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All the good news about animals, wildlife, and the earth March/April 2006 SPECIAL REPORT Saving the Dancing Bears Inside: Conservatives Love Animals, Too Super Man in L.A.? Gators in the Sewer? (Oops, just a hoax!) BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 1 M M a r c h / A p r i l A G A Z 2 0 0 6 I N E contents 3 4 5 6 8 From the Editor • Brave new world? Mysteries of Life • Dodoism • Rack research • The incredible shrinking whale shark • Raving over ravens Oddly Enough • Not-so-fast food • Too cute • Love & hisses • Who’s your daddy? Reviews and Updates • Here he comes again! Ed Boks takes on L.A. Thinking Globally • The birds deserve better • To preserve & protect • Plastic ban • Headed in the right direction • The new gold standard • Power to the people • Hare today …Gone tomorrow • Teaching old postmen new tricks • Let them eat cake! • Their memories aren’t too shabby, either! No More Homeless Pets • The Force is with him • Their daily constitutional • The few, the proud, the furry • Pavlovian response • Saving their bacon • Good time, good cause • Briefs Hurricane Rescue • Homecomings: Rescues, reunions, adoptions • Corralled in the canal • The saints of New Orleans • On the road again Animals & Society • Animal hoaxes: Alive and well and living on the ’Net Best Friends Animal Sanctuary • Stories from the sanctuary • Special adoptions Tomato the Cat’s Investigative Report • The Great Bunny Sex Scandal of 2006? Health & Behavior • Calling on Faith: Is Fido spying on you? Ambassador to the Animals • It takes a hurricane: A Katrina is happening near you The Animals’ Bookshelf • Cold nose, warm heart: Pets who offer comfort Point of View • Conservative views Members & Pets • Your mail • Your memories On the Light Side • Bad to the (ankle) bone • His Bach is worse than his bite • Catch of the day • Born to stitch • Spotted and potted • Tattletale! 12 My Passage to India: Saving the dancing bears 26 Bosque: Wings over Wonderland BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE Editor: Michael Mountain Editorial Director: Carla Davis Managing Editor: Steven Hirano Production Manager: Arnie Bishop Assistant Editors: Estelle Munro, Fran Farrell Sanctuary Editor: Elizabeth Doyle Copy Editor: Mary Girouard Research: Anne Zepernick Photos: Clay Myers, Troy Snow Graphics: Parvin Panahi, Stephen Williams Cartoons: Marc Brown, Steven Hirano Distribution: Denise Kelly BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY President: Michael Mountain Operations: Paul Berry Medical Director: Michael Dix, DVM Outreach: Francis Battista, Gregory Castle Treasurer: John Fripp ADVERTISING OFFICES: Los Angeles: Ashley Tillman (818) 986-3006 New York: Denise Kelly (212) 592-0743 Best Friends magazine is published by Best Friends Animal Society. Located at Angel Canyon, in the majestic red-rock country of Utah, Best Friends runs the nation’s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals, and is also home to a host of wildlife who find refuge here. Best Friends operates a low-cost spay/neuter program, sponsors a network of members in rescue, foster care and humane education, and works with humane groups nationwide to bring about a time when there will be No More Homeless Pets. The society is supported primarily by memberships and donations, and subscriptions to this magazine. Your contributions are taxdeductible. B E S T F R I E N D S M AG A Z I N E is published by Best Friends Animal Society, 5001 Angel Canyon Road, Kanab, Utah 84741. Subscriptions are $25 (6 issues per year). Standard A postage paid at St. Joseph, Michigan. Vol. 15, issue 2 © 2006, Best Friends Animal Society. All rights reserved. Cover photo of rescued dancing bear by Troy Snow 16 18 22 28 34 36 38 40 42 48 54 5001 Angel Canyon Rd • Kanab, UT 84741 Tel: (435) 644-2001 • Fax: (435) 644-2078 e-mail: editor@bestfriends.org www.bestfriends.org 2 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 from the editor Brave New World? By Michael Mountain Our work for the animals is a work of the soul. The next few years will be critical to life on earth. “ ” n unseen super intelligence takes control of Earth ... people wake up and begin to feel guided by a superior force ... governments tend to drive things toward peace rather than war ... Messianic prophecy from the pages of the Bible? Science fiction? No, just some of the latest projections from some of today’s top science and technology experts. Of course, things could go a very different way, too. But, one way or another, they tell us, within the next 30 years or so, we humans are either going to have caused irreparable damage to ourselves, and to the rest of the natural world, or we’re going to have ushered in a new and better kind of civilization. Nothing in between. The reason, they say, that it’s going to be one way or the