters that it’s “all in how they’re raised,” when in reality breeding and genetics have a major role, is dangerous and deceitful, and must stop.

Ignoring the facts and repeating myths to get more pit bulls adopted is getting people––and other pets, especially other dogs––killed or mauled every single day.

I have spent most of my adult life working with dogs, including pit bulls. I don’t hate pit bulls and I don’t want to take away anyone’s family pet. What I want to see is a more mature, realistic response from pit bull “rescuers” to the overwhelming evidence that their breed is a public threat and needs to be seriously regulated and managed.

Phony “rescues” and “sanctuaries”

Craig Malisow of the Houston Press has extensively exposed the Spindletop Rescue debacle.

The number of phony “rescues” and “sanctuaries” that have sprung up since the Vick dog case seems to be astronomical. Two infamous cases were the Olympic Animal Sanctuary in Washington state, a “rescue” for dangerous aggressive dogs that turned out to be a windowless tin building stacked with filthy crates, and the Spindletop Refuge in Texas, where nearly 300 dogs were found warehoused in filthy stacked crates, while many others who had been sent there remain unaccounted for.

We must keep in mind that each of the Vick dogs arrived at Best Friends with a court-ordered endowment for over $18,000––money Best Friends was glad to receive. What happens in less publicized cases, involving less affluent defendants, is very different.

Who is equipped to safely and humanely keep and care for fighting dogs who usually can’t be housed with other animals?

(Beth Clifton meme)

All too often, these dogs end up in a “rescue hoarder” situation and spend the rest of their lives crated or otherwise confined and neglected.

Anyone who truly cares about dogs will understand that there are only so many safe and decent places for aggressive dogs to go, and there are far more aggressive dogs being impounded than there are shelter and sanctuary facilities available.

See also: http://www.animals24-7.org/2015/05/06/links-to-32-reasons-why-breed-specific-legislation-needs-to-be-enforced-and-reinforced/

Please donate in support of our work:  http://www.animals24-7.org/donate/

         LONDON, U.K.––Dog attacks in England have increased by 76% in 10 years, according to newly published British Health & Social Care Information Centre data, released to media on May 28, 2015.

The numbers come from Hospital Episodes Statistics, based on records of all patients admitted to National Health Service hospitals.

The records show that 7,227 people were admitted to hospitals due to dog-inflicted injury between March 2014 and February 2015, up from 4,110 dog attack admissions for the 12 months ending in February 2005.

Children:  16% of victims,  2/3 of fatalities

Children under age nine accounted for 1,159 of the victims in 2014-2015, or just 16%, but 13 of the 21 dog attack fatalities were children.

Historically, from half to two-thirds of dog attack victims have been small children, since most dogs have inhibitions against attacking people who are significantly larger than themselves. This tendency has rapidly reversed over the past two decades, coinciding with the increasing popularity of “bully breed” dogs, who have no such inhibitions and kill and disfigure humans without regard to size.

3% of dogs per week show aggression

“The long and short of it is that the name ‘Staffordshire Bull Terrier’ was settled upon and the English Kennel Club began recognizing the Stafford as a breed eligible for show in 1935.” –HomeBrewedStaffords.com

Observed Stuart Winter of The Express, “A study by the animal welfare charity Peoples Dispensary for Sick Animals recently calculated that 3% of dogs are showing aggression to people on a weekly basis, equating to nearly 250,000 incidents every year.”

Three percent of the British dog population closely coincides with the proportion of “bully breed” dogs, including pit bulls, nominally banned in Britain since 1991, and Staffordshires, a pit bull line that was exempted from the ban in 1997.

Nominally banned,  pits proliferate

Reported Steve Doohan and Andy Richardson of The Mirror just three days ahead of the release of Hospital Episodes Statistics data, “More than 3,000 banned pit bull terrier-type dogs have been discovered in Britain––almost 25 years after they were banned.

“A Freedom of Information request showed that legislation introduced following fatal attacks on children a quarter of a century ago has failed to halt the animals being bred and sold,” Doohan and Richardson continued. “Greater London had the largest amount of pit bulls with 1,060, while Merseyside was next with 237 followed by Greater Manchester with 223, and the West Midlands with 161.”

Montage by Jenny Rosen, from http://tinyurl.com/pgovxzc

The Freedom of Information request was able to to identify the numbers of pit bulls, Doohan and Richardson explained, because “A banned dog can be seized by the police or a local warden even if the dog isn’t acting dangerously and no complaints have been made against the dog. If the case goes to court, the owner must prove the dog is not a banned type. If the owner cannot, he can face a fine of up to £5,000 or even six months in prison. However, if the court decides the dog is not a danger to the public, the dog can be put on the exempt register and returned to the owner. The owner will be given a certificate of exemption, valid for the life of the dog,” who must be sterilized, microchipped, insured for liability, and kept leashed and muzzled whenever in public.”

Pit bulls designated as such are only a small part of the total British pit bull population, however, because of the exemption of Staffordshires, who have become by far the most common breed in British shelters.

Non-breed specific amendments fail

Spokespersons for Dogs Trust and the Royal SPCA denied that pit bull proliferation, including proliferation of Staffordshires, was a cause of the surge in dog bite hospitalizations to the Dangerous Dogs Act amendments that took effect in May 2014 appear to have accomplished little toward reducing dog attack injuries and deaths.

The most significant amendment permits prosecuting people whose dogs attack other people on private property, providing sentences of from two to five years in prison for people who keep dogs in a manner that exposes others to risk.

Jade Anderson

Introduced in 1991, the Dangerous Dogs Act initially exempted attacks on private property from prosecution, in the mistaken belief that attacks on private property usually involve either unauthorized intruders or the victims’ own pets. The fallacy of exempting attacks on private property was quickly evident, but momentum toward amendment built only after two bull mastiffs and two Staffordshire pit bulls fatally mauled Jade Anderson, 13, in March 2013. Anderson was a sleepover guest at a friend’s home.

Attacks on unauthorized intruders are still exempted from prosecution.

The amended Dangerous Dogs Act also makes allowing a dog to attack a guide dog or other trained assistance dog a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.

Impoundments soar

The amendments came as the United Kingdom experienced unprecedented numbers of dog attacks, amid increasing evidence that the Staffordshire exemption had rendered the Dangerous Dogs Act ineffective.

David Barrett,  home affairs correspondent for the Press Association, found through filing Freedom of Information requests that only one of the largest U.K. police forces, the London Metropolitan Police, had impounded fewer dogs under the Dangerous Dogs Act in 2013 than in 2012––which appears to account for London now having the most pit bulls.

Montage by Jenny Rosen, http://tinyurl.com/pgovxzc.

In London, Barrett wrote. “585 dogs were seized under the Dangerous Dogs Act in 2013 and 95 were destroyed. This compared with 777 dangerous dogs seized and 103 destroyed in 2012.”

By contrast, Barrett learned, “The country’s second largest force, West Midlands Police, revealed the number of dogs seized under the Dangerous Dogs Act had risen by 50% compared with 2011, while the numbers of dogs killed for dangerous behavior increased by 24%. “

Lancashire, Avon and Somerset, Surrey, South Wales,  North Wales, Warwickshire,  Cleveland and Gwent also reported increases in the numbers of dangerous dogs seized in 2013.

The BBC “Week In Week Out” news team meanwhile found that dog attacks in Wales had increased by 81% since 2000, and that 91% of the victims were age 14 or younger.

 Staffordshire exemption

As well as banning pit bulls, the Dangerous Dogs Act banned pit bulls and the Fila Brasileiro and Dogo Argentino crosses of pit bull with mastiff. Also banned was the Japanese tosa, a fighting breed resembling a pit bull.

There were no dog attack fatalities in the U.K. from 1991 to 1997,  but in 1997 a coalition of Staffordshire breeders and humane organizations prevailed upon Parliament to exempt Staffordshires from the Dangerous Dogs Act definition of a pit bull.

“The intention of the Dangerous Dogs Act was to eliminate breeds like pit bulls in this country,” then-home secretary Kenneth Lord Baker recalled in a 2010 interview with The Daily Telegraph. “For the first five years it worked very well, but as soon as the Government gave in to animal charities, the whole thing was doomed.”

John P. Colby often posed his “Staffordshire” pit bulls with children.

John P. Colby

Exempting Staffordshires allowed unrestrained proliferation of the most common type of pit bull, and the first to be pedigreed.

The “Staffordshire” name originated with dogfighter John P. Colby,  of  Newburyport, Massachusetts,  who produced his first litter of fighting dogs in 1889.

The Boston Globe on December 29, 1906 reported that police shot one of his dogs,  who mauled a boy while a girl escaped.   On February 2,  1909 the Globe described how one of Colby’s dogs killed Colby’s two-year-old nephew,  Bert Colby Leadbetter.

Unable to secure an American Kennel Club pedigree for his pit bulls under names that the AKC associated with dogfighting,  Colby chartered the the Staffordshire Club of America and began marketing his dogs as Staffordshires.

The AKC then accepted the Colby dogs as a pedigreed line.  As the standard for the Staffordshire breed, the AKC chose the fighting dog known as Colby’s Primo.

Colby’s wife Florence continued the Colby breeding program after her husband’s death in 1941.  She also served as president of the Staffordshire Club of America.  Two of Colby’s sons helped to popularize pit bulls under the Staffordshire name:  .Joseph Colby,  author of American Pit Bull Terrier (1936),   and Louis Colby,  co-author with Diane Jessup of Colby’s Book of the American Pit Bull Terrier.  Both books make explicitly clear that a Staffordshire is a pit bull––and Colby continued to fight dogs to the end of his life.

U.S. & British data compared

At least 24 Staffordshires killed or disfigured people in the U.K. during the nine months preceding passage of the 2014 Dangerous Dogs Act amendments.  The U.K. has about a fifth of the human population of the U.S., and about 75% as many dogs per capita (one dog per six people, to one dog per 4.5 people in the U.S.).  Twenty-four fatal & disfiguring attacks in the U.K. are therefore proportionally equivalent to 120 in the U.S., or 160 projected over a year’s time.

Montage by Jenny Rosen, http://tinyurl.com/pgovxzc.

To put that into perspective, the total number of fatal and disfiguring attacks by all types of pit bull in the U.S. combined, Staffordshires included, came to just 103 in the eleven-year 1982-1992 time frame. The annual total reached 100 for the first time in 2003 (128), topped 100 twice more in the next three years, and has now risen for seven consecutive years, from 74 in 2007 to 604 in 2014.

Name usage compared

Surveying reports of 1,880 cruelty and neglect cases,  dog attack cases,  and dogfighting cases in October 2013,  ANIMALS 24-7 found the same dogs described as both Staffordshires and pit bulls in 1,506 cases, or 80%.

In 422 dogfighting cases involving Staffordshires,  the same dogs were described as pit bulls in 415 cases: 98%.

In 1,223 attacks involving Staffordshires,  the same dogs were identified as pit bulls in 1,017 cases: 83%.

(For a comprehensive comparative examination of breed standards for pit bulls and Staffordshires, see http://thecaninegamechanger.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-name-change-game-staffordshire.html, by Jenny Rosen. See also http://www.animals24-7.org/2015/05/16/dog-bite-prevention-weak-2015/;  http://www.animals24-7.org/2015/05/06/links-to-32-reasons-why-breed-specific-legislation-needs-to-be-enforced-and-reinforced/);  and “The science of how behavior is inherited in aggressive dogs,”  by Alexandra Semyonova,  http://wp.me/p4pKmM-g5.)

Please donate to support our work: http://www.animals24-7.org/donate/

Indian street dog. (Mission Rabies photo)

         BANGALORE, India––Taking a unique approach to dog bite prevention, the Bangalore municipal government on June 21, 2015 announced that it will begin compensating the victims of bites by street dogs at the rate of 2,000 rupees per puncture wound:   about $31.50 in U.S. dollars.

The compensation scale is to increase with the severity of the injuries suffered, peaking at $787 for the death of a child and just over $1,500 for the death of an adult––about the average per capita income for Karnataka state, including Bangalore and the surrounding rural area.

Dog bite victims have sometimes been compensated by the municipal government in the past, but inconsistently.

Mission Rabies, founded by Luke Gamble (above) has led a national drive to eradicate rabies from India since September 2013. (Mission Rabies photo)

Cost to society

The payments under the new scheme are so low, and will involve so much bureaucracy to collect,   that they are not expected to attract a great many bogus claims.  The scheme will also require victims to aver that they were bitten by street dogs,  not dogs for whom someone was responsible as owner or keeper.

But the compensation scheme advanced by the Bangalore municipal government, officially called the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, will for the first time establish a cost to society from dangerous dog behavior, apart from the costs of administering free post-exposure rabies vaccination to victims who seek it, and of providing palliative care to rabies victims.

As rabies has rapidly receded as a public health threat in India, an ever-lower percentage of dog bite victims are believed to be seeking post-exposure vaccination. At the same time, the numbers of owned pet dogs have increased in recent years to 40%-plus of the total dog population. Many more dogs are fed by particular households who do not claim further responsibility for the dogs’ behavior and well-being, so do not get the dogs sterilized and vaccinated.

(Mission Rabies photo)

Pet & fed dogs

Pet dogs and other fed dogs demonstrating territorial behavior are believed to be responsible for the majority of bites within the Bangalore municipal area. The dog bite compensation scheme may produce hard data to affirm this belief, leading to stronger regulation of dog-feeding and pet keeping.

It may also produce stronger political support for the federally subsidized Animal Birth Control programs operated by the municipality and local animal charities––if the proponents of those programs are able to demonstrate that sterilization works to reduce the cost of dog bites to society­­––or may increase opposition to the ABC programs if the perception grows that they are merely putting dangerous dogs back on the streets.

The Bangalore municipal government estimates that about 500,000 dogs are at large in the city, among more than 4.1 million people, inflicting an average of about 15,000 reported bites per year.

Mission Rabies International Director Kate Shervell, VMD. (Mission Rabies photo)

Rabies threat recedes

The bite compensation scheme was produced by a seven-member committee in response to a ruling from the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court in the case of a boy who was attacked by six stray dogs in front of his house on July 6, 2010.

