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In memory of ‘Forgotten Dog’ Daniel, let’s get animals on the agenda (Opinion)

Photo: Yvette Holzbach, Yvette Holzbach Photography

by Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

I rarely write news articles in the first person. To my mind, news is best delivered through traditional journalism, where reporters gather facts and viewpoints, present them accurately and fairly, and keep themselves strictly out of the way.

Tonight, because I can’t stop crying, and because I feel sick, I can’t keep myself out of it.

Daniel is gone. I never met him. I only wrote about him. But like hundreds of others following his story, I wanted him to make it.

Daniel is gone. So are billions of other Daniels, whose deaths were just as senseless.

Daniel is gone. And at this very moment millions more Daniels out there stagger along the same road, headed in the same direction.

I’m sick of it. I can barely stand it anymore. Sometimes I feel my head is going to explode. My heart already has. Continue reading →

‘Strong will to live’: Rescuers try new treatment for severely ill street dog Daniel

Daniel battles starvation, mange, and the involuntary jerking movements left behind after a bout with distemper.
Photo: Yvette Holzbach

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

It’s a wrenching decision. You live in a city where thousands of homeless animals struggle to survive the nightmare of the streets. You work hard, spending your own time and money, and sometimes risking your health, safety, and sanity to catch, nurse, and find homes for as many of the desperate creatures as you can. But some of them are in such bad shape—racked by disease and starvation—that the kindest thing you can offer is a painless death in a veterinarian’s office.

Kelle Mann Davis recently faced such a decision. Volunteers in her group Forgotten Dogs of the Fifth Ward Project, which cares for dogs and cats from one of the most deeply impoverished and crime-ridden areas of Houston, had found an extremely ill dog they named Daniel. Continue reading →

Serial killers’ worst crimes are done to farmed animals ‘on a mass scale,’ says undercover investigator

Undercover investigator ‘Andy’ worked in a slaughterhouse to gather video footage for HBO’s award-winning documentary ‘Death on a Factory Farm.’
Photo: HBO

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

The Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) annual Genesis Awards can be a lovely experience. At a glittering hotel in Beverly Hills, celebrities glow in their gowns and tuxes, banquet tables offer gourmet vegan delights, and applause thunders for quotes and clips from media projects that focus on animal issues.

The event can can also be disorienting. Amidst the glitter and glow, there’s the underlying awareness of why the awards are held: to spotlight the cruelty that HSUS says is perpetrated upon animals of all kinds, every day, around the world.  Continue reading →

Puppy importer brings in ‘defective’ animals, then leaves them at vet’s to be killed, says rescuer

‘Defective’ merchandise: blind Jack Russell pups abandoned at vet’s to be killed. / Photo: Achaic Society for the Care of Animals

An individual who imports puppies—perhaps from Hungary where there are many high-volume dog breeders—recently took two Jack Russell terriers to a vet in western Greece to have them euthanized because they were blind, according to a local rescue group.

Achaic Society for the Care of Animals president Anastasia Aravantinou said she is now fostering the two pups until they find adopters.

Aravantinou explained more about the puppies and the circumstances of their abandonment in the following interview with Animal Issues Reporter (AIR). Continue reading →

Rescued Jack Russell pups don’t know they’re blind: Watch them play

Blind Jack Russell pups were dumped at vet’s to be euthanized.
Photo: Achaic Society for the Care of Animals

Although Anastasia Aravantinou works full-time in her job as Western Greece district manager for DHL Express Hellas, she and other volunteers for Achaic Society for the Care of Animals manage to squeeze enough spare moments out of their busy lives to rescue, foster, and re-home some 200 animals per year from the teeming streets and surrounding rural areas of the port city of Patras, on the shores of the Ionian Sea.

In a visit to the group’s Facebook page, Animal Issues Reporter discovered Aravantinou’s impassioned account of ACSA’s recent rescue of two Jack Russell terrier puppies.

ACSA frequently fosters puppies, but there’s something just a little different about these two…

By Anastasia Aravantinou, Achaic Society for the Care of Animals (Opinion)

So, how did we end up with two blind Jack Russell puppies? Piou was the first one we rescued. He was abandoned at a veterinarian’s office to be put to sleep because he couldn’t see. Continue reading →