other, rather than anything in between, is the ever-accelerating pace at which change is happening today. Take one small example from the world of biotechnology. Remember when HIV was identified in the 1980s? It took 15 years for scientists to decode the virus. But when the SARS virus was reported in 2003, it took just 31 days to decode it. Information technology is growing so fast that we’re doubling its power every year. And that’s a lot more than it sounds. It means a thousand-fold advance in 10 years, a millionfold in 20 years, and a billion in 30 years. It also means, for example, that technology is already within striking distance of eliminating disease as we know it, being able to model the human brain, then exceed its capacity, and then exceed it beyond our comprehension. Hence the notion not just of an emerging “artificial intelligence,” but A of a “super intelligence.” There’s even much talk of how the Internet itself – a vast and ever-growing network of brainpower and knowledge – may well “wake up” one day and become that very super intelligence. One of the buzz words in the world of science today is “the singularity.” This refers to a point in time, just a few decades from now, when things will be changing so dramatically and so fast that we can’t even imagine what life may be like on the other side of those changes. Scientists say they can predict much of what will lead up to that time ... but after that, who knows? The optimistic view on what is happening is that, by good sense or good fortune, things will work out for the best and we will transition into a utopian age. The pessimistic view is that, through our own myopic arrogance and folly, we will use our growing powers to destroy ourselves, succumbing to nuclear terrorism, manmade viruses, the collapse of the environment, and any of a host of other threats. None of this is science fiction fantasy. For better or worse, it’s the world we’re creating right now. And none of this is happening to us. It’s being set in place by us. So, to the extent that the future is in our own hands, how can any of us help drive change in the right direction? At the very heart of the current revolution is the ability of people of like mind to work together, even though they live thousands of miles apart, and to share information, cooperate, and build together in a way that has never been possible before in history. Continued on page 44 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 3 mysteries of life Because it had no natural predators, the dodo bird knew no fear. Then the African island of Mauritius, where the dodo bird lived, was invaded by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Humans hunted the large, meaty, flightless bird, and deforested its home. Thus, the dodo became extinct. Or so we thought. But a recent dig uncovered a mass grave of dodos and sparked a renewed interest in the flightless birds – what they ate, how they lived, and why they became extinct. Maybe the human invaders weren’t entirely responsible. Scientists will test the 2,000-year-old bones and use the information to recreate the dodo’s ancient environment. Eventually people will be able to visit the area and step back into dodo-world. Although it remains a mystery how the dodos died, researchers suspect the effects of a widespread epidemic or a severe cyclone. Dodoism Deer are the only mammals who can regenerate a body part. And stem cells – the body’s master cells – appear to be the reason. Those magnificent antler racks are made from bone that grows, dies, is shed, and then, the next spring, grows again. The new growth matures in less than four months. During chilly winter months, to help the deer conserve energy, their antlers die and fall off. Come spring, a bony protuberance regrows into a large pair of antlers covered in velvety skin. The skin sheds to reveal bare bone. Researchers say that the regenerative process travels along a signaling pathway, regulated by hormones. And they’re hoping their studies will reveal ways to repair, and possibly even regenerate, damaged human tissue. Rack Research The Incredible Shrinking Whale Shark Marine biologists know many things about whale sharks, the world’s largest fish. They don’t harm humans, eat krill, can live as long as 150 years – and they appear to be getting smaller. The average size has gone from 23 to 16 feet in the last decade. This mysterious shrinkage has scientists stymied. The fish, who migrate from Australia to Asia and Africa, are easy prey for fishermen. It’s possible that the larger fish are being harvested and only the young and small remain. But before drawing any conclusions, biologists must solve another mystery: how and where the whale sharks breed and reproduce. And right now, they don’t even know where males and females rendezvous during mating season and where the pups are born. Raving