Danger, Court Losses and Human-Canine Connections

Sharon L. Peters writes what I believe to be a blog called “Pet Talk” updated earlier today her latest post is about a ride she took with a rescue group in St. Louis to pick up some strays. It really brings out some of the truths of rescues, they can’t save them all. The group she rode along with is “Stray Rescue of Saint Louis.” A rescue that according to the article/blog that, “Spends about $70,000 a month on vet care, has rehabbed and found homes for all but 10 of the 20,000 dogs they’ve rescued in 12 years.” Pretty impressive. On the day Sharon rode along with the rescue they were able to save three dogs, only two were on the list of saving that day. One dog that earned the name Seward was found unexpectedly in a storm drain that the founder of the rescue parked by. Another was a puppy that was in a very small cage being ill-treated, the rescue had to pay some money to the owner to get the pup out of there. The final dog was a formerly pregnant pit bull mix that had external health issues and had been hanging out by a school. With the exception of the puppy the other two had been abandoned by their owners. Randy Grim the rescue worker that Sharon had rode around with said the pit bull mix had probably just stayed where she had been abandoned waiting for her owners to come back. The point of all this is rescues can’t save them all. It even says in the article they have to get the most urgent cases off the streets first. Can you imagine making that decision, who gets saved who has to wait a day. Hundreds of stray animals, 1 rescue, 2 small buildings, another building on the way, but ultimately no way to provide for them all. Now the rescue leaves food for some packs they know are out there but that’s food, that’s not love or shelter. Life’s rough for these dogs, even if their situation is made aware to other people there still isn’t an absolute chance they will be saved. It’s amazing she got to ride along for a day and I’m glad those three dogs got saved but could you imagine not being able to save them all. That’s got to be heartbreaking.

Supreme Court overturns it’s ruling on “Robert Stevens, a documentary filmmaker in rural Virginia who sold books, videos, and equipment related to raising pit bulls through the now-defunct Pitbulllife.com site.” When he was convicted it was for providing content to the public that dog fighters could be interested in. According to, the article Stevens said “he does not condone dog fighting in any way.” The ruling was overturned because the law is too broad, and at this point it could target hunting magazines/pictures/videos. The article states “The majority opinion did, however, leave open the possibility that a narrower law targeting only crush videos and depictions of “extreme animal cruelty” could be constitutional.” So apparently there are videos out there of people crushing animals, one example talked about was a lady crushing earthworms with her heel. If people are getting off to that kind of video I’m highly disturbed. I know people have weird fetishes but a fetish with harming animals that just seems sick and sadistic, those people should be put in a mental institute for observation or at the very least have a them marked out so they can never get a hold of a pet from a reputable seller. Clearly dirty sellers will sell to whoever but in general they wouldn’t be able to get to animals. So this man didn’t do anything wrong, he just created materials that would interest dog fighters, there should be a law however that makes it illegal to put really bad animal cruelty photos/videos up online. Anyone who videotapes/photographs dog fighting and then posts it online should be arrested.

The Link

PBS is doing a documentary narrated by Patrick Neil Harris and based on a book called “Through a Dog’s Eye.” A book written by Jennifer Arnold a lady who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. For those of you that aren’t familiar with this disease it is a degenerative disease of the Central Nervous System. There are various stages and types of MS, Arnold had a form that landed her in a wheelchair. When she couldn’t get a service dog due to being really low on the list for a dog, her dad decided to open his own school for training canine assistants. The article states however that her dad was killed by a drunk motorcyclist so she and her mother carried on the dream. “Canine Assistants breeds its own dogs, and trains rescue and shelter dogs. There are 150 dogs in training year-round.” They have given away 1,000 dogs, given away as in they pay the bills and the 22,000 to train each dog, at no cost to the person waiting in line for a pet to help them. That’s insane but absolutely amazing.  This documentary highlights the bond between animals and humans. Should be extraordinary considering the fact that studies have been done that show there is a very positive connection between pet owners and their pets. To show it from the point of view of someone with disability will show more than ever why pets should be bred, and how there are ways other than the usual way to save animals from shelters. All these free dogs come from shelters and rescues, that’s 1000 dogs saved for the use of good by this organization. Props to them that’s amazing, and it’s an outstanding cause.

Well that’s it for this week, I found this interesting video linked to the comments section of this last article pretty interesting. Cool Video.