Among the committee members was M.K. Sudharshan, of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Public Health and Centre for Disease Control, who directed the 2003 World Health Organization-sponsored National Multicentric Rabies Survey. This survey found that contrary to commonly made claims that India has upward of 20,000 human rabies deaths per year, human rabies deaths appeared to be “endemic and stable” at 235 per year, based on data collected from government hospital isolation units.

Following up with annual surveys, the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence has subsequently found 274, 361, 221, 244, 260, 162, 223, 212, and 138 human deaths, for a national total of 2,330,  with an average of 233,  median of 229, with four of the five lowest annual counts coming in the most recent four years from which data is available.

High Court allowed dogs to be killed

The Karnataka High Court ruling, issued on December 7,  2012, held that dogs who “are a menace or cause nuisance,  irrespective of whether there is evidence of them having mauled or bitten children or adults, could be exterminated.”

Problem dogs may be killed “even if they are vaccinated,  sterilized and free from diseases,”  summarized The Hindu.

(Mission Rabies photo)

But the ruling stipulated that “dogs cannot be culled en masse,”  the Times of India added.  Endorsing the intent of the national Animal Birth Control program,  the court “asked the Bangalore municipal corporation to verify the activities of nonprofit organizations involved in sterilization and vaccination of stray dogs,”  and directed the Bangalore city government “to ensure clearance of garbage to keep stray dogs in check.”

The court prescribed that problem dogs should be killed “in a lethal chamber,”  The Hindu said,  “as prescribed by the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 and the Animal Birth Control Rules 2001.”  A “lethal chamber,”  in the animal control terminology of 1960,  was either a gas chamber or a decompression chamber.”

Neither killing method is now commonly used in India,  and decompression is not known to be used at all.  The ABC Rules 2001 allow the use of lethal injections.

Limited role of animal welfare orgs

“A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen and Justice B.V. Nagarathna delivered the verdict while disposing of a batch of public interest litigation petitions––some complaining about stray menace and seeking culling of such dogs,  and others seeking protection against their killing,”  The Hindu added.  “The Bench made clear that animal welfare organizations have no role to play in the decision with regard to culling of such dogs,  except to ensure that they are destroyed in a humane manner.”

Compassion Unlimited Plus Action shelter, Bangalore. (Eileen Weintraub photo)

The Karnataka High Court ruling, though focused on the July 2010 case, came days after dogs severely mauled a five-year-old girl and a 23-year-old housewife,  in separate incidents in Bangalore suburbs.

The four major Bangalore ABC programs had reportedly reduced dog bites from about 32,000 in 2003-2004 to 19,000 in 2010-2011,  and cut human rabies fatalities from 20 in 2002 to just one in 2010,  but failed to reduce fatal and disfiguring attacks by non-rabid dogs.

Pit bull proliferation

Non-rabid dog attacks appear to have increased following pit bull proliferation,  documented by Times of India writer Ameen Khan in February 2010,  but suspected by humane investigators since January 2007,  when the first of three unwitnessed fatal attacks inflicting wounds on children characteristic of pit bulls occurred.

(Mission Rabies photo)

In mid-2011, fearing that two fatal dog attacks on children in the Bangalore suburbs might again provoke massacres of dogs and disruptions of the city ABC program,  as occurred in 2007,  Bangalore humane societies,  the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations, and Bangalore animal control chief Parvez Ahmed Piran closed ranks in to amplify denials–against the weight of eyewitness and forensic evidence–that the fatalities were in truth inflicted by dogs.

Media notice of a fatal dog attack the day before was blamed for the July 3,  2011 death of a 10-year-old girl named Manjamma, who ran in front of a concrete mixer while trying to escape from a dog.

ABC providers blamed

Unlike in 2007,  dog massacres by frenzied mobs did not follow the 2011 fatalities,  but reports circulated about mysterious vans picking up dogs,  supposedly for vaccination and sterilization, who were never seen again.  Private contractors hired by landlords or local residents associations to impersonate ABC personnel were suspected.

Dog being vaccinated.
(Mission Rabies photo)

Though overt dog massacres were averted,  the alliance of nonprofit ABC providers,  FIAPO,  and Piran appeared to cost the humane community some credibility with politicians and media,  not least because Piran blamed animal advocates–who were his erstwhile allies–for the failure of ABC to eliminate dog attacks..

“Whenever our dog catching vehicles approach an area from where complaints have come in,  animal activists protest and force us to leave,”  alleged Piran to Yacoob Mohammed of the Bangalore Mid-Day.

“Poor are greedy”

Asked about his alleged indifference toward dog attacks on the children of poor families,  Piran responded to Sheetal Sukhija of Mid-Day,  “Poor families are greedy and the compensation [then sometimes paid to families of attack victims] motivates them.  They are up to some mischief,”  Piran asserted,  “and in most of the dog mauling cases, the dog attack is not the reason for the death of the child.  So either the parents are not responsible enough to take care of their infants,  or they are plain greedy for compensation money.”

(Mission Rabies photo)

Sukhija interviewed Piran after a dog reportedly bit five people and dragged a three-year-old down a street in the Baggalagunte district of Bangalore on August 10, 2011.  Bystanders rescued the child by killing the dog,

The first of the 2011 fatalities occurred on January 12, near the Bangalore International Airport road.  Sukhdeep,  50,  and his wife Kyheye,  37,  had gone to work at a brick kiln,  leaving their six daughters and 18-month-old son Prashanto asleep on the floor of a nearby hut.  Kyheye chased away several dogs kept by foreman Gonti Yadav Chandrasen before leaving the hut at about 4:30 a.m. Prashanto may have tried to follow her.  His sister Neera woke, saw dogs dismembering him about 80 feet away,  and screamed for help at about 5:00 a.m. Gonti Yadav Chandrasen was reportedly charged with illegally possessing dangerous dogs.

“Dogs didn’t do it”

Though the attack was witnessed,  Piran asserted that Prashanto was not the victim of a dog attack because,  Piran claimed, dogs do not dismember their victims.  But,  according to The Hindu, Piran also argued at a January 14 meeting with Bangalore senior counselors that the Indian national law establishing ABC programs should be amended to allow dogs to be culled.

Participants in CUPA humane education program. (CUPA photo)

The second 2011 fatality came on the morning of July 2, near a government hospital in the Bangalore suburb of Yelahanka. Sanjay Prasad,  an itinerant worker,  had taken his wife to the hospital to give birth.  Afterward Prasad and their son Sandeep,  30 months old,  slept in the basement of one of the hospital buildings.

Like Prashanto,  Sandeep Prasad apparently wandered outside.  His remains,  dismembered and partially degloved,  with skin and flesh peeled from his skull,  were found several hundred yards away at about 5:30 a.m.,  between the hospital and a refuse heap frequented by dogs.

Multiple bleeding wounds demonstrated that the injuries occurred before Sandeep’s heart stopped pumping blood–in other words,  before his death.

Resembled earlier case

The injuries to both Prashanto and Sandeep Prasad paralleled those suffered by Sridevi,  age 8,  the daughter of itinerant workers,  who was killed by dogs at about 7 a.m. on January 5,  2007 in a Bangalore suburb called the Chandra Layout.

Within hours of Sandeep Prasad’s death,  Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations listserv participants amplified and perhaps originated rumors that the boy was the victim of child abuse,  a crime of vengeance against his father (though police found no evidence that Sanjay Prasad had any enemies), tantric sacrifice,  or perhaps a traffic accident,  after which the remains were scavenged by dogs.  Similar rumors were posted,  but less aggressively circulated,  after the deaths of Sridevi and Prashanto.

Chinny Krishna & Amala Akkineni, of the Blue Cross of India and Blue Cross of Hyderabad.

Denying,  amid ensuing discussion,  that feeding free-roaming dogs can incline them to rush up to pedestrians and bicyclists in a dangerous manner,  Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations attorney Anjali Sharma on July 7 wrote,  “I insist on feeding street dogs.  Only around four of the 19 I feed, apart from the seven that I share a home with,  know that they’re supposed to chase cyclists because they’re being fed by me.”

Piran again contended to media that dogs do not dismember their victims.

As the anti-ABC organization Stray Dog Free Bangalore took the opportunity to blame the fatal attacks and other biting incidents on failure to cull dogs,  longtime Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna and Blue Cross of Hyderabad founder Amala Akkineni flew to Bangalore to try to rebuild the credibility of the humane community.

Three different newspapers reported that Krishna and Akkineni cited Singapore as an example of a city with few dog attacks which does not kill dogs,  though Singapore currently kills about 2,000 dogs per year.  Both Krishna and Akkineni later denied mentioning Singapore.

Forensic claims

Rejecting the official postmortem,  which found no reason to suspect Sandeep Prasad was killed in any manner other than dog attack,  Piran “sent images of the incident to his friends and to forensic odentologist Ken Cohrn for a second opinion,”  reported the Times of India.

Cohrn,  a Florida dentist whose specialty is identifying the dead by examining their teeth,  enlisted the help of James Crosby.  Crosby has a consulting business called CanineAggression.org,  which has often advanced alibis for pit bull terriers who were involved in disfiguring or fatal attacks.

         Cohrn admitted that dogs had mauled Sandeep Prasad,  but claimed he was dead first.  Cohrn and Crosby also asserted that the degloving head injuries Sandeep Prasad suffered did not resemble those inflicted by dogs–but Crosby had seen similar injuries in at least one other case he spoke to media about,   suffered by fatal pit bull attack victim Mary Diana Bernal,  63,  of Deltona,  Florida,  in June 2007.  That attack was witnessed by three people,  another of whom was seriously injured in trying to rescue Bernal.

The Bangalore nonprofit ABC providers Compassion Unlimited Plus Action and Animal Rights Fund posted links to the denials by Piran,  Cohrn,  and Crosby that Sandeep Prasad was killed by dogs.

Dog attack injuries resembling those suffered by Sridevi,  Prashanto,  and Sandeep Prasad are described and illustrated in at least three medical journal articles:  “Pit bull attack:  case report and literature review,”  Texas Medicine,  November 1988;  “Head and neck dog bites in children,”  Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (2009);  and “Mortality,  Mauling,  and Maiming by Vicious Dogs,”  Annals of Surgery,  April 2011.

The Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations blocked postings of the forensic information to membership.  Founding FIAPO listserv moderator Erika Abrams was replaced by a three-member committee.  FIAPO also introduced a listserv rule against postings discussing any matters “which are before courts or are being adjudicated before any authority.”

Pit bulls in Bangalore

Dismemberment and degloving injuries are characteristic of attacks by pit bulls and other large dogs such as mastiffs and Rottweilers,  but are rarely seen in India,  where the typical street dog is less than half the weight of an average pit bull,  which is in turn smaller than a Rottweiler or mastiff.

But Times of India writer Ameen Khan in February 2010 warned that pit bulls are proliferating in the Bangalore suburbs.

“There are breeds and breeds of the woofy variety,”  Khan wrote,  “but for those who love life on the wild side,  it’s the pit bull terrier.  There is a growing fancy for this ferocious dog among Bangalore’s dog lovers.  Mohammed Ezra from Ezra Kennels told the Times of India that buyers of this breed keep them on their farms,  and in big bungalows on the outskirts of the city.  According to Ezra,  Labradors are the highest in demand in Bangalore,  but pit bulls are also moving fast.”

Piran,  however,  told Khan that pit bulls should not be seen as a risk.  “All dogs,  dangerous or not,  can be taken for walks in crowded public areas if they are on a leash,”  Piran said.

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“Angel” has repeatedly injured other dogs.  (Beth Clifton photo)

Miami,  Albuquerque,  and Charleston incidents illustrate the cost of pro-pit mendacity

by Merritt Clifton

Pit bull advocates will on October 24, 2015 celebrate the ninth annual “Pit Bull Awareness Day,” founded in 2007 by Jody Preis of the Tennessee pit bull rescue Bless the Bullies, and subsequently expanded by many pit bull advocates into an entire “Pit Bull Awareness Month.”

Well-informed pit bull awareness is long overdue, especially within the animal care-and-control, sheltering, and advocacy communities –– and that would take the pit bull issue in precisely the opposite direction from the mendacity, hypocrisy, and blithe indifference to the rights and well-being of other animals and humans demonstrated since the mid-1980s by organized pit bull advocacy.

Michael Vick, left, and HSUS president Wayne Pacelle, right. (From HSUS video.)

De facto “Michael Vick Day”

“Pit Bull Awareness Day” was among the increasingly aggressive escalations of pit bull advocacy that followed the April 2007 arrest of football player Michael Vick on dogfighting-related charges, for which Vick was later convicted and served prison time.

Amid the burst of publicity accompanying the Vick arrest and trial, the Best Friends Animal Society and the American SPCA staged a media relations coup by “rescuing” 48 pit bulls impounded from the Vick property, whom the Humane Society of the U.S. had recommended for euthanasia.  While some were eventually rehomed,  at cost of about $20,000 apiece and years of rehabilitative effort,  about a dozen remain in Best Friends ‘ custody,  now in canine old age,  and nearly half are unaccounted for.

Asheville Humane Society pit bull promotion. A pit bull recently rehomed by the Asheville Humane Society after passing the ASPCA’s “Safer” test on July 7, 2015 fatally mauled six-year-old Joshua Philip Strother.

Catching intense flak orchestrated by pit bull advocates, HSUS did a quick turnabout on the Vick dogs,  embraced Vick himself as an occasional spokesperson against dogfighting,  and joined Best Friends and the ASPCA in promoting pit bull adoptions and opposing legislation meant to discourage pit bull proliferation, as did the American Humane Association.

Shelter dog mayhem

In so doing, HSUS, Best Friends, the ASPCA, and the AHA embraced the “Pit Bull Awareness Day” pit-pushing message –– and abdicated their self-professed roles as guardians of the well-being of all animals.

Part of the price of that abdication has been that at least 41 dogs rehomed by U.S. shelters and rescues have participated in killing 38 people since 2010. The killer dogs have included 30 pit bulls, seven bull mastiffs, two Rottweilers, a Lab who may have been part pit bull, and a husky.

