Posted in Animal Advocacy

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 →

Is slaughterhouse abuse of cows surprising? Government agency has complained about it for years

Compassion Over Killing said their undercover video shows workers at Central Valley Meat Co.in California committing numerous violations of the Animal Welfare Act such as repeatedly shocking, shooting, and scalding sick and injured former dairy cows. Photo: Compassion Over Killing

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

An undercover video recently released by animal protection group Compassion Over Killing is difficult to watch, revealing horrific abuses of former dairy cows in a California slaughterhouse, such as killing them slowly and painfully, dousing them with scalding hot water, and using electric prods to repeatedly shock animals who appear to be ill or injured—one animal, the narrator says, more than 40 times. But these inhumane and illegal practices might not come as much of a surprise to some observers. Continue reading →

‘He will be loved’: Starved, nerve-damaged, mange-ravaged street dog fights for life in rescuers’ arms

Starving and alone on Houston’s inner city streets, Daniel managed to survive distemper, but the disease left him with severe neurological damage–jerking and twitching. When he tries to drink, water goes up his nose. When he tries to eat, his snout bangs against the bowl. Photo: Forgotten Dogs of the Fifth Ward Project

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

“This is Daniel,” wrote Kelle Mann Davis in a Facebook post yesterday under the photo of a wretchedly emaciated, nearly bald young hound-shepherd mix.

“Shelly Smith and I came across him while out in the field last night,” she went on. “He is starved, almost to the point of death. But this boy has something I have never seen out there: severe, constant jerking of his head and body.” Continue reading →

How to get lawmakers to protect animals? Tips from a Washington lobbyist

‘Logic doesn’t work in Washington or any legislative environment. You need to understand why your audience would want what you want.’ – Stephanie Vance / Photo: Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

Want to influence influential people on behalf of animals? While covering The Humane Society of the United States Taking Action for Animals (TAFA) conference recently, Animal Issues Reporter.org’s correspondent Catherine Cowan picked up the following tips.

By Catherine Cowan

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to ethically influence policymakers.  But you do need a message that resonates with your audience.

That was one of the key takeaway tips from Stephanie Vance, closing plenary speaker at Taking Action for Animals, a conference organized by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

Vance is a veteran Washington lobbyist, author of The Influence Game: 50 Insider Tactics from the Washington D.C. Lobbying World that Will Get You to Yes and founder of the website Advocacy Guru.

How can you find out what messages will resonate with your legislators?  Vance had two suggestions: Continue reading →

Want to defeat an animal protection law? Tea Party might help

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that in some of Missouri’s puppy mills–the ‘Dirty Dozen– violations included ‘sick or dying puppies who had not been treated by a veterinarian; dogs found shivering in temperatures as low as 9 degrees; and dogs so emaciated that their bones were visible through their skin.’ – The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) / Photo: HSUS

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris

If you’re trying to kill or modify a proposed animal welfare law—for example one that regulates high-volume commercial breeders or “puppy mills”—you might want to enlist the assistance of the Tea Party, according to the Missouri Farm Bureau (MFB).

“The Missouri Tea Party picked up that Prop B [the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act] was important,” said MFB’s director of marketing and commodities Kelly Smith, “and that they should be opposing it. They were a big help in doing that.”

Smith laid out a detailed strategy including other ways to fight animal welfare groups in his presentation “Protecting & Growing Agriculture Amidst the Activist Conflict – A Missouri Experience,” made to the Animal Agriculture Alliance “United We Eat” Summit in 2011. Continue reading →