Over Ravens American poet Edgar Allan Poe wrote famously of ravens as harbingers of ill fate. But the British say they bring good luck. How long the birds have inhabited the Tower of London is anyone’s guess. But a legend that has prevailed since the 17th century tells us that booting them out would bring certain disaster to both the tower and the British monarchy. At least six ravens must inhabit the tower at all times. Since the late 1980s, the tower’s raven master has managed a breeding program for resident ravens. But two of the newest recruits, rescued as fledglings, came from the Owl Sanctuary in the New Forest. To keep them in the tower grounds, the ravens have their wings clipped. (Note to queen: Stopping birds from flying is not the way to bring good luck to the monarchy.) 4 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 oddly enough Why would a frigate bird travel 2,500 miles in search of food for her baby? Inquiring scientists want to know! Fitted with a tiny tracking device, Lydia, who was living on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, flew nonstop for 26 days – the longest recorded journey for birds from the island. Oct. 18th: Entrusting her baby chick to the care of her partner, Lydia takes off from Christmas Island National Park, 310 miles south of Jakarta, and heads south over the open sea. Oct. 26th: She circles back and flies between the islands of Java and Sumatra. Nov. 9th: She heads across Borneo before flying back over Java. Nov. 14th: She lands back at Christmas Island to regurgitate food for the chick. Frigates are among the world’s most endangered seabirds, and scientists say the flight raises serious questions. Until recently, frigates would travel just a few hundred miles from their nests for food. So why did Lydia need to fly over Indonesian volcanoes and across some of Asia’s busiest and most polluted shipping lanes? “It is tragically ironic,” said David James, a biologist at Christmas Island National Park, “that while Lydia nests on one of the world’s most remote and pristine islands, she makes her living in some of the most degraded seas on the planet.” Not-So-Fast Food positively to anything with cuteness cues – round, soft, helpless – such as a bobbing balloon, a big round rock stacked on a smaller rock, even punctuation marks, like the sideways smiley-face that people use in e-mail. :-) To prove this point, says Roger L. Reep of the University of Florida, behold the manatee: huge potato-shaped body, sock-puppet face, three times our size, and 20 times our weight. We watch these slow-moving animals, see them turn on their backs to get their bellies scratched, and want to get into the water beside them. Love & Hisses When a tornado ripped through Harlam, Nebraska, it whisked away Shaun Tighe’s family home – and his eight-year-old cat. Harly was a big, orange, declawed tabby, with a meow that was more like a chirp. Ornery as the animal was, Shaun adored him. Eighteen months later, a cat who looked like Harly showed up at Shaun’s new house, just before the 20-year-old soldier was leaving for Iraq. Was this really his cat? Sure enough, pictures matched his markings, and his chirp was the same. Harly picked up ear mites while he was gone, but otherwise he’s his old nasty self, says his family. (Note to Shaun: Declawing cats often makes them insecure, anxious and, yes, ornery.) So, was it ruby slippers that brought him back? Maybe, but the cat’s not saying. Who’s Your Daddy? Remember Owen, the baby hippo orphaned by the 2004 tsunami, who was rescued and brought to Haller Park reserve in Kenya, where he became fast friends with Mzee the tortoise? Well, this famous two-year-old and his 100-year-old buddy are back in the news! The unlikely pair have remained inseparable. Recently, Mzee had to be “smuggled” out of their enclosure to have treatment for cracks in his shell. The caretakers replaced Mzee with another tortoise, Number Ten, but it just wasn’t the same for Owen. He was polite, but he missed Mzee. A few days later, Mzee returned and Owen perked up. Now there are plans to introduce the odd fellows to Cleo, an older female hippo who’s been living alone. The trio will be moved to a new verdant paradise where (everyone hopes) they will spend their days basking in the sun and eating watermelon. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 5 biology.lsu.edu Too Cute What’s cute? Scientists haven’t quite pinned it down, but they say we know it when we see it. First, cuteness is not the same as beauty. Cute is rounded, soft, and clumsy; beauty is sculptured, toned, and sleek. We admire and idolize beauty; we hug cute and place it on our laps. Cute is a big round face with forwardfacing, low-set eyes that are clear and bright, large, round ears, floppy limbs, and a wobbly, teetertotter gait – anything that conveys extreme youth, need, vulnerability, and harmlessness. Humans instinctively respond © William Garvin, marinephoto.com reviews & updates Here He Comes Again! Ed Boks clearly loves the challenge of helping L.A.’s homeless animals. The question remains: Will L.A. love Ed Boks? d Boks is facing the biggest challenge of his career: to prove that the no-kill mission and aggressive spay/neuter programs in city shelters that he advocated in Phoenix and New York City can work again – this time in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is considered one of the toughest cities in the country for people trying to get their arms around all the stray and homeless pets. “It’s really two cities,” said Francis Battista, who runs Best Friends programs in L.A. “The west side and parts of the valley are basically already at no-kill. But in other parts of the city – the lower economic parts – the issues are largely unaddressed.” Part of the problem, according to Battista, is that people have tried to address the problem from the top down, “like you can introduce a new spay/neuter campaign, or hold a special adoption day, or basically solve it from a central office. You can’t do that.” Instead, he said, you’ve got to locate the people within those communities who care about the animals and help them build meaningful solutions. “The animal rescue groups of L.A. are mainly composed of white women who have the means to devote themselves to this work. They have counterparts in other ethnic communities, and we have to find them.” Boks will have his work cut out for him. Over the last few years, Los Angeles has 6 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 E By Cathy Scott seen a procession of animal control directors come and go. Yet many who worked with Boks in the past say, “No sweat; if anyone can turn the City of Angels into a more animal-friendly city, unite the warring tribes of the animal welfare world, and head toward no-kill, it’s Boks.” But not everyone is as positive. Animal activists in New York City, where he was executive director of animal care and control for two years, say Boks makes promises he cannot keep. So, can Ed Boks keep his promises in Los Angeles? In a telephone interview, he made no promises outright, but he did say that L.A. was headed in the right direction, with room for improvement. “No one would argue that L.A. animal services need help,” he said. As in Arizona and New York, he said his goal is to have Los Angeles become a no-kill model for animal care as well as to increase the numbers of spays, neuters, and adoptions. Some in L.A. might applaud an aggressive plan – whatever the details – but those who have been involved long-term in animal welfare say change can’t happen overnight, especially in a department that’s had four general managers in five years. Billy Criswell, who works for Best Friends’ L.A. programs, said going no-kill in one year is impossible, which is what some animal welfare groups expect of Boks. “If Bill Gates gave us a hundred million dollars, you couldn’t do it in one year,” he said. Criswell’s advice to rabble-rousers? Don’t treat Ed Boks the way you treated Boks’ predecessor, Guerdon Stuckey, who was reviled by the public for not working fast enough and later fired in a storm of controversy. “What protesters are doing is only hurting the animals,” Criswell said. “You can’t turn around a city of two million people and hundreds of thousands of stray animals overnight.” Before Boks took over the post in January for the troubled Los Angeles Department of Animal Services, he spent his two-week vacation touring the city’s six shelters. “Part of the reason I’ve come to Los Angeles is to prove that it can be done,” Boks said. “It’ll be the biggest challenge of my career, but it isn’t going to be me who does it. The community is standing by, wanting to help.” This marriage between the city and the community is a relationship Boks is banking on, hoping it will mean fewer euthanasias and more adoptions and neuters. “My role here is to put the pieces of the puzzle together,” he said. “We’re going to put together a plan that will end euthanasia as a methodology to end pet overpopulation.” It’s an ambitious idea. The city sprawls across 465 square miles, making it larger than New York City. And the current population of Los Angeles, according to a 2005 California Department of Finance estimation, is more than 3.95 million people. Besides the recent animal control controversy, Los Angeles has a storied past concerning animal welfare, dating back more than two decades. Until the 1990s, critics complained the department was caught in a time warp, treating pets with an antiquated dogcatcher approach. Even so, Boks appears undaunted and plans to approach his job in Los Angeles the same way he approached his position as head of animal control first for Phoenix and then for New York City. Back in New