No shelter dogs killed anyone from 1858 to 1988, and only five shelter dogs killed anyone from 1988 through 2009,  a time frame within which more dogs were rehomed than 2010-present.  (Among the 1988-2009 killer dogs were two wolf hybrids, a pit bull, a bull mastiff, and a Doberman.)

Mauled by a pit bull rehomed by Out of the Pits, Frankie Flora and his mother visited the New York state legislature in 2012, in support of a bill which would have helped dog attack victims to recover damages. (Photo by Anthony R. Mancini.)

Honoring high-risk behavior

In the case of the AHA, the oldest national child protection organization as well as the oldest national animal protection organization, founded in 1877, the abdication of responsibility for both human and animal safety was especially blatant. In 2009 the AHA even honored as a “Be Kind to Animals Kid” a six-year-old volunteer for Out of the Pits, an upstate New York pit bull rescue which had promoted pit bull adoptions and raised funds with pit bull kissing booths, in blatant violation of the AHA’s own guidelines for avoiding dog attacks.

Only days before the “Be Kind to Animals Kid” award was announced, a pit bull rehomed by Out of the Pits severely mauled a five-year-old.

33 years of logging the blood & guts

As it happens, the first “Pit Bull Awareness Day” was close enough to the 25th anniversary of my beginning to log fatal and disfiguring dog attacks by breed, in September 1982, that ANIMALS 24-7 can present detailed before-and-after data.  (See also 32 years of logging fatal & disfiguring dog attacks and 773% rise in fatal & disfiguring pit bull attacks from 2007 to 2014.)

Critical to note is that this is not quite before-and-after pit bull advocacy data, but we have that too:

In the 30 years 1931-1960, dogs killed just fifteen people in the U.S., of whom nine were killed by pit bulls, two by Dobermans, and four by unidentified mutts. This was fewer deaths in 30 years, and fewer by pit bulls, than in any single year since 2004, when pit bulls killed “only” eight people, down from 13 in 2003.

Andrew Rowan

Organized pit bull advocacy appears to date from July 17, 1986, when after 25 years of gradually increasing pit bull abundance and attacks, Andrew Rowan, as founding director of the Center for Animals & Public Policy at Tufts University, convened a workshop entitled “Dog Aggression & the Pit Bull Terrier.”

Rowan followed up on September 19, 1987 with a conference entitled “The Pit Bull Terrier Revisited: How To Break The Vicious Circle.” Rowan has since 2002 quietly furthered pit bull advocacy as an HSUS senior vice president.

Momentum

But organized pit bull advocacy had barely begun to gain momentum by 1993, when my first decade of data-gathering showed that of 158 dogs participating in fatal and disfiguring dog attacks in the U.S. and Canada, 105 were pit bulls. They had killed 18 people, disfiguring 38.

In the 14 years from 1993 to the first “Pit Bull Awareness Day,” in 2007, 1,159 pit bulls and close pit mixes attacked 508 children and 380 adults in U.S. and Canadian incidents, in which 103 people were killed and 644 people were disfigured––a fivefold increase in fatalities, a tenfold increase in attacks, and a more than twentyfold increase in disfigurements.

Of all the dogs involved in U.S. and Canadian fatal and disfiguring dog attacks, pit bulls constituted 53%, though barely 3% of the total dog population, and inflicted 48% of the fatal and disfiguring injuries.

Just the start

But that was just the beginning.

In the not quite nine years since “Pit Bull Awareness Day” debuted, 2,793 pit bulls and close pit mixes have attacked 1,067 children and 1,189 adults in incidents in which 208 people were killed and 1,891 people were disfigured.

In other words, the rates at which pit bulls kill and injure humans have approximately tripled after the previous exponential increases.

Pit bulls, now 5% of the U.S. and Canadian dog population, have since “Pit Bull Awareness Day” debuted accounted for 80% of the dogs involved in fatal and disfiguring attacks, resulting in two-thirds of the deaths and disfigurements.

That 80% of the dogs involved have been pit bulls, while they killed and maimed “only” two-thirds of the human victims signifies the propensity of pit bulls to engage in pack attacks, in which two or more dogs dismember a single victim.

Pit bull attacks smaller dog. (YouTube)

Attacks on other animals

The human toll is only the smallest portion of pit bull mayhem. Analysis of dog attacks on other animals in 2013-2014 indicates that of about 50,000 such attacks per year, pit bulls account for more than 34,000, killing more than 15,000 other dogs, 5,400 hooved animals, and 5,000 cats.

(See How many other animals did pit bulls kill in 2014?)

The numbers appear likely to be higher in 2015.

Truth is the first casualty of pit bull advocacy

Wrote Samuel Johnson circa 1758, “Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth,  by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.”

Among the most grievous casualties of engaging in pit bull advocacy, for animal care-and-control agencies, animal rescuers, and the humane movement as a whole, is a rapidly accelerating and thoroughly deserved loss of credibility, in consequence of pit bull promotional tactics including:

• Lying to the public about the breed identities and behavioral histories of shelter dogs,  including those who go on to wreak mayhem;

• Pretending to the public that pit bulls cannot be accurately identified, contrary to both numerous appellate court verdicts and research funded by the ASPCA, which found that shelter workers accurately identify pit bulls 96% of the time;

• Minimizing pit bull mayhem by pointing out that all dogs bite, overlooking that more than half of all recognized breeds have never been involved in a human fatality or disfigurement, and that only Rottweilers have been involved in even 10% as many human fatalities and disfigurements as pit bulls;

• Pretending that there is no genetic component to pit bull behavior (see also The science of how behavior is inherited in aggressive dogs,  by Alexandra Semyonova);

• Pretending that temperament tests such as the ASPCA “Safer” test reliably protect pit bull adopters,  their families,  their neighbors,  and their other pets,  when dog after dog who has passed “Safer” and similar tests goes on to kill and maim (see also No one held to account for Asheville Humane Society pit bull adoption fatality and Pit bull from Asheville Humane Society kills six-year-old.);

• Contending that breed-specific legislation “doesn’t work,” when in fact no city that has actually enforced a pit bull ban to the letter has had a pit bull fatality.

The 2015 data is complete only to October 1, 2015.

Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade, on the other hand, whose 1989 pit bull ban was in August 2012 affirmed by 63% of the county electorate, has pretended that American bulldogs are not pit bulls, though they have been recognized as such by dogfighters for at least 120 years.

Failing to impound pit bulls reported by alarmed neighbors,  on the pretext that they are “American bulldogs,” Miami-Dade had had two pit bull fatalities in two years: Javon Dade Jr., age 4 when killed by his father’s pit bulls in August 2014, and Carmen Reigada, 91 when killed by a household pack including a pit bull, a Rhodesian ridgeback, and a Labrador mix.

Javon Dade Jr. (Facebook photo)

(See also Father sentenced in case of 4-year-old killed by pit bulls because Miami-Dade law was not enforced and Four-year-old killed by pit bulls because Miami-Dade law was not enforced.)

Albuquerque

The depths of pit bull advocacy mendacity within the animal sheltering community were exposed yet again on October 1, 2015 when Albuquerque chief administrative officer Rob Perry announced that six-year Animal Welfare Department director Barbara Bruin would be replaced effective November 1, 2015.

Summarized Albuquerque Journal investigative reporter Colleen Heild, “Three separate city investigations released over the past four months found the Animal Welfare Department adopted out or sent to other animal rescue groups aggressive or problematic dogs, despite the dogs’ histories of having bitten people or hurt or killed pets. The Albuquerque Office of Inspector General concluded that Bruin and the department violated two city ordinances in adopting out potentially dangerous dogs and, in Bruin’s case, failing to fully provide information about such dogs to Office of Inspector General investigators.

(See also Albuquerque city shelter released dangerous dogs,  Albuquerque pound broke city’s own dangerous dog law,  and Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department #2 and behaviorist allege neglect of public safety in pushing pit bull adoptions.)

Barbara Bruin with “alien.” (Facebook)

Name games

“The Office of Inspector General also found,” Heild wrote, “that the department, in an apparent effort to get shelter pit bulls adopted, on at least eight occasions changed the name of the breed listed to other types of dogs, such as boxer, Labrador retriever, Australian cattle dog, Siberian husky and chow chow.

“A separate $23,000 private investigation commissioned by Perry quoted numerous department employees as faulting Bruin for overruling professional staff decisions on which dogs to euthanize, sparing the life of some dogs that were so aggressive or problematic they should have been euthanized.”

Albuquerque mayor Richard Berry on September 28, 2015 announced that Bruin would no longer be involved in making euthanasia decisions.

Bugs Bunny, the most famous wabbit in the history of Albuquerque, & Spike, from “A Hare Grows In Manhattan” (1947).

ASPCA & wrong turn at Albuquerque

But that same day, Heild reported, “Bruin ordered a troubled dog removed from the euthanasia list,” to be enrolled in a $206,000 behavioral rehabilitation program funded by the ASPCA.

“The next day,” Heild continued, “Bruin was walking the same American pit bull terrier at the city’s West Side shelter when it lunged at an employee,” shelter dog handler Rocky Sanchez, 29, “and bit him.”

Bruin told a Journal reporter that the dog gave the animal handler “a mouthy puppy bite. I didn’t even know he’d been bitten and found out later,” Bruin said.

But the difference between a “mouthy puppy bite” and a disfiguring mauling, when pit bulls and other bully breeds are involved, is often just a split second of reaction time on the part of the victim.

Charleston quickstep

A comparably questionable incident occurred on September 19, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, when a foster dog described by Charleston Animal Society executive director Joe Elmore as a “boxer/Rottweiler mix” lunged without provocation at a three-year-old, bit him, and then,  while police were investigating, lunged at and bit a second three-year-old, who required three surgeries to repair extensive shoulder damage.

Said Elmore,  “It really astounds us because this dog has no history of aggression toward people or animals, and has gone through his assessments really well and veterinarians’ assessments well.”

All of this would be a bit more persuasive if Elmore and the Charleston Animal Society did not have a highly conspicuous history of promoting pit bulls, including in partnership with the Citadel Bulldogs football team.

At least 101 of the 231 dogs in the society’s kennels as of July 28, 2015 were pit bulls, Elmore admitted to Christina Elmore and Melissa Boughton of the Charleston Post & Courier.

No paranoid conspiracy theory needed

A paranoid conspiracy theorist might imagine that nearly 30 years ago a cabal of dogfighters and pit bull breeders devised a plot to keep themselves in business by turning the U.S. animal care-&-control and humane communities into the front line of pit bull advocacy.

Honored on Pit Bull Awareness Day 2012, Trooper was later euthanized due to dangerous behavior.  (Beth Clifton photo)

The first step was to ensure that the pit bull sterilization rate, now circa 20%, would lag far below the sterilization rate of 70%-plus for all other breeds combined, so as to flood shelters with pit bulls even as other breeds vanished from the kennels.

Shelter personnel and volunteers would themselves carry out the second step, aggressively promoting pit bulls to avoid having to kill them.

All the dogfighters and pit bull breeders would have to do then is ensure that the animal care-&-control and human communities would respond like pioneering psychologist Ivan Pavlov’s dogs to any suggestion of “breed-specific legislation,”  so furiously as to ensure that few would ever do the obvious and seek laws to mandate pit bull sterilization,  so as to end the pit bull surplus.

Winston Churchill and his bulldog.

Malice vs. stupidity

Ended with the surplus of pit bulls would be the pressure to rehome dangerous dogs who never should have been born.

Unfortunately the plot that could be imagined by a paranoid conspiracy theorist is in truth what actually happened,  except that no cabal was needed,  and no actual conspiracy.

As Winston Churchill put it,  while keeping a fighting bulldog himself,  “Never attribute to malice what may be attributed to stupidity.”

The time has come,  indeed is long overdue,  for authentic animal advocates and victim advocates to remediate stupidity on behalf of pit bulls by promoting accurate awareness of pit bull behavior and the consequences of pit bull advocacy.

This must be done not just for a day, not just for a month, but for as long as it takes to restore humane values to the humane movement, in place of the corrupted values introduced by dogfighters and pit bull breeders,  now ubiquitously infecting and debilitating the very institutions which ought to have been the first line of defense for both animal and human pit bull attack victims.

(See also Links to 38 special reasons why breed-specific legislation needs to be enforced and reinforced.)

Please donate to support our work:http://www.animals24-7.org/donate/ 

All donations received during the remainder of 2015 will be matched by an anonymous benefactor,  up to a total of $101,000.

Marc R. Jurnove with poodle.

Last case was Angel’s Gate

         Marc R. Jurnove,  63,  died on July 3,  2013 in McLeansville,  North Carolina.   A U.S. Coast Guard veteran who had ridden his own horse since age seven,  Jurnove went on to spend 17 years as a mounted park ranger in New York City,  rising to the rank of lieutenant,  then served for 14 years as a volunteer cruelty investigator for the American SPCA.

Jurnove also did extensive investigative work as a volunteer for many other national,  regional,  and local humane organizations.

Long Island Game Farm

The name  Jurnove became a common legal reference as result of a federal Animal Welfare Act case in which he was lead plaintiff,  supported by the Animal Legal Defense Fund,  concerning the care of a long deceased chimpanzee at the Long Island Game Farm.

The Animal Welfare Act as it now exists has evolved in bits and pieces from the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966.

The first major amendments,  adopted in 1970,  taking effect in 1971,  extended the coverage of the Act to all “warm-blooded animals…used or intended for use,  for research,  testing,  experimentation or exhibition purposes.”

That language remained intact in the 1976 and 1985 amendments that established the Animal Welfare Act in present form.

However,  Congress left writing the Animal Welfare Act enforcement regulations to the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.  USDA-APHIS then evaded responsibility for handling the increased workload the 1975 and 1985 amendments would have brought by excluding rats,  mice,  and birds from the regulatory definition of  warm-blooded animals.

Won standing to sue

A series of lawsuits against the exclusion followed,  but the USDA and the research industry repeatedly won rulings that animal welfare groups and concerned individuals had no legal standing to bring their cases.

Jurnove and ALDF overturned this obstacle in a September 1998 U.S. Court of Appeals verdict,  later upheld without comment by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Marc R. Jurnove with black Lab.

