(by Patricia Mazzei/Miami Herald) Nowhere might the rise of abandoned pets, victims of the slumping economy, be more evident than in the southwest corners of Miami-Dade County. They wake before dawn on Saturdays and Sundays, pack their traps and doggie-treat bait and head to the avocado grove, thick with sawgrass and mud, dumped tires and an old toilet. It is the puppy roundup. The task for these canine rescuers: to hide in the bushes and, using hand signals and treats, lure the feral puppies covered in fleas and ticks. If things go well, they grab them and take them to foster homes to clean, train and vaccinate until they're ready for adoption. If not, they try again the next day. ''It's like a military operation,'' said Pamela Gray, who runs a Doberman pinscher shelter in Homestead and played lookout from a step ladder in her yard during a recent trapping attempt.
Miami-Dade County's animal services department has always taken in thousands of animals a year -- more than 34,000 in 2008, according to Dr. Sara Pizano, the department's director. But as the tanking economy has forced more people out of their jobs and homes, more pets are being left behind. ''We are now receiving weekly calls from police having us go into foreclosed homes with them because pets have been abandoned,'' Pizano said. "That's not something that happened a year or two ago.'' And she said the problem is worse in rural South Miami-Dade, which for years has been the spot where people dumped their unwanted dogs, cats and even horses, thinking they could be turned loose in the fields that line the fringes of the Everglades.
That has left harried dog rescuers from Palmetto Bay to Homestead struggling to cope with the abandoned animals. ''We're seeing more now than ever in the Redland, in Homestead, all kinds of rural areas,'' said Dee Chess of Friends Forever Rescue in Palmetto Bay. "And it's not just big dogs anymore.'' It's also the puppies and their mothers. Sometimes just one or the other; as unlicensed or accidental breeders find fewer buyers for their litters. ''People can just reach over the fence, drop a litter of pups and drive away,'' said Barbara St. Aubin of Homestead, who recently started her This is the Dog! rescue. "I've had nurseries call me, `We've found six, eight puppies here, can you help?''' The answer: Not always.
Shelters are full, and people are reluctant to turn the dogs over to county Animal Services, where they will get put down if they are not adopted.
So many dogs linger in the wild, coming out mostly at sunrise and sundown, the veteran strays focused on hunting for food, the rookies looking slightly lost trying to evade semis and pickup trucks to cross the streets. Some, like the ones in the avocado grove, have formed packs, the result of generations of strays reproducing and fending for themselves. Most just wander the streets and plant nurseries, looking for workers to throw leftovers their way.
Neighbors are used to it, telling stories of dogs that arrived at their doorsteps, hungry and lonely, eventually to become beloved pets.
There's the dog Patricia Fisher's neighbor found abandoned with a box of toys and a blanket. The one with bloodied paws, now christened Slinky; that found its way to the house of Sgt. James Hutton of Miami-Dade police's agricultural patrol. And Solar, whom Dianne Alexander lassoed in the middle of an intersection as the emaciated dog with chain marks and cigarette burns tried to eat the asphalt. ''It gets to the point. . .if you see a dog on the side of the road and he isn't starving and he's not in trouble and he seems to know what he's doing, you leave him alone,'' Alexander said.
County law allows people to own four dogs in a residential property less than an acre and up to eight dogs in two acres or more. Many folks in South Miami-Dade are already at their limit. The solution, as always, would be for people to register, identify, and spay or neuter their pets. Would-be pet owners should also know what they're getting into; from how big their puppy will become to knowing how to select the right pet from a reputable breeder. And, of course, people should stop thinking that domesticated animals will thrive in the rustic edges of the county. 'They say, "Oh, these people have property. They've got room for them,' '' Fisher said. "People down here are animal lovers, but it becomes overwhelming, and you feel so terrible when you have to pass one up.''
