Update 8/12/08 - See Update on the Tangipahoa Parish Council meeting
Sad as it is, sometimes there will be an infectious breakout at an animal shelter and too often, due to lack of funds for treatment, many of the shelter animals die or are euthanized. It’s not pleasant, it’s not nice, it may not have to happen, but it is reality and yeah, sometimes reality really sucks!
Earlier this week in a New Orleans animal shelter, the Tangipahoa Parish Animal Shelter in Hammond, there was an outbreak of canine coronavirus. In an effort to stem the further spread of this highly infectious disease, it was decided to euthanize many of the animals, shut the shelter down clean it thoroughly.
170 animals lost their lives, that’s every animal that was at the shelter at the time of the outbreak!
Canine coronavirus primarily affects the intestinal tract of dogs. Signs may include fever, loss of appetite, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Although it’s not always fatal, once infected, a dog becomes a “carrier” for several weeks — even after recovery. The virus can then live in the environment for several months.
So this was the initial story that came out but did all those animals have to die?? Was this mass killing really necessary?? Shelter employees, past and present don’t think so and worse is coming….
Read more… »
Ok, sometimes I do realized that police officers have no other resort but I have been reading an awful lot of stories about cops shooting dogs. It seems to be the first response instead of the last. Now, in general, I have a lot of respect for cops, I’m not a basher. But why so many stories, shoot first, ask questions later. And because they are who they are, most of the time when the incident is investigated, the powers that be usually say the action were warranted. I’ve never seen to many cops scared of so many dogs!! Scares me if an officer ever had a reason to come to me door and my dogs barked, as dogs are wont to do, is someone gonna pull a gun and say, “I felt threatened.”
In a small Maryland town of Berwyn Heights, the unnecessary shooting of two Black Labs belonging to the mayor, Cheye Calvo and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, during a July 29 raid is not going to go away quietly. No one is going to be able to just sweep this one under the carpet.
Seems there was some drug investigation and a FedEX box was being tracked, a FedEx box stuff with 32 pounds of marijuana. Well, the boxed landed on Mayor Cheye Calvo’s doorstep, addressed to his wife Trinity. So when Calvo got home, like anyone would do if they found a package on their doorstep, he picked it up and carried it inside the house.
Then all hell broke loose!
He front door was busted down, police swarmed in with guns drawn, Peyton and Chase, Calvo’s two dogs, were shot, and the package was seized.
“Trinity was an innocent victim and random victim,” Calvo said outside his two-story, red-brick house in this middle-class Washington suburb of about 3,000 people. “We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us.”
Calvo insisted the couple’s two black Labradors were gentle creatures and said police apparently killed them “for sport,” gunning down one of them as it was running away.
Read more… »
Posted on 2008 under Dog Writing & Poetry |
9
Aug
People keep saying “he was just a dog”.
He was the one who got up with me every morning, no matter how early, to help me greet the morning.
He was the one who stood guard over our home, our family and the loneliness of my days.
He was the one who acted as the best alarm system around, letting us know when someone or something was approaching outside the door.
He was the one who slept at the door to the bedrooms, to make certain everyone was safe.
He was the one who loved the children. From the babies who would pull and tug at him and use him as a brace for wobbly legs learning to crawl or walk, to the older ones with whom he would sneak into their bed at night and cuddle close.
He didn’t rest until everyone was home safe and sound.
He was the explorer who wandered through the bushes in the yard, hunting for lizards or the scent of the woodland creatures that might happen by.
He was the guardian who would chase away those woodland creatures lest they harm one of us.
Read more… »