However,  Jurnove noted in 2002,  “The USDA is still not required to enforce any regulation under the Animal Welfare Act.  The court has stated [in a lawsuit brought by the American Anti-Vivisection Society,  based on the Jurnove verdict] that due to how Congress wrote the Animal Welfare Act,  the USDA is not required to enforce their own standards,  and failure to enforce the standards cannot be challenged.

“The wording cited,”  Jurnove continued,  “was Title 7,  Chapter 54,  Section 2146,  Administration and enforcement by Secretary,  (a) Investigations and inspections,  which states that “The Secretary shall make such investigations or inspections as [he deems necessary] to determine whether any dealer,  exhibitor,  intermediate handler, carrier,  research facility,  or operator of an auction sale subject to section 2142 of this title,  has violated or is violating any provision of this chapter or any regulation or standard issued thereunder.”

“The phrase ‘as he deems necessary’ apparently makes rigorous enforcement optional,”  Jurnove concluded.

Scotch Plains Zoo operator Harold Kafka with tiger shortly before the zoo was closed.

Scotch Plains Zoo

Founder of the International Society for the Protection of Exotic Animal Kind and Livestock,  Inc. (I-SPEAK),  located in Plainview,  New Jersey,  Jurnove was also involved in closing the Scotch Plains Zoo in 1997,  which had been repeatedly cited for numerous Animal Welfare Act violations,  and in many other prominent cases,  the last of which led to the closure of the former Angel’s Gate animal hospice in Delhi,  New York in 2012,  followed by the legal dissolution of the Angel’s Gate charity on October 2,  2015 .

(See http://www.animals24-7.org/2015/10/08/court-finally-puts-angels-gate-out-of-its-misery/.)

Jurnove and his wife Phyllis relocated to North Carolina,  recalled longtime family friend Kimberly Serino,  after they were burned out of their home in a New Year’s Day 2010 housefire.  During his last years Jurnove was especially active in investigating and exposing alleged cockfighters with connections in the North Carolina and Kentucky legislatures and state government.

Despite working with dozens of other animal advocacy organizations,  Jurnove after his ASPCA stint avoided formal affiliations with any except I-SPEAK,  out of frustration,  he said,  with the politics of the cause.

“Maybe if all the different organizations were not busy pursuing their own individual agendas,  more could be accomplished,”  he said.

Please donate to support our work:http://www.animals24-7.org/donate/ 

All donations received during the remainder of 2015 will be matched by an anonymous benefactor,  up to a total of $101,000.

Left to right: alleged Ilsan dog farmer Jung Moon-suk, Lola Webber of Humane Society International, and Adam Parascondola of Humane Society International.
(From HSI video.)

Did the dogs come from dog meat farms or from puppy millers, hoarders, & dogfighters?

SEOUL,  South Korea––Has Humane Society International thus far in 2015 bought out three South Korean breeders of dogs for meat,  or several puppy millers breeding primarily for the pet trade,  and/or unwittingly bought a dogfighter’s culls,  and/or just bought some dogs from local hoarders?

Regardless of the source of the dogs,  does the answer really matter?

Humane Society International,  the global subsidiary of the Humane Society of the United States,  has acquired dogs from South Korean facilities three times so far in 2015 and flown them to U.S. shelters for adoption.

“How much on average do you spend per pet per month?” (From InterFaceAsia.com)

Were any bred for meat?

All of the dogs were rescued,  no question about it,  and regardless of source,  most or all would likely otherwise have been sold for slaughter.

But whether any were actually bred and raised as “meat dogs” is unclear.  Moreover,  the reasons why this is unclear,  and the questions now rising about the origin of the dogs rescued by Humane Society International,  are exposing the complexities of the dog trade in South Korea.

Pampered South Korean pet dogs frolic at the nation’s first “dog beach.”

Putting the South Korean dog meat industry out of business is not just a matter of elevating the already high status of South Korean pet dogs,  or of shaming the dwindling numbers of mostly older male dog meat consumers out of the habit.

Also integrally involved are changing the practices of animal control providers,  pet dog breeders,  pet keepers who for whatever reason give up a dog, and law enforcement agencies and courts which have historically tended to pay little attention to animal use and misuse,  even when the mistreatment of animals has been expressly illegal.

Dog meat markets absorb overbreeding

Reality is that the dog meat markets remaining in South Korea tend to fill a role in disposing of surplus dogs which was filled in the U.S. until recent years by the combination of humane societies,  pounds,  and the now ended demand for random-source dogs for laboratory use.

(From HSI video)

Blogged HSUS president Wayne Pacelle on January 9,  2015,  “23 survivors of the Korean dog meat trade arrived in the United States on a cold January day amidst bone-chilling temperatures and a bracing snowstorm, the beneficiaries of the first dog rescue operation of its kind.

“Their story began in Ilsan, north of Seoul,”  wrote Pacelle,  “on one of the thousands of dog farms that supply animals for the dog meat trade in South Korea where 1.2 to 2 million dogs are eaten annually.  South Korea is unusual among those few countries involved in the trade,”  Pacelle explained,  “because of this intentional breeding of dogs to supply demand.  In other nations,  the trade gathers up stray dogs,  and then butchers them.”

Damyang Dog Farm, photographed by Korea Animal Rights Advocates in August 2015.

Half right

This is half right:  South Korea is the only nation (with the possible exception of North Korea) known to now have a significant dog meat farming industry.  China once did,  but the explosively growing popularity of keeping dogs as pets in China has produced abandoned and stray dogs,  and easily stolen dogs,  in numbers sufficient to drive most or all of the commercial dog meat farmers out of business.  Dog breeders in China today breed in hopes of selling puppies to the pet trade,  at prices far higher than are paid for dog meat––but the dog meat trade still exists to buy and dispose of any surplus.

Animal Rescue Beijing shelter under construction in 2013.

Relatively few stray or commercially surplus dogs go to shelters in China.  Over the past 15 years China may lead the world in numbers of new humane societies founded,  private shelters built,  and public pounds opened.  Yet China as recently as 1985 had no humane societies,  no private shelters,  and no pounds.  Despite the explosive growth of animal advocacy and dog and cat rescue facilities in China,  most of the nation is not yet fully served by pounds,  shelters,  and western-style rescue networks.

South Korean dog meat breeders still competitive

South Korean dog meat breeders are still competitive with cast-offs from the pet trade and other dog use industries,  including dogfighting,  which is illegal but far from eradicated.

Another view of the Damyang Dog Farm.
(Korea Animal Rights Advocates)

The Korean cable TV network JTBC on September 9,  2015 reported,  according to a translation by animal advocate April Kim,  that “For the first time ever, the Ministry of Environment is currently in the process of identifying dog farms by each local municipality,  nationwide.  First,  the survey found that there are 719 dog farms breeding more than 100,000 dogs in Gyeongsangbuk-do province.  Four out of ten dog farms were breeding 100 to 500 dogs and there were five places that were breeding over 1,000 dogs.

“Currently the survey is about 5% completed,”  April Kim continued,  “and it is estimated that a whopping two million dogs are being bred in about 17,000 dog farms around the country.”

The estimate is likely to be high,  since data from the single South Korean province believed to be the most deeply involved in producing dogs for consumption is unlikely to project accurately to all nine provinces.  Data from marketplace surveys has suggested much lower totals in recent years,  declining from circa two to three million dogs sold per year circa 1990.

Jindo subsidies

But the existence of a significant federally subsidized Jindo dog breeding industry complicates the picture.  The Jindo breed,  originating from Jindo Island off the Korean coast,  was officially designated the South Korean national dog in 1961.  The Jindo Dog Protection & Promotion Act,  adopted in 1967,  led to formation of an Office of Jindo Dog Breeding,  with an annual budget of $5.6 million in 2009,  Korean News reported in January 2013.

Along with managing a Jindo Dog World Festival Dog Show,  Jindo Dog Theme Park Development Project,  Jindo Dog Breeding & Management Center,  and Jindo Dog Promotion Center,  the Office of Jindo Dog Breeding urges breeders to cull dogs who fail to meet the official Jindo show dog standards.

Even as some Jindo dogs are a major tourist attraction for Jindo island, thousands of others are shipped to the mainland for slaughter.

Visiting Jindo and detailing how haphazardly Jindo dogs are judged for conformation,  Korean News and the Korean Animal Welfare Association found that  “Selling so called substandard dogs to the dog [meat] trader was an open secret on Jindo.  Even though the residents did not openly talk about this,  everyone was admitting it as a fact and they were not particularly feeling guilty about it.  However,”  the investigators noted,  “this is not because residents are immoral but because this has been a common practice for a long time.

“Occasionally we witnessed dogs in the cages of traditional [dog meat] markets who were not that different from the Jindo dogs we saw at the Jindo county,”  the Korean News and the Korean Animal Welfare Association report continued.  “Numerous dogs left behind are used for dog meat soup.”

Korea Animal Rights Advocates found this dog housed at the Damyang Dog Farm with the remains of another dog who had apparently been dead for weeks.

Other sources

Korean News and the Korean Animal Welfare Association also listed three other sources of dogs consumed for meat.

“In July 2007,”  Korean News and the Korean Animal Welfare Association mentioned,  “the former director of a provincial homeless animal shelter confessed that he had been supplying abandoned dogs as dog meat due to demand from government officials.”  The case was reported by the Yonhap News Agency.

“In addition,”  Korean News and the Korean Animal Welfare Association continued,  “KBS Lee Young-Don Consumer Reports captured the scene of so called ‘pet dogs’ [who were identified as having met the Jindo breed standards] being sold for human consumption in traditional markets and auction house,  etc.”

(Nami Kim photo)

Are microchips safe when cooked?

Because of this,  Korean News and the Korean Animal Welfare Association explained,  “In April 2008 during a Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ meeting to discuss the implantation microchip on pets,  an official remarked,”  according to Electronic Newspaper,  “’Given the reality of our food culture that eats dog meat,  we have to verify the safety of microchips in the cooking process.’”

Earlier, in November 2004, Korean News and the Korean Animal Welfare Association recounted,   the Yonhap News Agency exposed how “Australia exported surplus dogs from their dog racing industry to Asian countries.  That most of the dogs exported to Korea were used for dog meat soup is a public knowledge.”

(From HSI rescue video)

“Beagles,  poodles,  Jindos,  Tosas”

After the January rescue of 23 dogs from Ilsan,  Pacelle blogged on March 20,  2015,  “We turned around the fortunes of 57 dogs set to be butchered after a short,  brutish life on a dog meat farm in South Korea,  and shepherded them to the United States,”  to “be treated and cared for at the East Bay SPCA,  Marin Humane Society,  Sacramento SPCA,  and San Francisco SPCA, before being adopted out to loving homes.  Among the group were beagles,  poodles,  Korean Jindos and large Tosas,”  Pacelle described.

While South Korean dog-eaters usually eat adult dogs, puppies are consumed by some. This one was rescued.

That report raised eyebrows among people who have monitored the South Korean dog meat trade for many years,  among them the editor of ANIMALS 24-7.

Fighting dogs

“Non-conforming” farmed Jindos have long been the staples of the dog meat trade.  Beagles and poodles culled by puppy mills may land in the dog meat markets,  along with strayed,  stolen,  or otherwise cast-off pets.  However,  unlike in Vietnam,  where puppies and other small dogs are preferred for meat,  dogs as small as beagles and poodles are rarely purpose-bred for meat in South Korea.

Advertising from South Korean breeder of Tosas and pit bulls.

And Tosas,  also called Japanese mastiffs,  are a fighting dog originally bred in Japan,  considered rare today.  Tosas are not commonly bred as pets,  if ever,  and are rarely kept together in either puppy mill or dog meat farm conditions because of the likelihood that they might injure or kill each other.

Canine influenza

On April 13 and April 29,  2015 Korea Observer reporter James Hyams helped to clear Humane Society International of allegations “circulating in Korea,”  he summarized,  “that some of the 80 ‘meat’ dogs HSI imported to the U.S. this year were euthanized,  that these dogs caused the H3N2 [canine influenza] virus outbreak” that swept through several of the most populated parts of the U.S. soon afterward,  “that HSI paid The Wall Street Journal for positive press,  and that HSI is only rescuing Korean dogs to raise funds.

The canine influenza strains afflicting dogs in the U.S. were found earlier among dogs in South Korea and isolated parts of southern China,  but had never before been seen in North America.

However,  as ANIMALS 24-7 reported in much greater detail on April 17,  2015,  in Canine influenza,  dog meat,  & the rescue connection,  disease investigators found no evidence directly implicating Humane Society International or any of the partner adoption agencies.  All of them were more than 700 miles from Chicago,  where the first H3N2 cases were detected.

Muddier situation on blueberry farm

Hyams found a muddier situation when he followed up on the Humane Society International claim that Ilsan dog farmer Jung Moon-suk had “surrendered all 23 of his dogs in exchange for $2,500 so that he can start a blueberry business on the land where he kept the dogs,”  Hyams summarized of the HSI media releases and web postings announcing the transaction.

Objected Jung,  “I was already running a blueberry farm.  I wasn’t running a dog farm.  I had many dogs simply because I like animals and some of my dogs had puppies.  I told them I would keep some.”

Wrote Hyams,  “The farmer disputed that he was raising dogs for meat,  saying he used to raise dogs to protect his property,  and he would give puppies to neighbors.  HSI spokesperson Lola Webber said Jung told her that he would sell some of the dogs to local restaurants.  When reporters of the Korea Observer visited Jung’s farm,  they found 10 dogs and two cats,  despite the agreement with HSI not to farm dogs.

From Korea Observer video.

Caged & chained

“Two cats and four of these dogs were caged,”  Hyams continued.  “Another three dogs were chained to a pole under an enclosure and the remains of whole raw chickens could be seen around the dogs.  Three more dogs were chained near the blueberry enclosure.  Jung is also raising many chickens,  roosters,  a duck,  bush turkey,  and a goat,  all living under cruel conditions either on a short chain or caged,  most without sanitary food or water.”

Recalled Hyams,  “In January,  Humane Society International said in a press statement that ‘HSI secured an agreement with Jung to stop raising dogs for food and move permanently to growing crops as a more humane way to make a living.”