Commentary: Two culprits that avoid any criticism in this article are the Puppy Mills that often just throw out the dogs that get too big and too old, and the fact that the people who have lost their homes to foreclosures then have to move to an apartment, and the leasing laws in Florida allow owners to ban pets and most apartments do not accept pets. So people who lose their homes and have to move to an apartment often do not have any choice and must give up their dog one way or another. It is not that easy to find a willing friend or neighbor to take over the care and maintenance of a full grown older dog. This is all very sad for the dogs, they are Man's (and Women's) Best Friends, and yet they end up on the scrap heap of society in every city in every part of the USA. There really needs to be some kind of permit process in order for people to own dogs. Dogs should not just be as disposable as a used diaper.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
PEDIPAWS
For Christmas, I bought my two dogs a PediPaws so that I could painlessly trim 
their nails. I have a Jack Russell Terrier and a Shih-Tzu, which are both small to medium dogs. I have trimmed their nails before with those nail trimmers that are sold at most pet shops for under $10. It looks like it is an uncomfortable and sometimes painful experience for the dogs. I want my dogs to be as happy as possible, so I was looking forward to using PediPaws, especially after seeing so many commercials for this product. PediPaws costs $19.99, and I bought this at Walgreens Pharmacy. With much excitement, we all brought the dogs to the living room and began trying to trim their nails. Not much happened. PediPaws seemed to be shining their nails, not trimming them. If you pressed too hard on the sanding head, it just stopped. PediPaws is battery operated, so that means that it has very little power. The motor is probably one of those tiny little magnetized motors that are on the smallest motorized RC vehicles. In short, PediPaws sucked and after trying it on both dogs and all of their nails I boxed it all up and returned it to the store. I cannot really describe how very little the PediPaws did. The sanding head that attaches to the tip was micro-fine paper, which basically did very little to trim a hard nail.
their nails. I have a Jack Russell Terrier and a Shih-Tzu, which are both small to medium dogs. I have trimmed their nails before with those nail trimmers that are sold at most pet shops for under $10. It looks like it is an uncomfortable and sometimes painful experience for the dogs. I want my dogs to be as happy as possible, so I was looking forward to using PediPaws, especially after seeing so many commercials for this product. PediPaws costs $19.99, and I bought this at Walgreens Pharmacy. With much excitement, we all brought the dogs to the living room and began trying to trim their nails. Not much happened. PediPaws seemed to be shining their nails, not trimming them. If you pressed too hard on the sanding head, it just stopped. PediPaws is battery operated, so that means that it has very little power. The motor is probably one of those tiny little magnetized motors that are on the smallest motorized RC vehicles. In short, PediPaws sucked and after trying it on both dogs and all of their nails I boxed it all up and returned it to the store. I cannot really describe how very little the PediPaws did. The sanding head that attaches to the tip was micro-fine paper, which basically did very little to trim a hard nail. Friday, December 26, 2008
Chinese Christmas Chow
GUANGZHOU, China – While animal lovers in Beijing protested the killing 
of cats for food, a butcher in Guangdong province, where felines are the main ingredient in a famous soup; just shrugged her shoulders and wielded her cleaver. "Cats have a strong flavor. Dogs taste much better, but kittens are the most tasty," said the butcher, Ho Huang. It was just this attitude that outraged about 40 cat lovers who unfurled banners in a tearful protest outside the Guangdong government office in Beijing. Many were retirees who care for stray felines they said were being rounded up by dealers. "We must make them correct this uncivilized behavior," said Wang Hongyao, who represented the group in submitting a letter urging the provincial government to crack down on traders and restaurants, although there are no laws against eating dogs and cats, or serving them in restaurants.
COMMUNIST STAND AGAINST PETS: The protest was the latest clash between age-old traditions and the new
sensibilities made possible by China's growing affluence. Pet ownership was once rare because the Communist Party condemned it as bourgeois and most people simply couldn't afford a cat or dog. The protesters' indignation was whipped up by recent reports in Chinese newspapers about the cat meat industry. On Monday, the Southern Metropolis Daily, a Guangdong paper famous for its exposes and aggressive reporting; ran a story that said about 1,000 cats were transported by train to Guangdong each day. The animals came from Nanjing, a major trading hub for cats, the newspaper said. They were brought to market by dealers on motorcycles, crammed into wooden crates and sent to Guangdong on trains. A photo showed a cat with green eyes peering from a crowded crate. Another photo showed a roasted cat being served at a popular restaurant in Guangdong. Chinese celebrities often make a point of being seen in public eating cats and dogs in order to curry favor with the Communist Party.
PET STEALING: Some people in Nanjing spend their days "fishing for
cats," often stealing pets, the report said. One cat owner in Guanghzou said people are afraid to let their pets leave the house for fear they will get nabbed. "It's never been this bad. Who knows, it might be because of the bad economy. I've heard that there are cat-nabbing syndicates from Hunan that are rounding up cats," said the man, who would only give his surname, Lai, because he feared the cat business might be run by gangsters. Animal protection groups have occasionally ambushed truck convoys loaded with bamboo cages filled with cats bound for Guangdong. In one recent case, hundreds of cats escaped after their cages were opened, though hundreds more remained penned in the vehicle. Lai Xiaoyu, who was involved in the attempted "rescue," said authorities couldn't stop the cat shipment because the traders said the animals were to be raised as pets. "The police did what they could, but there's little they can do to stop or punish those traders from shipping live animals," Lai said.
PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, issued a
statement Thursday decrying the cruel treatment. "China has no animal protection laws, and throughout the country scores of cats and dogs are bred or rounded up, crammed onto trucks and driven for days under hellish conditions to animal markets, where they are beaten to death, strangled or boiled alive," said a spokesman for the group, Michael V. McGraw. Guangdong is home to the Cantonese people, famous for being the most adventurous eaters in China. There's a popular saying: "The Cantonese will eat anything that flies, except airplanes, and anything with legs, except a chair." Zhu Huilian, a nutrition and food safety professor at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong's capital, Guangzhou, said people usually eat cat in restaurants, not at home. Dogs on the other hand, are often purchased at markets and then taken home and slaughtered. "Most Chinese prefer to gut and clean their own dogs, though it is becoming more common to let the butcher do all the work. This costs more money. In the rural areas, dogs are kept as livestock, and the puppies are grown to be eaten. The meat of a young dog is very tender and sweet."
ANIMAL CRACKERS: "There's a famous soup called 'Dragon, Tiger and
Phoenix,'" local cafe owner Wo Feng said. "It involves cooking snake, cat and chicken together." "We like serve soup with animal crackers. All have good laugh," said Cheu Wang, a local chop-shop cook. "In winter more people eat cats as they believe it's extra nutritious. I like cat only in soup. I prefer dog meat for cooking." The wide-ranging Cantonese culinary tastes are on display daily in Guangzhou, also known as Canton, in the Qing Ping Market. Shopkeepers sit behind cages full of writhing snakes, crates with puppies for sale, tubs filled with swimming turtles and plastic basins with mounds of scorpions crawling over each other. That's where the butcher, Ho Huang, sells her meat, sliced on a blood-soaked cutting board in a stall filled with cages of chickens and rabbits.
DOG CHOW: Hanging on a hook from its head — with its snout cut cleanly off — was a skinned dog with a long curly tail, paws with small
clumps of fur still on them and black claws. The dog's jaw bone was displayed in a metal tray beneath the carcass. "The cat meat we sell comes from legitimate sources," said Ho Huang. "It's from cat farms. The animals are raised the same way cows are." She said cat meat sold for about $1.32 a pound, while dog meat was cheaper, at about 95 cents a pound. Chicken was the best buy at 62 cents a pound, while lamb sold for about $1.32. Ho Huang said customers had to order cat meat a day in advance because it doesn't sell as well as dog. "Cat tastes a bit like lamb. I don't like it much," she said. "Young cats are tender, but the meat on the older ones is really tough. Usually old people like eating it. I like dogs better. I make very expensive, special dish with dog testicles, and that is powerful aphrodesiac to make men more potent. Next day, men come by and pay extra tip to me if they have great night in bedroom."
of cats for food, a butcher in Guangdong province, where felines are the main ingredient in a famous soup; just shrugged her shoulders and wielded her cleaver. "Cats have a strong flavor. Dogs taste much better, but kittens are the most tasty," said the butcher, Ho Huang. It was just this attitude that outraged about 40 cat lovers who unfurled banners in a tearful protest outside the Guangdong government office in Beijing. Many were retirees who care for stray felines they said were being rounded up by dealers. "We must make them correct this uncivilized behavior," said Wang Hongyao, who represented the group in submitting a letter urging the provincial government to crack down on traders and restaurants, although there are no laws against eating dogs and cats, or serving them in restaurants.COMMUNIST STAND AGAINST PETS: The protest was the latest clash between age-old traditions and the new
sensibilities made possible by China's growing affluence. Pet ownership was once rare because the Communist Party condemned it as bourgeois and most people simply couldn't afford a cat or dog. The protesters' indignation was whipped up by recent reports in Chinese newspapers about the cat meat industry. On Monday, the Southern Metropolis Daily, a Guangdong paper famous for its exposes and aggressive reporting; ran a story that said about 1,000 cats were transported by train to Guangdong each day. The animals came from Nanjing, a major trading hub for cats, the newspaper said. They were brought to market by dealers on motorcycles, crammed into wooden crates and sent to Guangdong on trains. A photo showed a cat with green eyes peering from a crowded crate. Another photo showed a roasted cat being served at a popular restaurant in Guangdong. Chinese celebrities often make a point of being seen in public eating cats and dogs in order to curry favor with the Communist Party.PET STEALING: Some people in Nanjing spend their days "fishing for
