Case Update: The owner of Porkchop, the neutered, vaccinated and bathed kitten who was killed upon impound by Mobile Co, AL for being “feral” in 2013, filed a lawsuit against the county. Part of that lawsuit includes newly released video evidence from the pound reportedly showing that Porkchop was not feral and simply fast-tracked to the kill room in violation of the mandatory holding period law. (I have not watched the video because it appears from the description that it may show Porkchop being killed.) The workers responsible for Porkchop’s unlawful killing are still employed at the pound. (Thank you Clarice for the link.)
After one cat at the Denton Animal Shelter in TX was diagnosed with calicivirus, the decision was made to kill 87 kittens and 10 cats at the facility. The police department which oversees the shelter used the mass killing as an opportunity to remind the irresponsible public to vaccinate their pets and donate money. No word on how the unwashed masses have responded to the advice. (Thanks Mike.)
A shelter medicine vet recently toured the outdated Porter Co, IN shelter and found conditions to be inhumane. County officials have yet to take meaningful action on building a new facility, despite having $157 million in the bank from the sale of a hospital in 2007 and an offer of another $1 million from an anonymous donor. (Thanks Arlene.)
A Salt Lake City police officer allegedly shot a dog to death last year while the dog was in his own yard. The owner has been trying to file a lawsuit against the officer but state law requires him to put up a bond for the estimated cost of the officer’s entire defense and court costs in advance. (Thanks Laura.)
Good idea: ACOs in Franklin Co, Ohio are leaving notices posted in public places where they pick up loose dogs so their owners can find them. (Thanks mikken and Daniela.)
A debate on whether cats are truly domesticated animals.
I do not know what’s happens to a person that makes killing animals, just another day at the shelter?
Oh, good grief, yet another essay on how domestic cats are. These things are like the targets in a game of whack-a-mole. I wish I could take every sorry page and convert them to litter.
Every time I see another one of these, I wonder how many cats will be indirectly harmed by it. Because at bottom, no matter how well-meaning the essayist, they’re not actually about what cats are but rather what some people want to believe cats are, and then kill them for it.
Could not agree more! So fed up with these kinds of articles that just fuel cat haters. They are as bad as all those ridiculous cat statistics often being spouted. Cats have been with humans for about 10,000 years, they have meows just for people, they look at where a person points, they show love of people and have saved lives. All signs of a domesticated animal. They cannot look after themselves when abandoned, as any colony caretaker knows, and anyone who has ever taken in a starving stray. Cats are intelligent, feeling, sentient beings, and don’t deserve all the crap being dumped on them. I think too many people have been brainwashed by the barrage of negative portrayals of cats in kids’ cartoons, where dogs are shown as dumb but lovable, and cats as treacherous and bad. And this is still going on now, with very few exceptions.
Some of the sentiments in that article are interesting. One being the idea that it would be impossible to train a goat or a sheep to sleep in the house. While I have never attempted it, I can’t imagine it would be an impossible task. I assume goats and sheep have individual personalities (I’ve met some who very much enjoyed human company and petting) and some might take to it better than others but it just does not strike me as the absurd idea it’s put forth as. I’m not saying a goat in the bed but possibly sleeping in a laundry room or some other area where for example, people might have their otherwise outdoor dogs sleep during severe weather.
ETA: There is a story circulating this week about a man who kept 2 deer as pets living in his house for years. He’s been charged and the deer were released. I hope they do all right.
This too is interesting:
As with any broad generalization, it’s problematic. We don’t know if house cats hunt as well as wild cats for many reasons including that many house cats are kept indoors and never allowed outside. And as a dog owner who recently had 2 dogs kill and eat a rabbit who happened into our yard, I balk at the idea that the hunting instinct has been bred out of dogs. When well fed, well cared for pet dogs kill and eat prey animals, that is nothing but instinct to my mind.
At any rate, I imagine the debate will continue, right alongside the “your dog is a wolf” debate. Although as you point out, nobody is arguing that dogs should be exterminated in that one.
As the owner of a dog who regularly hunts groundhogs (and has killed and eaten them), I have to agree.
Not to mention all the people and places that still actively use dogs to hunt or assist the hunt. The very idea that “it’s been bred out of them” is beyond ridiculous. We had a little terrier mix at the shelter who fixated on the guinea pigs like nobody’s business. If he had had access to them, he surely would have eaten them.
I own a cat who was dumped outside, pregnant and starving. She had her babies near a soccer field and knew she was in trouble (she was rail thin and giving all she had to her three little ones). She saw kids playing soccer and ran up to them, begging for help. When an adult approached her, she ran back to her babies to show what was needed. She had no idea how to hunt or what to do, other than get human help. Not domesticated? I call BS.
Some cats can survive in the wild just as some dogs can. I’m going to have to think that quite a lot cannot, though.
You know, I just realized – feral cats. A feral animal is either descended from domesticated animals or an animal who was once domesticated, but has reverted to a “wild” state.
If they acknowledge that there are feral cats, then they must acknowledge that cats are domesticated.
People have for millennia lived with their livestock. European Neolithic longhouses housed livestock as well as the several families to whom they belonged, and well into the 17th and 18th C. people still commonly built longhouses or ‘housebarns’ where the living quarters for the family were either in the long loft above the barn, or the barn was attached to the house, sometimes with an interior door between the two. For that matter, farmers and ranchers still bring in animals who need a bit extra, like orphans or sick babies. Bottom line: the distinction between inside and outside domestic animals hasn’t ever been so strict as some (sadly researchers among them) seem to think. And that’s not even taking into account livestock taken inside as pets.
As for house cats hunting as well as wild cats and dogs having had it ‘bred out’ of them … this is bias at work. There are guys who make a living in the county I live, by hiring out their packs of terriers and curs to hunt rodents … and this is in effete northern California. I’ve also heard many a friend express dismay at their dogs having killed some animals who strayed into the yard. I’ve also seen my own cats struck with dismay and wonder at little birds who’ve gotten into the house, completely unable to cope.
That change in Franklin County is likely brought on by the Piper lawsuit they are facing. It’s still in the courts thanks to the “rescue’s” lawyer pulling every trick in the book to force delays, but they and the county are going to loose. Judge number one was forced to step down for telling them that, and all signs point toward judge number two thinking it.
Facebook page for the Denton 97, cats and kittens killed because one cat “possibly” had calici. https://www.facebook.com/DentonKilled97?notif_t=fbpage_fan_invite