Dog rescued from the blueberry farm.
(HSI photo, Korea Observer subhead))

Follow-up

Blogged Pacelle of the deal,  on March 20,  2015,  “In January,  we helped one dog meat farmer transition his full property into a blueberry farm and brought all 23 dogs from the farm.”

Details might have been lost in translation.

But,  Hyams added,  “Humane Society International visited Jung’s farm in May 2015 to see how the farmer was doing.”

Said Humane Society International representative Adam Parascondola,  “It is definitely concerning that he would have that number of dogs there.  He had the cats in May in a cage and they were kittens at the time.  Our thought at that time was that when they are old enough he would let them out of the cage.  We have concerns about him having cats in cages.”

ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton enjoys a beer with HSUS senior advisor Bernard Unti at HSUS Expo 2015 in New Orleans.
(Beth Clifton photo)

HSUS response

ANIMALS 24-7 offered Humane Society International representative Webber,  who also heads the Change for Animals Foundation,  several opportunities to elaborate,  but she offered no further information either about the Jung farm or about what HSI might now be doing about it.

Said HSUS senior policy advisor Bernard Unti,  on October 11,  2015,  “The farmer disputes that the Korea Observer came to his farm,  raising the possibility that its journalist(s) visited a neighboring farm,”  even though Hyams quoted Jung by name and published photographs appearing to positively identify it.

Tosa rescued by HSI.  (From HSI video)

Recently re-visited

“Humane Society International stated from the beginning that the farmer at Islan was growing blueberries and intended to expand this crop into the space previously used for his dog farming,”  Unti continued.

“Our representative visited the Ilsan farmer and his property as recently as October 9,  2015 to ensure compliance under our agreement with him to remain 100% out of the dog meat trade,”  Unti said.  “We saw no evidence of dog meat farming to suggest a breach of contract.  Our representative recorded the following statement from the farmer, Jeong Moonseok,  during the most recent visit:  ‘I’m not involved in the dog meat industry;  I’m not raising (meat) dogs.’”

Emphasized Unti,  “HSI has contractual legal relationships with all farmers with whom we work.  These relationships also seek to build trust with dog meat farmers who want to transition to a more humane livelihood.  If there is a breach of such agreements we will respond accordingly.”

Tosa puppies. (From HSI video)

But why does farmer have dogs at all?

But if Jung is not raising dogs for meat,  why is he raising dogs at all?

And what is the true story behind the situation described on October 5,  2015 by Martyn Stewart for the online magazine The Dodo in “I rescued a dog from a meat farm and gave him his first bowl of water”?

Compare the size of the Tosas and sturdy housing in this composite of photos taken by Martyn Stewart for The Dodo with the sizes of the dogs and flimsy housing in the Korean Animal Rights Advocates photos of the more typical Damyang Dog Farm, above. Even more revealing, note the partially dismantled circular open-topped cage (1) and the singly chained Tosas (2 & 3) in the inset aerial view of the premises.

According to Stewart,  “The farm had just over 100 dogs that regularly supplied the traders in the busy markets of Moran,”  one side of a city block just outside Seoul that has long been the main source of dog meat for Seoul consumers.

Described Stewart,  providing supporting photographs,  “They were all tan colored with darker muzzles.  They looked a cross between a mastiff and a Rhodesian ridgeback dog.  I was told that these were the typical meat dogs in South Korea.”

Ring & chained dogs

The dogs shown in Stewart’s photos were in actuality much larger than most others in the ANIMALS 24-7 archives on the South Korean dog meat trade.  The dogs were housed apparently three to a cage in a facility markedly more secure and elaborate than the dog meat farms documented by many previous investigations.

Stewart also offered an aerial overview of the premises.  Enlarging the overview revealed––at the center of the photo––a partially dismantled circular cage and two Tosas individually chained in the manner of fighting dogs.  The circular cage resembled those shown in the background of Korean dogfighting videos.  (See below.)

Compare the size of the Tosa (left) with that of the Jindo (right) in this Humane Society of Southwest Washington photo.

Rehoming Tosas

Added J.C. Cortez of The Reflector,  published in Battle Ground,  Washington,  on October 7,  2015,  “The Humane Society for Southwest Washington will begin adoption efforts to find homes for 58 Japanese mastiffs after rescuers took the animals from a dog-meat farm in South Korea.

Humane Society International transported the animals to the United States,  where they brought 25 of the dogs to the Clark County area,  while the remaining 33 were sent to shelters across Washington.”

Prior to the Humane Society International rescues,  ANIMALS 24-7 has no record of “Japanese mastiffs” or tosas in the South Korean dog meat trade,  though dogfighters’ cull dogs certainly might be disposed of by being sold for meat.

From South Korean dogfighting video.

Dogfighting

But ANIMALS 24-7 has collected reports of tosa breeding by dogfighters,  some of them apparently operating on a larger scale than most of their U.S. counterparts.  Of note is that there is enough money in dogfighting in South Korea that South Korean entrepreneurs funded fighting rings from which Philippine authorities in December 2011 and March 2012 impounded a combined total of more than 500 pit bulls.  The pit bulls were fought in matches shown to South Korean bettors via closed circuit television.

From South Korean dogfighting video.

Attempts to buy out animal breeders,  sellers,  and hoarders have a long history of backfiring in the U.S.,  whether the targets have been alleged puppy millers,  pet stores,  auctioneers,  vendors of dogs for laboratory use,  private animal control contractors,  or just individuals who compulsively collect animals.

“Something quite different”

Responded Unti,  “This is something quite different than the generally random purchase of animals at risk or in distress from breeders,  pet stores,  horse killers,  exotic pet owners,  and so on,  although I appreciate the fraught history of such activity in such arenas.  Our initiative involves an engaged strategy against a waning trade, now the subject of increasing social and cultural tension in South Korea,  and the agreements with farmers are based on binding contracts that are receiving national and global scrutiny.

From South Korean dogfighting video.

“We’re not trying to buy out every farm,”  Unti said,  “but a successful series of farm closures or transitions should demonstrate to the South Korean government and other parties that a national farm buyout approach would be feasible and indeed popular with farmers and citizens and institutions with reservations about the dog meat trade.  We think we’ve made an intelligent assessment and one that’s likely to hasten the demise of a trade which most Koreans are only now beginning to think about seriously.”

June 2015 bear farm closure by the Animals Asia Foundation. (AAF photo)

Animals Asia Foundation

The Animals Asia Foundation has for more than 15 years pursued a similar strategy against the bear bile farming industry in China and Vietnam,  buying dozens of small and marginal bear farmers out of business,  transporting more than 550 bears to the Animals Asia Foundation sanctuaries near Chengdu,  China,  and Tam Dao,  Vietnam.

Initially the larger bear farms in either nation appeared to be expanding to claim whatever market share the smaller competitors left,  but the bear bile industry now seems to be terminally contracting in both China and Vietnam.

The Animals Asia Foundation helped to close the last six bear bile farms in Quang Ninh province,  Vietnam,  in September 2015,  rescuing 13 bears––but that left about 1,200 bears still being tapped for bile in Vietnam and as many as 10,000 in China.

Wildlife SOS cofounder Geeta Seshamani.
(Wildlife SOS photo)

Wildlife SOS

Wildlife SOS earlier eradicated the dancing bear industry in India through buying out the dancing bear exhibitors,  retraining them for other work,  and financing their entry into their new occupations.  Wildlife SOS is now taking the same approach to ending elephant exhibition by wandering mahouts.

So maybe the Humane Society International purchases of dogs from whatever sources in South Korea will help the fast-growing South Korean humane sector to shut down the dog meat industry and the ancillary industries that feed it,  including Jindo breeding,  other puppy-milling,  for-profit dogcatching,  and dogfighting.

But there is also the risk,  meanwhile,  that the buy-outs are putting more money into the wrong hands,  and that some of the dogs coming to the U.S. have histories that are other than as advertised,  even if Humane Society International does not know it.

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Left: Linda Henry, 54, of Westwego, Louisiana, lost both arms, an eye, and an ear to her own four pit bulls in March 2013. Right: pit bull awaits his turn.

Avoid the damage;  fix the dogs

Animal advocates cheered on November 19,  2015 when Judge Wayne Durden of Polk County,  Florida sentenced alleged dogfighter Hewitt Grant II,  48,  to serve 20 years in prison.

Convicted on 84 counts of cruelty,  Grant is to serve at least 16 years before becoming eligible for parole,  and is banned for life from keeping animals.

Polk County sheriff’s deputies in October 2014 seized 69 pit bulls from Grant’s home in Bartow and another property near Fort Meade.  Grant had already been barred for life from keeping dogs,  after a 2006 bust for alleged dogfighting.

Another perp got 25 years

Heavy as Grant’s sentence was,  it was lighter than the 25 years in prison that Highland County Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance meted out to James Thomas Reed in February 2015,  after finding Reed guilty of 11 counts of dog fighting and 11 counts of animal cruelty.  Reed is also to serve 30 years on probation,  and––like Grant––is never to own another dog.

Just two days after Grant was sentenced,  animal advocates cheered again after the Daily Sabah and Ihlas News Agency,  of Istanbul,  Turkey,  reported that “A woman in Turkey’s northern province of Samsun was punished with a record fine of 12,547 Turkish liras ($4,430),”  for repeatedly setting her pit bull on other animals. The woman had reportedly posted to social media photos of the fatal maulings of three cats and a dog in just two days.

Victories often more symbolic than substantive

But courtroom victories against dogfighting remain few and far between,  both in the U.S. and abroad.  Worse,  what victories are won are often more symbolic than substantive.

For instance,  the American SPCA and the Humane Society of the U.S. led electronic rounds of applause for themselves in January 2015 after U.S. District Judge Keith Wilkins,  of Montgomery,  Alabama,  ordered participants in a multi-state dogfighting ring,  who had pleaded guilty to related charges,  to cough up $2 million in restitution for the care of 451 pit bulls.   A series of raids in Alabama,  Georgia and Mississippi during August 2013 netted 367 of the pit bulls;  another 84 pits were later born to some of those who had been impounded,  much to the annoyance of animal advocates who wondered why the mothers were allowed to give birth before being spayed.

The ASPCA and HSUS were to receive the $2 million.  “But even if all the money is paid,”  reported Phillip Rawls of Associated Press,  “which they doubt,  it won’t come close to covering the $5.5 million they reported spending on the dogs’ care.  Tim Rickey,  vice president of field operations for the ASPCA,  said some of the defendants are on payment plans that would require them to be 300 years old to pay the full amount.”

Hewitt Grant II and Nickie Sanders, recently convicted in Polk County, Florida.

Few get prison time

At least 52 people were charged with various offenses in connection with the raids.  Convicted “kingpin” Donnie Anderson was in November 2014 to serve eight years in prison.  Another key participant,  Ricky Van Lee of Biloxi, Mississippi,  drew four years in prison.  Michael Martin of Auburn,  Alabama,  was sentenced to serve five years.

Few of the other participants are known to have received prison time.  Nor was this an unusual outcome.  Following up on another 2013 multi-state dogfighting bust,  John Diedrich of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that of a dozen defendants who were charged,  alleged ringleader Thomas Zollicoffer received a five year sentence in state court,  while “Several other cases handled in federal court are headed for lighter terms.

“More than 100 law enforcement officers took part in the operation,  executing 10 search warrants,  seizing nearly four dozen dogs,”  Diedrich wrote in September 2015.  “The defendants appeared to face years behind bars in a first-of-its-kind crackdown in Milwaukee on an underground activity associated with gambling,  drugs and illegal guns.

Federal penalities not higher

“But 17 months later,  the prosecution has delivered only two significant terms behind bars and both were in state court,”  Diedrich continued,  “defying the idea that federal court delivers tougher penalties.  Two defendants in federal court received probation and a third received 90 days.  Federal charges against a fourth are likely to be dropped,  records show.

“Five people are awaiting sentencing.  All are expected to get a year or less behind bars,  according to the prosector,  and they may get probation,”  Diedrich added.

But faulting either federal courts or anyone else in the justice system for the disappointing outcomes of many dogfighting cases is difficult.  The U.S. already has the world’s highest incarceration rate,  with 716 people in custody per 100,000 residents,  as of October 2013.  We have 4.4% of the global human population,  but 22% of the prisoners,  and still have more than four times as many murders per capita as Japan,  Germany,  Britain,  and France,  even taking the recent terrorist attacks in Paris into consideration.

Ounce of prevention worth pound of cure

Just locking people up does not seem to be solving our crime problems,  and seems to be no more likely to stop dogfighting than it does homicide.

Deterring crime by making crimes more difficult to commit has proved to be vastly more effective than punishing criminals after the fact for as long as anyone has tabulated and compared crime statistics.

This is for an obvious reason:  an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  It is much easier,  faster,  and vastly less expensive to use a padlock than to catch,  try,  and punish a thief.  As the seriousness of crimes increases,  both the consequences of crime and the effort needed to catch criminals and bring them to justice tend to increase exponentially.

(Historical image, source unknown)

Guns & murder

Regardless of where anyone stands as regards the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,  easy access to firearms clearly fuels the U.S. gun-related murder rate,  which is higher than that of any nations outside of Latin America except South Africa and Swaziland.

Easy access to pit bulls––many of them “free to good home” after failing as pets due to dangerous behavior––comparably fuels dogfighting.  And,  unlike possession of firearms,  possession of pit bulls and related fighting breeds is not protected by any constitutional amendment.  Indeed,  the constitutionality of pit bull bans has been upheld at least four times since 1920 by the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court,  including in 2006,  2007,  and 2008.

(Facebook meme)

Back to Elizabethan times

Available crime data gives only a ballpark idea of the recent growth of dogfighting.  Even veteran humane investigators had rarely if ever encountered either pit bulls or dogfighting as recently as 1990,  when KCNC-TV/Denver reporter Wendy Bergen was caught staging a dogfight,  since actual video of dogfighting could not be found,  to illustrate a ratings week exposé.

Just 25 years later,  dogfighting has regained at least the public prominence that it had circa 500 years ago,  when Queen Elizabeth I attended dogfights and bull-and-bear baiting,  while others of her court enjoyed original plays by William Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre next door to the Paris Gardens,  as the fighting arena styled itself.