cats," often stealing pets, the report said. One cat owner in Guanghzou said people are afraid to let their pets leave the house for fear they will get nabbed. "It's never been this bad. Who knows, it might be because of the bad economy. I've heard that there are cat-nabbing syndicates from Hunan that are rounding up cats," said the man, who would only give his surname, Lai, because he feared the cat business might be run by gangsters. Animal protection groups have occasionally ambushed truck convoys loaded with bamboo cages filled with cats bound for Guangdong. In one recent case, hundreds of cats escaped after their cages were opened, though hundreds more remained penned in the vehicle. Lai Xiaoyu, who was involved in the attempted "rescue," said authorities couldn't stop the cat shipment because the traders said the animals were to be raised as pets. "The police did what they could, but there's little they can do to stop or punish those traders from shipping live animals," Lai said.PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, issued a
statement Thursday decrying the cruel treatment. "China has no animal protection laws, and throughout the country scores of cats and dogs are bred or rounded up, crammed onto trucks and driven for days under hellish conditions to animal markets, where they are beaten to death, strangled or boiled alive," said a spokesman for the group, Michael V. McGraw. Guangdong is home to the Cantonese people, famous for being the most adventurous eaters in China. There's a popular saying: "The Cantonese will eat anything that flies, except airplanes, and anything with legs, except a chair." Zhu Huilian, a nutrition and food safety professor at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong's capital, Guangzhou, said people usually eat cat in restaurants, not at home. Dogs on the other hand, are often purchased at markets and then taken home and slaughtered. "Most Chinese prefer to gut and clean their own dogs, though it is becoming more common to let the butcher do all the work. This costs more money. In the rural areas, dogs are kept as livestock, and the puppies are grown to be eaten. The meat of a young dog is very tender and sweet."ANIMAL CRACKERS: "There's a famous soup called 'Dragon, Tiger and
Phoenix,'" local cafe owner Wo Feng said. "It involves cooking snake, cat and chicken together." "We like serve soup with animal crackers. All have good laugh," said Cheu Wang, a local chop-shop cook. "In winter more people eat cats as they believe it's extra nutritious. I like cat only in soup. I prefer dog meat for cooking." The wide-ranging Cantonese culinary tastes are on display daily in Guangzhou, also known as Canton, in the Qing Ping Market. Shopkeepers sit behind cages full of writhing snakes, crates with puppies for sale, tubs filled with swimming turtles and plastic basins with mounds of scorpions crawling over each other. That's where the butcher, Ho Huang, sells her meat, sliced on a blood-soaked cutting board in a stall filled with cages of chickens and rabbits.DOG CHOW: Hanging on a hook from its head — with its snout cut cleanly off — was a skinned dog with a long curly tail, paws with small
clumps of fur still on them and black claws. The dog's jaw bone was displayed in a metal tray beneath the carcass. "The cat meat we sell comes from legitimate sources," said Ho Huang. "It's from cat farms. The animals are raised the same way cows are." She said cat meat sold for about $1.32 a pound, while dog meat was cheaper, at about 95 cents a pound. Chicken was the best buy at 62 cents a pound, while lamb sold for about $1.32. Ho Huang said customers had to order cat meat a day in advance because it doesn't sell as well as dog. "Cat tastes a bit like lamb. I don't like it much," she said. "Young cats are tender, but the meat on the older ones is really tough. Usually old people like eating it. I like dogs better. I make very expensive, special dish with dog testicles, and that is powerful aphrodesiac to make men more potent. Next day, men come by and pay extra tip to me if they have great night in bedroom."Saturday, November 22, 2008
NFL Dog Fighting
Former National Football League quarterback Michael Vick put family pets in rings with pit bulls 
and thought it was funny watching the trained killers injure or kill the helpless dogs, a witness told federal investigators during the dog-fighting investigation that brought Vick down. In a 17-page report by case agent James Knorr of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Vick placed pets in the ring against pit bulls owned by “Bad Newz Kennels” at least twice and watched as the pit bulls “caused major injuries.” The witness said Vick and co-defendants Purnell Peace and Quanis Phillips “thought it was funny to watch the pit bull dogs injure or kill the other dogs.” Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison and is due to be released from the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, on July 20, 2009. The report also details the killing of several dogs at 
property Vick owned on Moonlight Road in Surry County. It says Vick was administered a polygraph test by the FBI in October 2007 and denied taking part in the killing of dogs. When told he had failed that part of the test, Vick recanted his story and admitted to helping hang six to eight under-performing dogs. The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, once the highest paid player in the NFL, has been suspended indefinitely by the league and his football future is uncertain. He’s also in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings with $16 million in assets and $20.4 million in liabilities. Peace, who also was convicted in the case, said there were times he suggested that dogs unwilling to fight be given away, 