Images evocative of dogfighting are now used even in “family-oriented” store displays and media to sell trucks,  tools,  shoes,  beer,  clothing,  music,  and even political candidates.

Post-Vick busts soared,  then fell

The numbers of pit bulls known to have been seized in dogfighting raids soared over 1,000 for three years in a row,  after the April 2007 arrest of football player Michael Vick for dogfighting briefly made busting dogfighters a prestige pursuit of law enforcement.

Yet only five years later,  the numbers of pit bulls impounded,  dogfighting busts reported by news media,  and alleged perps arrested all fell to the lowest totals since 1997,  ten years before Vick got caught.

The slippage in the crime stats hardly meant that dogfighting had been successfully repressed.  Rather,  other crimes took priority,  as illustrated when the numbers of pit bulls seized,  dogfighting busts reported,  and alleged perps arrested all rebounded in 2013,  2014,  and 2015 to approximately the 2011 level.

Dogfighter & pit bull breeder Earl Tudor, circa 1951.

How much goes unreported?

How much more dogfighting occurs than cops can stop is almost anyone’s guess.  Estimating how often any type of crime that often goes undetected and unreported is inherently difficult.  Criminologists,  however,  have developed formulas that tend to put the frequency of unreported crime at anywhere from 10 to 100 times the amount that is reported,  depending on the nature of the offense.

For crimes such as dogfighting,  involving many participants and spectators,  plus the use of animals and locations especially built or adapted for the purpose,  the number of cases going unreported is thought to be much lower than the incidence of under-reporting of crimes such as rape and assault,  that usually involve just one perp and one victim at a time.

Accordingly,  the number of pit bulls actually used in dogfighting in the U.S. each year may run as low as 16,000,  or as high as 160,000,  but is typically guesstimated by veteran dogfighting investigators to be circa 40,000––about twice as many as were estimated by the American SPCA in April 1961.

Dogfight in progress. (Historical image, source, place, & date unknown.)

Back in the KKK era

Then,  when the Ku Klux Klan remained firmly in control of rural Southern law enforcement,  running dogfighting and cockfighting as fundraising protection rackets,   the ASPCA could only deplore to the Ruston Daily Leader and United Press International that Ruston,  Lousiana openly hosted––and welcomed––a dogfighting convention.

Further,  the Ruston Daily Leader and United Press International felt obliged to explain to readers who had never seen a pit bull what they are:  “The fighting dog,  properly called the American Pit Bull,  is a heavy-chested,  round-headed,  short-eared animal developed in England.  It averages 44 pounds in weight and fights by instinct.”

Altogether,  more dogs appear to have been fought in the U.S. in each of the past 15 years than the annual total of dogs impounded in most U.S. cities,  and in 40 of the 50 states.

Michael Vick’s mansion in Surrey, Virginia, is now headquarters of the anti-chaining organization Dogs Deserve Better.  (Dogs Deserve Better photo)

Suburban bloodbaths

Back in 2007,  which seems longer ago in the evolution of pit bull advocacy and mayhem than it really is,  much of the public seemed surprised that Vick had been able to run a dogfighting ring in an upscale suburban neighborhood in Surrey County,  Virginia,  almost a bedroom community to Washington D.C.,  the national capital.

Yet many other dogfighting rings in recent years have popped up in affluent communities,  from the Boston suburbs to the streets of San Francisco.  Pre-Vick,  by contrast,  there had been scant precedent for dogfighting in “good” neighborhoods since the Puritan regent Oliver Cromwell drove both dogfighting and baiting underground in England,  a generation after Elizabeth I.

Bull-baiting.

How Britain blew 1830 ban on dogfighting

The suppression of dogfighting won by Cromwell unfortunately did not last.  Indeed,  dogfighting made a striking comeback parallel to the late 18th century and early 20th century rise of the humane movement.

Among the first achievements of the Royal SPCA of Britain was winning passage of national legislation in 1830 to ban dogfighting and baiting.

Yet humane organizations then as now held back from prohibiting the breeding and sale of fighting dogs.  This was and is largely through the influence of kennel clubs,  who have lent funding and political support to efforts to prosecute cruelty to dogs,  on condition that ear-cropping,  tail-docking,  excessive inbreeding,  and other cruel proclivities of the “dog fancy” be exempted from critical notice.

Of parenthetical note,  ear-cropping and tail-docking were both introduced by dogfighters to give opponents’ dogs less to pull fighting dogs down with. Declawing kittens by hatchet before tossing them to fighting dogs as “bait” appears to have begun in the same circles at about the same time,  albeit with less documentation.

(Historical image)

Mad dogs & Englishmen

As the British Empire expanded in early Victorian times,  British soldiers and sailors exported pit bulls and dogfighting to port cities worldwide,  including in India,  where the “bully khutta” pit bull variant emerged in the 19th century.   The New York Times in an 1857 in-depth account of the global spread of rabies and evolution of rabies control methods “credited” British dogfighters with bringing rabies to Crete,  from whence rabies spread to India,  probably also with fighting dogs.

Dogfighting in the 18th and 19th century U.S. was done mostly in waterfront taverns,  including the notorious Kit Burns’ Tavern in New York City,  which became the model for a brief and somewhat sanitized dog-against-rats fighting scene in the 2002 Martin Scorcese/Leonardo DiCaprio film Gangs of New York.

KKK recruiters leafleting at the 1992 Fred C. Coleman Memorial Pigeon Shoot in Hegins, Pennsylvania.
(Merritt Clifton photo)

How the Klan cashed in

Rousted from most of the U.S. by the rise of the humane movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,  dogfighting continued in the rural South.

Dogfighters,  cockfighters,  pigeon-shooters,  moonshiners,  gamblers,  addictive drug dealers and pimps protected their profits by donating heavily to fraternal lodges fronting for the Ku Klux Klan.  Klan influence within law enforcement and politics in turn ensured that those who kept up their payments were seldom raided.

The Humane Society of Greater Birmingham nonetheless broke up the World Series of Dogfighting in 1935.  The alleged dogfighters,  however,  escaped and were never prosecuted.  Carey H. Falwell,  the father of race-baiting evangelist Jerry Falwell (1933-2007),  was in 1938 twice convicted of hosting dogfights in Lynchburg,  Virginia.  But the frustration of humane observers at the 1961 dogfighting convention in Louisiana was more the norm.

(Anti-Defamation League image)

Guarding the dope

After law enforcement pressure and evolving public opinion broke up the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s and 1970s,  dogfighting (and cockfighting) might have faded out even in the South.  But the Vietnam War draft and pursuit of economic opportunity helped to translocate many young Southerners who had been introduced to animal fighting in boyhood to the West Coast.

Marijuana growers by the late 1970s were documentedly using pit bulls to guard their plots in California,  paying protection money to skinheads and motorcycle gangs who operated much like the Ku Klux Klan––who re-introduced dogfighting to most of the rest of the country.

Within another decade dogfighting had spread into inner city African-American and Hispanic street culture,  mostly through prison gangs,  and had begun to be celebrated in “rap” music lyrics.

Traditional Central Asian-style dogfighting circa 1938.

Cajun rules & the Taliban

From there,  U.S.-style “Cajun rules” dogfighting spread with drug trafficking throughout the rest of the world,  revitalizing what remained of the earlier dogfighting culture introduced by British military personnel.

The one successful crackdown on dogfighting of the past few decades was waged in Afghanistan by the Taliban between 1996 and 2001––but all that really accomplished was to enable U.S. troops to supplant the traditional body-slamming matches that had been conducted between working sheep dogs with “Cajun rules” pit bull fights to the death.

For more than 200 years animal advocacy attention to dogfighting has tended to invert the economic realities of the pit bull industry––and therefore fails both to suppress dogfighting and to effectively address the other outcomes of pit bull proliferation.

“Angel” has repeatedly injured other dogs.
(Greg Robbins photo)

“All dogs go to heaven”

The “blame-the-deed-not-the-breed” theory trumpeted today by many and perhaps most humane societies holds that the proclivity of pit bulls to pursue mayhem results chiefly from “training” by dogfighters.

Suppress dogfighting,  the “blame-the-deed-not-the-breed” theory holds,  and all pit bulls will magically become safe “nanny dogs,”  the pit bulls now transforming shelters into violent rescue missions will soon find homes,  and all doggies will go to heaven,  or at least to dog parks where if a pit bull happens to kill a Chihuahua,  the Chihuahua-walker will apologetically excuse the killer.

Dogfighters can certainly be blamed for much.  Pit bulls are the scions of centuries of line breeding in a multi-century arms race to develop the most deadly weapon dogs,  who will maim 300-pound pigs in so-called hog/dog rodeo,  maul bulls and bears without qualms,  massacre huge numbers of rats in pits without pausing to eat any,  dismember runaway slaves as a warning to others,  and––among the Spanish conquistadores of Mexico,  kill their own diet of captured Native Americans.

Believed to be Earl Tudor later in life.

Pit bull identification

Because pit bulls were ancestrally bred to perform a variety of gruesome tasks,  and because fighting dog breeders tended to produce and refine their own bloodlines,  typically named after themselves,  considerable diversity in pit bull appearance evolved,  albeit that pit bull behavioral traits tend to be much the same across bloodlines.

Thus superficial differences often confuse would-be regulators who try to regulate by form,  or breed standard.   The many bloodline names and nicknames used by pit bull fanciers add further confounding factors.

Yet  a 2013 study done at the Richmond SPCA in Richmond, Virginia,  directed by Emily Weiss of the ASPCA,  found that shelter workers can accurately identify a pit bull or close pit mix 96% of the time––albeit that another study,  published in the March 27, 2014 edition of the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science,  found that 41% of shelter workers are willing to lie about pit bull breed identification to try to rehome more pit bulls.

Dogfighting historical image.

Until dead or dismembered

Much as summarized in 1961 by the Ruston Daily Leader and United Press International,  the common distinguishing traits of pit bulls are that they are mesomorphic muscular dogs,  disproportionately large-jawed,  apt to explode from calm demeanor to idiopathic rage without issuing a long repertoire of warning signals first,  and inclined to attack and keep on attacking,  without relent and regardless of injury to themselves,  until their victim is dead and dismembered.

Though the sustained effort of fighting dog breeders to develop these traits must be recognized,  the argument that dogfighting produced all present pit bull problems is at best just a half-truth.

Dogfighting imagery

Dogfighting imagery helps to promote pit bulls,  much as imagery borrowed from auto racing helps to sell cars.  Meanwhile,  the big money in dogfighting,  as in most other competitive pursuits that involve animals,  is in breeding and selling the offspring of the winners.

But this is not new.  As of 1961,  dogfighting had been nominally illegal in every state for 40 years,  yet dogfighters still openly advertised their “champions” and “grand champions”  in breed fancy media,  sometimes listing by name the dogs the studs had defeated.

More breeding now than ever

What has changed is that the pit bull breeding industry is now exponentially bigger.  The 20,000 pit bulls per year said by the ASPCA to have been used in dogfights in 1961 were then about 10% of all the pit bulls in the U.S.:  barely 200,000,  as projected from classified ad counts.  This was so few that almost the entire pit bull population was barely a generation away from dogs who had been fought,  or from culls bred to fight,  but sold as pets after being judged insufficiently “game” (eager to fight littermates) in puppyhood.

The 40,000 pit bulls per year whom HSUS suggests are used in dogfights today amount about 1.2% of the present pit bull population.  Breeders advertising “champions” and “grand champions” on the web are easily found,  but unlike in 1961,  they rarely post information that might lead to criminal indictments.  Not many pit bulls today can be verifiably traced to recent fighting ancestry––or to any ancestry,  since backyard breeders rarely register their output.

Michael Vick, left, and HSUS president Wayne Pacelle, right. (From HSUS video.)

High-end speculation

Some high-end speculative pit bull breeding for combat continues.  Those customers who come to the notice of law enforcement,  however,  tend to be––like Michael Vick––affluent outsiders trying to buy their way into the inner circles of dogfighting.

Reputed high-end pit bull breeders are rarely caught actually fighting their dogs.  Some have been hauled into court in recent years,  but mostly to pay nominal fines on charges other than dogfighting.  The biggest names actually charged with dogfighting have almost always been acquitted.

“Trash” dogs

Pit bulls rose to popularity through the sale of castoffs from fighting dog breeders,  a practice pioneered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by dogfighters John P. Colby of Newburyport,  Massachusetts,  and Charles Werner of New Orleans,  Louisiana.   Colby,  founder of the Staffordshire Club of America,   produced dogs who in 1909 killed his own two-year-old nephew,  Bert Colby Leadbetter,  and later injured several other children.

But the times have changed.  Today most dogfighters make use of the seemingly endless supply of abandoned pit bulls bred and sold as pets.

Pit bull attacks smaller dog. (YouTube)

Bogus “rescues”

Dozens of suspected––and often convicted––dogfighters have now been caught running bogus “rescues” to acquire giveaway pit bulls.  Many more remain in the false-front “rescue” business without having been caught yet.

Unlike in Colby and Werner’s time,  and in 1961,  when dogs sold to fight were often identified in print with long pedigrees,  most fighting dogs impounded in recent years have been about as anonymous as dogs could be.  Many,  perhaps most,  have not even had names until names were given to them by rescuers.   Often the dogs were stolen,  picked up free-to-good-home after failing as pets,  or were bought for a song from backyard breeders who had already dealt their most aggressive pups to people who sought them to guard drug operations,  to help in other criminal activities,  or just to strut around their neighborhoods.

Pit bull offered for adoption by the Associated Humane Societies’ shelter in Tinton Falls,  New Jersey.

Soaring shelter intake

Even as the number of pit bulls who are actually fought has apparently doubled since 1961,  shelter intake of pit bulls has soared from under 1% of the dogs received then to more than a third from 2010 through 2015,   and from less than 2% of the dogs killed in shelters then to more 60% since 2010.

U.S. shelters have since 2000 taken in more than a million pit bulls per year:  nearly 1,000 times more than the total impounded from dogfighters.

Most of these pit bulls have been bred to feed what in Britain is called the “status dog” market.  These tend to be purchasers who want to show off that they have a scary dog,  but prefer that the dog will not do anything that actually lands them in court.

Asheville Humane Society pit bull promotion.

Promoting myths

Almost a third of the U.S. pit bull population have been surrendered to animal shelters,  or have been impounded for dangerous behavior,  each and every year of this century.  At any given time about a third of the pit bulls in the U.S. are under a year of age.  About half of all adult pit bulls in homes right now will not be in those homes a year from now.

(See Pound dog inventory down, no-kill inventory up, in 2015 shelter survey.)

Swamped with pit bulls just as public expectations have risen that shelters should go “no kill,”  many humane societies promote the very myths––including as the fiction invented in 1971 by pit bull breeder and advocate Lilian Rant that pit bulls were once used as “nanny dogs”––that often lead to fatal and disfiguring accidents.

Shelter adopters in the post-Vick era have been sold on taking home pit bulls at about three times the rate at which people buying dogs from breeders choose pit bulls.  This has had grim results.

Asheville Humane Society pit bull promotion. A pit bull recently rehomed by the Asheville Humane Society after passing the ASPCA’s “Safer” test on July 7, 2015 fatally mauled six-year-old Joshua Philip Strother.

Rehoming killers

Only two dogs rehomed by U.S. animal shelters killed anyone between 1858 and 2000.  These were a pair of wolf hybrids who were rehomed in 1988 and 1989.

Forty-three shelter dogs have participated in killing people since 2010,  29 of them pit bulls,  and nine of them mixes of pit bull with mastiff,  along with three Rottweilers,  a Lab who may have been part pit bull,  and a husky.

Shelter outcomes in rehoming pit bulls reflect the experience of the nation.  As of 1961,  pit bulls had killed nine of the fifteen Americans who had been killed by dogs since 1930.  The U.S. pit bull population has increased twelvefold since then,  but pit bulls since 2010 have killed an average of 30 people per year,  an increase of more than 60-fold in the rate of fatal attacks.

(See also many case accounts under Links to 53 reasons why breed-specific legislation needs to be enforced and reinforced.)

Pits may kill 1,000 other dogs for each person they kill

Parallel to the rising fatalities,  pit bulls have in 2013,  2014,  and 2015 disfigured more than 420 Americans each year ,  more than twice as many as in any previous year.  Yet only one of the 334 human fatalities inflicted by pit bulls since 1982 and just a handful of the nearly 3,000 disfigurements have involved dogs kept by anyone who was ever charged with dogfighting.

Of further concern to people who care about animals,   pit bulls in the U.S. alone are now killing about 31,000 other dogs per year and 20,000 animals of other species.

(See How many other animals did pit bulls kill in 2014.)

SAFER test being given to a pit bull.
(From ASPCA video)

Low sterilization rate

The pit bull problem began with dogfighters.  Today,  however,   it is perpetuated mostly by the low rate of sterilization among pet pit bulls––below 25%––and by backyard breeders of “status dogs,”  not by aspirants to producing “grand champions.”

Unfortunately,  sterilization does not really make pit bulls,  or any dogs,  safer to any measureable degree.  (See also Does castration really alter male dog behavior? .)

As of 1960,   only 1% of all the dogs in the U.S. had been sterilized.  Pet dogs were rarely kept tethered or confined.  Canine rabies remained decades from eradication within the U.S.

Yet only 611,000 Americans required medical treatment for dog bites.

This pit bull was photographed in the act of stalking and attacking livestock.

Making dogs safer

Almost no dogs run free today,  no dog has become infected with canine rabies in the U.S. since before 2000,  and more than 70% of our dog population are sterilized,  despite the low rate of pit bull sterilization (under 25%).

Nonetheless,  more than 4.5 million Americans per year require medical attention for dog bites.  Serious bites have risen eightfold while the numbers of dogs in the U.S. have only doubled.

But while sterilization does not make dogs safer,  it does make them fewer.  Mandatory pit bull sterilization,  required in San Francisco since 2006,  could empty shelters of pit bulls;  end the rehoming of dangerous dogs;  and end the flow of abandoned pit bulls to dogfighters.

Once pit bull proliferation is curbed,  bringing dogfighters to justice should become considerably easier.

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All donations received during the remainder of 2015 will be matched by an anonymous benefactor,  up to a total of $101,000!!!

Impounded pit bulls.

Dogs kill & disfigure more people in U.S. & Canada than Jihadis & far-right “wing nuts” combined

Who is most likely to kill or disfigure you or your child––a Jihadi terrorist armed with guns and bombs,  a far-right militia member practicing “open carry” of weapons,   or a dangerous dog?

The correct answer is the dog.  And dog attack mayhem is rising by far the most steeply.

Crusoe the Celebrity Dachshund is actually neither a Jihadi nor a militia member, but he is a hunter.

Jihadi violence in North America has mostly trended down since 2001.  Right wing terrorism,  though rising in recent years,  peaked in 1995.

Pit bull attacks up 830%

But fatal and disfiguring pit bull attacks are up 830% since 2007,  when the Humane Society of the U.S.,  Best Friends Animal Society,  and American SPCA ramped up pit bull advocacy after the arrest of football player Michael Vick on dogfighting charges for which he was eventually convicted.

Jihadists,  or Islamicist extremists,  by one commonly cited reckoning,  killed 48 people in the U.S. and Canada during 2015.  Far right extremists killed 47 people.

Jihadists and far-right terrorists have each injured about 260 people in the U.S. per year,  on average,  over the past decade.

(Beth Clifton photo)

Record numbers of deaths

A record 45 people were killed by dog attacks in the U.S. and Canada during 2015,  including an also-record 33 people killed by pit bulls,  one more than the previous record of 32,  reached in 2012.

Dogs committed 614 fatal or disfiguring attacks in the U.S. and Canada during 2015,  more than Jihadists and far-right terrorists combined.

(Beth Clifton photo)

Record disfigurements too

Pit bulls alone disfigured 459 people––five more than ever before.

Among the 648 total human victims of pit bull attacks in which at least one person was killed or disfigured were at least 209 children and 354 adults.

The number of known child victims in 2015 declined from the 2014 record of 266,  and from the previous record of 214,  reached in 2013,  apparently because word is getting out that allowing children to be around pit bulls is potentially deadly,  but the 209 child victims in 2015 would have been a record in any earlier year.

The 354 adult pit bull victims in 2015 was 73 above the previous record.  2015 was the eighth consecutive year that the number of adult pit bull victims increased.

The 1945 fatal pit bull attack on Doretta Zinke of Miami shared top headline space with World War II.

2015 deaths were triple the toll 1930-1960

The dog attack death toll in 2015 alone was triple the U.S. toll for the entire 30 years 1930-1960,  during which time almost all dogs ran free and under 1% were sterilized in any manner.  But pit bulls accounted for “only” 60% of the fatalities between 1930 and 1960,  compared to 73% in 2015.

Retrospective data collection has established that pit bulls have accounted for half or more of all fatal dog attacks in every 10-year time frame since 1844,  while making up less than 1% of the U.S. dog population for most of that time,  and less than 6% now.

Even before 2007 the frequency of fatal and disfiguring pit bull attacks had risen explosively for 25 years.

(Beth Clifton photo)

Explosive rise

In the entire decade from 1982 to 1992, 104 pit bulls attacked 44 children and 60 adults, killing 18 of the victims,  disfiguring 36. Fifty victims escaped without fatal or disfiguring injuries in attacks in which others were killed or disfigured.

Most of those totals were exceeded in 2002 alone,  and in almost every year since.  2011 was the last year with fewer than 30 pit bull attack fatalities;  2008 the last year with fewer than 20.

(Beth Clifton photo)

Agencies squelch breed info

The pit bull contribution to total deaths and disfigurements in recent years might be much higher,  except that under pressure from pit bull advocates many animal control agencies and humane societies,  and even some news media,  have begun withholding breed-specific information about attacks.

From 1982 through 2013,  only 45 documented fatal or disfiguring attacks were by dogs of unidentified breed,  but in 2014 alone,  36 fatal or disfiguring attacks were attributed to dogs of unidentified breed.

In 2015 the number of fatal or disfiguring attacks by dogs of allegedly “unidentified” breed more than doubled to 78––even though in most instances the dogs were impounded by law enforcement.

(Beth Clifton photo)

49 attacks by shelter dogs

Forty-nine fatal or disfiguring attacks in 2015,  or about one in 7.5,  were by dogs who had been rehomed by animal shelters,  among them 39 pit bulls.  No other breed type was involved in more than two attacks by shelter dogs.

ANIMALS 24-7 is still tabulating and evaluating the 2015 data on dog attacks against other animals.  Pit bulls in recent years have accounted for more than 95% of all dog attacks in which other pets and/or livestock were killed,  resulting in upward of 50,000 animal fatalities per year.

Our complete tables on Dog attack deaths & Maimings,  U.S. & Canada,  September 1982 to December 31,  2015 appear below,  followed by a separately compiled set of notes on fatal attack victims from volunteer Jan Smith.

Further particulars on the 2015 dog attack fatalities from Jan Smith, with her prefatory comments:

Here is my updated list of U.S. and Canadian fatalities,  by date,  name and age of victim,  and details about the dog(s) and mode of attack.  Foreign deaths are listed separately at the end.

Please note that I do NOT participate in the kennel club game of putting fictional labels on “breeds” that are in truth pit bulls or pit bull mixes.  For example,  where some “breed” is in truth a mastiff/pit bull dog mix (such as the bullmastiff or the Cane Corso),  I list it as a pit bull type dog/pit mix.

Stars (**) indicate that the killer was someone’s beloved “family pet” pit bull who was never abused or neglected.  The double dagger (‡) indicates that the “family pet” pit bull belonged to the deceased person or the person’s family.

Child fatalities by pit bull type dog (12): 

Declan Dean Moss – 18 month old – Brooksville, FL ** ‡ [January 19, mother’s pit bulls] 

Malaki Mildward

Malaki Mildward – 7 years old – College Springs, IA – ** ‡ [January 22, two six months old pit mixes] 

Taylynn DaVaugn – 2 years old – West Mifflin, PA — ** ‡ [February 21]

Brayden Wilson – 2 months old – Dallas, TX — ** ‡ [April 19 – an 8-year-old pit bull that had been ‘peaceful’ until it killed the child] 

James W. Nevils III – 5 years old – Chicago, IL — ** ‡ [May 25 – owned by his adult cousin; pit bull didn’t let go despite being stabbed multiple times] 

Jordan Tyson ‘Jo Jo’ Collins – 3 years old – Lawton, OK – ** ‡ [June 28 – owned by his grandparents] 

Joshua Phillip Strother, age 6, killed by pit bull adopted from the Asheville Humane Society.

Joshua Phillip Strother – 6 years old – Henderson, NC – [July 7 – neighbor’s adopted, one-year-old shelter pit bull;  the child had played with this pit bull before] 

Lamarkus Hicks – 2 years old – Baker Heights, WVA — ** [September 28 – neighbor’s pit bull] 

Tanner Smith – 5 years old – Vidor, TX — ** [October 18 – pit bulls owned by friend of mother] 

Amiyah Dunstan — 9 years old – Elmont, Long Island, NY — ** [November 8 – while visiting friend] 

Carter Evan Hartle – 11 months old – Marshall, Oneida County, NY — ** ‡ [November 17 – his own mother’s ‘beloved’ pit bull that the family had raised from pup] 

Xavier Strickland – 4 years old – Detroit, MI ** [December 2 – snatched from his mother on the sidewalk,  disemboweled]

Adult fatalities by pit bull type dog (17):

Eugene Wesley Smith.

Eugene Smith – 87 years old – Frederick,  MD ** ‡ [January 7;  “rescue” pit bull, kept as indoor family pet]

Frederick Crutchfield – 63 – Coal Hill, AK ** ‡ [February 4, found dead in woods with “multiple canine injuries” inflicted by his son’s pit bulls] 

Roy Higgenbotham Jr. – 62 y.o. – Wheeling, WV — ** ‡ [March 8, killed by his pit bull while trying to do CPR on David Wallace; the two men owned the pit bull jointly, had raised it from pup] 

Julia Charging Whirlwind

Julia Charging Whirlwind – 49 years old – Rosebud Reservation, White River, SD [March 14] 

De’Trick Johnson – 36 years old – Pine Bluff, AR – [March 21] 

Kenneth Lawrence Ford – 79 years old. – Pahrump, NV ** [attacked March 13, died April 14; two of the three pit bulls kept attacking even after being shot]

Nolberto Legarda – 83 years old – Pecos, TX ** [July 2] 

Matthew Brigmantas – 38 years old – Hamilton, Ontario ** [July 8 – killed by pit bull mix he was walking] 

Annie Williams – 71 years old – Shaker Heights, OH ‡ [July 12 – killed by her son-in-law’s pit bull] 

Carolyn Sue Lamp – 67 years old – Redbird, OK ** [July 24 ] 

Porsche Nicole Cartee – 25 years old – Spartanburg, SC ** ‡ [August 22 – DOA, her own 10-year-old pit bull] 

Cathy Wheatcraft – 48 years old – Cooleemee, Davie County, NC ** [August 24 – DOA, neighbor’s pit bull]

Barbara McCormick – 65 years old – Billingsley, AL — ** ‡ [September 4 – pit bull mix]

Emilios Rios Sr. – 65 years old – North Shore, Riverside Co., CA [September 8] 

Carmen Reigada – 91 years old – Miami-Dade, FL ** ‡ [September 22 – live-in grandson’s pit types] 

Edgar Brown – 60 years old – Oklahoma City, OK ** [Attacked October 6, died October 16] 

Rebecca Hardy – 22 years old– Port Huron, MI ** [Attacked December 3, died December 4]

Anthony Riggs & son.