but that Vick said “they got to go,” meaning be killed. The dogs were killed by shooting, hanging, electrocution and drowning, and in at least one instance Vick and Phillips killed a red pit bull by “slamming it to the ground several times before it died, breaking the dog’s back or neck.” Vick also said he purchased his first pull bull while a student at Virginia Tech in 1999. Miami Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter commented on the possible reinstatement of Michael Vick when he gets out of prison, "He's already been punished enough," said Porter, who owns a pair of pit bulls. "They gave him his penalty. He paid his penalty. What else should they do to him now? All it was was just dogs. They don't even like pit bulls anyway. That's the funny thing about it. I got pit bulls, I got to put them under a different breed just to travel. So you can't even fly pit bulls nowhere. It's a breed nobody likes and they don't care about. It's not like he was fighting cocker spaniels. They don't really care too much about pit bulls, so what's the bid deal?" Profootballtalk.com has reported that Porter let his pitbull loose and it killed a miniature horse.
Commentary?: What can you say about people that have no conscience? They do not see anything wrong with what they do. They are completely amoral and proud of it. For these guys, killing dogs and other animals is entertainment and fun. Too bad those dogs that were victimized by Michael Vick and others never got a chance to shoot back when they were being killed. Though most dogs are so faithful that they would not bite their owners even if they knew they were going to be killed. Dogs are Man's Best Friend, too bad that sometimes Man is not a good friend to dogs.
and thought it was funny watching the trained killers injure or kill the helpless dogs, a witness told federal investigators during the dog-fighting investigation that brought Vick down. In a 17-page report by case agent James Knorr of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Vick placed pets in the ring against pit bulls owned by “Bad Newz Kennels” at least twice and watched as the pit bulls “caused major injuries.” The witness said Vick and co-defendants Purnell Peace and Quanis Phillips “thought it was funny to watch the pit bull dogs injure or kill the other dogs.” Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison and is due to be released from the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, on July 20, 2009. The report also details the killing of several dogs at 
property Vick owned on Moonlight Road in Surry County. It says Vick was administered a polygraph test by the FBI in October 2007 and denied taking part in the killing of dogs. When told he had failed that part of the test, Vick recanted his story and admitted to helping hang six to eight under-performing dogs. The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, once the highest paid player in the NFL, has been suspended indefinitely by the league and his football future is uncertain. He’s also in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings with $16 million in assets and $20.4 million in liabilities. Peace, who also was convicted in the case, said there were times he suggested that dogs unwilling to fight be given away, 
but that Vick said “they got to go,” meaning be killed. The dogs were killed by shooting, hanging, electrocution and drowning, and in at least one instance Vick and Phillips killed a red pit bull by “slamming it to the ground several times before it died, breaking the dog’s back or neck.” Vick also said he purchased his first pull bull while a student at Virginia Tech in 1999. Miami Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter commented on the possible reinstatement of Michael Vick when he gets out of prison, "He's already been punished enough," said Porter, who owns a pair of pit bulls. "They gave him his penalty. He paid his penalty. What else should they do to him now? All it was was just dogs. They don't even like pit bulls anyway. That's the funny thing about it. I got pit bulls, I got to put them under a different breed just to travel. So you can't even fly pit bulls nowhere. It's a breed nobody likes and they don't care about. It's not like he was fighting cocker spaniels. They don't really care too much about pit bulls, so what's the bid deal?" Profootballtalk.com has reported that Porter let his pitbull loose and it killed a miniature horse.Commentary?: What can you say about people that have no conscience? They do not see anything wrong with what they do. They are completely amoral and proud of it. For these guys, killing dogs and other animals is entertainment and fun. Too bad those dogs that were victimized by Michael Vick and others never got a chance to shoot back when they were being killed. Though most dogs are so faithful that they would not bite their owners even if they knew they were going to be killed. Dogs are Man's Best Friend, too bad that sometimes Man is not a good friend to dogs.
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