Rottweiler killings (2):

Betty Wood – 78 years old — Sulpher Srings, TX – ** ‡ [March 12] 

Anthony Riggs – 57 years old – Madison County, TN – [November 12 – killed just hours after adopting the Rottweiler from the Madison County shelter]

Fatalities by “breed unknown” (2)

Unidentified Native American – about 40 years old – Gallup, NM [January 2, found dead at the roadside after altercation with ‘feral dogs’] 

Neta Lee Adams – 81 years old – Washington County, GA – [found dead in a ditch due to dog attack on March 31]

Fatalities by “breed being hidden from the public” (1):

Gaege Ramirez – 7 years old – Canyon Lake, TX — ** ‡ [May 2]

Foreign deaths by pit bull type dog that we know of (12):

Maxi Millian Guscott – 2 years old – St. Ann, Jamaica ** ‡ [January 2 – bullmastiff, which is a pit bull – mastiff mix] 

Emilia Mitroi – 53 years old – Drobeta Turnu Severin, Romania [March 9 – attacked while feeding her son’s pit bull] 

Itamir Fogaca da Silva – 45 years old – Sao Paolo, Brazil ** ‡ [March 12 – killed by his mother’s six pit bull mixes when he went to check on her] 

Rhona Greve – 64 years old – Ely, Cardiff, Wales, UK ** ‡ [March 20]

Michael Dany Kassouah – 7 years old – Zahle, al-Kark region, Lebanon [April 7] 

Sheikh Kousar – 6 years old – Kakumanu Village, Andhra Pradesh, India [April 15 – roaming pit bulls] 

Fred Savage

Unidentified man – age not reported – Lauro de Freitas, Brazil ** ‡ [April 22 – killed in his home by his own pit bull] 

Fred Savage – 13 years old – Otjomuise, Namibia ** [June 27 – the pit bulls continued to maul the boy even after being shot] 

Matias Reynoso – 21 months old – Leon, Mexico ** ‡ [July 18 – in his own home by his parents’ own pit bulls] 

Mamun – 7 years old – Delhi, India ** [mauled to death by “stray” owned pit bulls] 

Unidentified boy – 20 months old – Hyderabad, India [September 18 – roaming owned pit bulls] 

Unidentified boy – 2 years old – Stavropol, Russia ** [week of October 19 – neighbor’s’ pit bulls]

Elizabeth Claire Wright

Foreign killings by other dogs that we know of:

Elizabeth Claire Wright – 55 – Watamu, Kenya ** ‡ [British woman killed by husband’s Rottweilers]

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Bull is pushed out to mob of jallikattu participants.  (People for Cattle in India)

Animal Welfare Board of India chair R.M. Kharb & vice-chair Chinny Krishna refuse to quit

NEW DELHI,  CHENNAI––Animals may be killed and injured by the hundreds of thousands during the 2016 Indian harvest festivals,  January 12-18,  but the mayhem may not proceed with government approval,  ruled a two-judge bench representing the Supreme Court of India on January 12,  2016.

(From YouTube video)

Justices Dipak Misra and N.V. Ramana acted in specific response to a January 8,  2016 attempt by the Indian federal government,  headed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party,  to reinstitute jallikattu,  a traditional harvest festival event in Tamil Nadu state which might best be described as participatory bullfighting.

Bulbul fights stopped too

The ruling came on the same day that the Gauhati High Court in Guwahati,  Assam invoked a 2014 Supreme Court of India verdict against jallikattu to enjoin the Hayagrib Madhab Mandir temple at Hajo from celebrating the harvest festival,  called Magh Bihu in that region,  by hosting bulbul fights.  Bulbuls are small songbirds who are captured from the wild and made to fight by tethering them together with a silk thread.

Bulbul fighting. (From YouTube video)

A similar ruling based on the 2014 jallikattu Supreme Court of India jallikattu verdict kept the temple from hosting bulbul fights in 2015.

Proving manhood

The word jallikattu is derived from two Tamil words:  calli,  meaning coins,  and kattu,  meaning a package.  The term jallikattu is also used to mean “testicles.”

(People for Cattle in India photo)

Jallikattu contestants try to untie a bag of coins strung between a bull’s horns.  Hundreds of men may surround each bull,  while dozens or even hundreds of bulls may be released into the streets as part of each jallikattu competition.

Both bulls and men are often hurt.  At least 21 people were killed and 1,614 injured during jallikattu events in January 2009 alone.

(From YouTube video)

Surplus bull calves

Historically jallikattu was practiced,  like other forms of bullfighting,  as a means of disposing of surplus bull calves.  This has been a perpetual problem in India since Vedic times.  Currently about three times as many cows are impregnated in India each year as in the U.S. to produce somewhat less milk,  yet selling unwanted male calves to slaughter is either legally prohibited or discouraged in all but two of the 29 Indian states.

Ironically,  jallikattu proponents today argue that jallikattu is essential to encourage cattle breeders to keep bulls of native Indian cattle varieties that are no longer favored in milk production.

Order that bulls may not be used in performances.

List of animals banned from performance

Banned in 2007 by a two-judge Supreme Court of India panel,  jallikattu was reinstated in 2008 by a three-judge panel,  but that ruling was overturned after the mayhem in 2009.

The jallikattu ban was then reinforced in 2011 when former minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh accepted the recommendation of the Animal Welfare Board of India that bulls should be added to the list of animals who may not be used in public performances,  including jallikattu and bullock cart racing,  an also brutal pastime frequently practiced during harvest festivals.

Also on the list of animals banned from performance use are lions,  tigers,  leopards,  panthers,  bears,  and monkeys.

Bullock cart race

Bullock cart racers

Bullock cart racers challenged the addition of bulls to the list,  but “The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960…in our view overshadows or overrides so-called tradition and culture,”  ruled a two-judge panel representing the Supreme Court of India on May 7,  2014.

Reviving jallikattu as a political issue was the rivalry between two Tamil Nadu regional political parties in the months leading toward an election that is expected to be called for mid-to-late April 2016.

Tamil Nadu politics

The ruling party,  headed by former actress J. Jayalalithaa,  sought unsuccessfully to reinstitute jallikattu.  After Jayalalithaa failed,  the leading Tamil Nadu minority party,  aligned with the federal Bharatiya Janata Party,  tried to upstage Jayalalithaa by prevailing on the Ministry for Environment & Forests to administratively remove bulls from the list of animals who may not be used in performance.

This was done on January 7,  2016.

As well as authorizing jallikattu to proceed in Tamil Nadu,  removing bulls from the list of protected species allowed bullock cart racing to resume in six other states:  Gujarat,  Haryana,  Karnataka,  Kerala,  Maharashtra and Punjab.

North & south

But the federal edict allowing jallikattu to resume had barely been issued when Animal Welfare Board of India chair R.M. Kharb and vice chair Chinny Krishna appealed to the Supreme Court of India,  in a situation depicted by pro-jallikattu politicians as a conflict between the cultures of the Indian north and south.

The appearance of the issue as a north/south conflict was whetted when Supreme Court of India Justice R. Banumathi,  a Tamil Nadu native and former member of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in Chennai,  India,  recused herself from hearing the appeal.

Banumathi,  however,  recused herself not to avoid any suspicion that she might favor Tamil Nadu,  but rather because,  as Krishna remembered,  “Justice Bhanumathi was the first judge to ban jallikattu,  many, many years ago,” in the March 2006 case that led to the 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

“Justice delayed is justice denied”

Fumed Krishna,  “That the whole lifting of the ban is a political exercise and aimed at the next elections in Tamil Nadu a few months away is obvious.  We know that justice will finally triumph,  but we also know that justice delayed is justice denied.  The bulls waited for 50 years for the Supreme Court to finally rule that we were indeed right when we interpreted the most obvious statement in the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act banning animal fights to include jallikattu.  Do we have to wait even longer now?”

Allegations of northern cultural prejudice against the Indian south have had political currency in India since 1965,  when the federal government made Hindi the national language,  even though it is rarely spoken in the southern and eastern regions where Tamil,  Telegu,  and Bengali prevail.  English is the one language commonly spoken in all parts of India.

Belying the claim that opposition to jallikattu arises from northern cultural prejudice is the reality that the Animal Welfare Board of India is based in Chennai,  the Tamil Nadu capital city.

Bull runs away from jallikattu event.
(From YouTube video)

Kharb & Krishna refuse to resign

The Indian federal government,  under Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi,  who comes from the Hindi-speaking northern state of Rajasthan,  reportedly demanded the resignations of both Kharb and Krishna.

Kharb,  heading the Animal Welfare Board of India since June 2006,  retired from the Indian army veterinary corps with the rank of major general.  Krishna,  one of the architects of the Indian space program,  has directed the Chennai-based Blue Cross of India since 1964.  Both Kharb and Krishna have deep personal roots in Tamil Nadu;  Krishna’s family is known to have resided in Tamil Nadu since the earliest surviving written records from the region.

Jallikattu and cockfighting shared the spotlight in 2011.

Kharb and Krishna both refused to resign.

“Ahimsa is part of our culture”

Explained Krishna to Firstpost,  “The AWBI chair and vice-chair are at par [in political rank] with a Minister of State,”  meaning that that they have no obligation to resign in response to a ministerial request.

“The Indian constitution enshrines that we should have compassion towards all living creatures,”  Krishna continued.  “We are the only country in the world to have an Animal Welfare Board,”  with a constitutional mandate to protect animals as well as to regulate human economic use of animals.

“Ahimsa is part of our culture,”  Krishna emphasized.  “People are talking about how jallikattu is not as bad as bullfights in Spain.  I don’t care about bullfighting in Spain!  Do you want to bring yourself down to the level of bullfighting in Spain or do you want to move up to the level of Ashoka,  Buddha,  and Mahatma Gandhi?

Bulls await use in jallikattu. (People for Cattle in India photo)

Money

But Krishna acknowledged a political conflict in that the Animal Welfare Board of India is funded by the Ministry of Forests & Environment,  albeit that the board members serve without compensations.

“We are the only statutory body in government whose office bearers don’t take a penny as salary,”  Krishna said.  “We do this job because we believe in the cause.”

Post-verdict,  Krishna saw as “The first task” before the AWBI as “to get funding from the Consolidated Fund of India and not through some ministry.  We are hopeful that this is in the works,”  Krishna said,  despite the likelihood that the embarrassed federal government may now be unlikely to want to do the AWBI any favors.

Jayalalithaa

Jayalalithaa tries again

Jayalalithaa,  meanwhile,  responded to the Supreme Court of India verdict by appealing to prime minister Modi “to promulgate an ordinance forthwith to enable the conduct of jallikattu,”   exactly what the Supreme Court panel had ruled that the Modi government had no authority to do.

The Supreme Court of India panel directed the various factions seeking to reinstate jallikattu and bullock cart racing to prepare arguments for a further hearing on the constitutionality of prohibiting the use of bulls as performing animals.  The hearing,  however,  is unlikely to be scheduled before the Tamil Nadu election,  and in any event the court has already repeatedly spoken to the issue.

Goat sacrifice. The heads of chickens sacrificed earlier may be seen at left.
(Merritt Clifton photo)

Other mayhem

The conflict over jallikattu was only one of many involving animals that have recurred for decades in each harvest festival season.

Called Makar Sankranti in the mostly Hindi-speaking states of the north India,  Pongal in the mostly Tamil-speaking states,  and Sulia Yatra in rural Odisha state,  formerly called Orissa,  Indian harvest festivals in regions where jallikattu and bullock cart racing are not the focal entertainments often feature fighter kite-flying contests,  animal sacrifice,  and cockfighting and other bird fights.

Animal sacrifice

The vast majority of people in most of India have not practiced animal sacrifice since Vedic times,  but the custom persists among several Hindu sects and among the “unscheduled castes” or “tribal” people of many rural regions,  despite growing opposition even from local religious leadership.

Tamil Nadu cockfighting.
(From YouTube video)

Reported the Odisha Post News Network on January 12,  2016,  “The roads of Khairguda village under Tushra block in Bolangir district turned a tinge of red as thousands of animals and birds were sacrificed at the Sulia shrine.  The animal sacrifice was carried out notwithstanding the head priest Biranchi Narayan Kuanr’s attempts to stop the menace.”

Kuanr,  as managing trustee of the shrine,  appealed unsuccessfully to civic authorities and police to help him stop the killing.  Altogether,  residents of 11 villages in the Bolangir district participated in sacrificing animals.

Tamil Nadu cockfighters.
(From YouTube video)

Cockfighting claimed as religious rite

Similar sacrifices proceeded in other rural districts around India,  protected by the guarantee of freedom of religion in the Indian constitution.  Cockfighting,  banned as a secular gambling pastime,  is commonly practiced in and around temples in Odisha state,  in particular,  as a purportedly also protected religious rite.  Temple-based bulbul fights have been historically conducted in the extreme northeast of India,  as in Assam,  under similar pretenses.

Makar Sankranti kite launch.

Fighter kites

But blatant and bloody as they are,  harvest festival animal sacrifice,  cockfighting,  and all other forms of bird-fighting combined probably claim fewer animal lives than fighter kite-flying contests,  which annually kill birds by the tens of thousands,  even with no intent to do birds harm.

First,  miles of taut kite string fill the skies over major cities during Makar Sankranti celebrations in Rajasthan,  Punjab,  Bijar,  Gujarat,  Jharkhand,  and parts of Bengal.  Much of the kite string is coated with a thin paste including broken glass,  the better to saw off rival flyers’ strings.  Some of the string is nylon monofilament.  Some,  the deadliest,  combines nylon monofilament with the paste made from broken glass.

(See also Makar Sankranti cuts birds out of the skies.)

(Plant & Animal Welfare Society photo)

Rescue efforts

Later,  after the fighter kite contests,  broken kite strings are draped over trees,  electrical lines,  fences and buildings.

Birds soaring or swooping unawares into either taut kite strings or dangling loops of abandoned strings tend to suffer injuries resembling deep knife cuts into their wings and shoulder muscles.

Owl rescued by Jiv Daya team.

Abruptly losing their ability to fly,  the injured birds plummet to the ground,  where they are easily roadkilled,  attacked by predators,  or just lie in pain until death.

Animal rescue societies in Ahmedabad, Mumbai,  Jaipur,  and other cities where Makar Sankranti kite-flying contests are big,  annually organize battalions of volunteers to rescue and rehabilitate as many birds as possible.

Yet only a fraction of the numbers of birds who are hurt are ever returned to the skies.

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Please donate to support our work:http://www.animals24-7.org/donate/ 

Your opportunity to help ANIMALS 24-7 match a grant of up to $101,000 has been extended until the end of 2016.

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Your opportunity to help ANIMALS 24-7 match a grant of up to $101,000 has been extended until the end of 2016.

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