York, Friends of Animal Care and Control NYC scheduled a lifetime achievement ceremony for Boks on January 31. At press time, however, animal activist Regina Massaro was fighting the award. “He’s done nothing to deserve it,” said Massaro, who runs the nonprofit Spay Neuter Intervention Project. “Those programs started two years before he got here. The award would elevate him to sainthood and it isn’t deserved.” Those are harsh words about a man whom others sing the praises of. But for the people who oppose Boks, the self-aggrandizing they say he does takes away from the plight of the city’s homeless animals. A statement in a news release about the ceremony says, “Ed and his team in New York worked over two years to transform the “We’re going to put together a plan that will end euthanasia as a methodology to end pet overpopulation.” of the problem, and that means enforcing licensing and increasing spays and neuters in the inner city, where junkyard and body shop pit bulls are reproducing at unchecked numbers. Animal care and control in New York City, Hoffman said, will do just fine without Ed Boks at the helm. Others disagree. Stefanie Steele, who helped Boks put together the volunteer group Friends of Animal Care and Control NYC, said Boks “made the animal care and control system into a respected institution. He made it a place that people could be comfortable going to. “The shelters are clean [and] they’re pleasant places. They’re not what they necessarily need to be, but he cleaned them up, and he gave the staff morale boosts so they took even more pride in what they were doing.” As a result of Boks’ time spent in New York, “today fewer animals are being euthanized,” Steele said. “He really held the line in letting the animals stay longer [at shelters].” Bill Stutts, chairperson of Friends of Animal Care and Control NYC, also worked with Boks and said this: “Ed came in and brought a vision of no-kill. He changed the whole culture of how New York City operated.” That included getting community members involved. “We had 40 volunteers when he got here,” Stutts said, “and when he left we had more than 400.” With Boks now at the helm of animal control in Los Angeles, Stefanie Steele said she’s confident he can only help. “He knows how to make things happen,” she said. “He’d have this big idea, and I’d think, ‘It’s just never going to happen.’ The next thing I knew, it was done. He knows how to bring people together and focus them in to do what’s best for the animals.” As for Battista, he too said the city of Los Angeles’ care of animals can only improve under Boks’ direction. “We felt that a lot of the institutional problems with the department were slowly being addressed by his predecessor,” Battista said. “We’re delighted to have Ed and his experience and his reputation working for the animals.” For Boks, a former minister, his move to Los Angeles is just one more challenge in his career. “I’m excited about being here,” he said. “My sense is that everybody is excited and anticipating great things for Los Angeles.” “We have an opportunity now,” Boks continued, “to really demonstrate to the nation what a loving and caring City of Angels to animals we really are.” trinity.edu traditional catch-and-kill policies that had driven the New York City shelter system for over a century.” It confirms for Jane Hoffman, president of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, that Boks has taken credit for programs already in place when he took over. “He merely renamed the projects and made them his own,” Hoffman said. “He’s not good at giving credit to others.” Some do admit that Boks tried to put the city on a fast track of no-kill shelters. Hoffman, however, agreed with Criswell that it’s a project that can’t be completed in a hurry: “Ours is a 10-year plan. Ed is all about the sprint to the quick finish, and this is a marathon.” Massaro noted that the only way no-kill can be accomplished is to get to the root BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 7 thinking globally Brazil: Authorities uncovered an international wildlife smuggling ring when they raided warehouses and arrested nine people. Selling exotic birds on the black market is a lucrative business – in Europe, a blue macaw can net $30,000. The raid rescued 2,000 birds – including macaws, toucans, parrots, cardinals and canaries. Though the punishment for the crime can be 10 years in prison, courts consider environmental crimes inoffensive and often convert sentences to community service and low fines. As for the birds seized in the raid, they’ll be sent to private reserves licensed by the government. tion /J ohn F ox es 4 C omm unica Imag The Birds Deserve Better Eastern Europe: Seven nations have banded together to protect the flora and fauna of the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathian region contains Europe’s greatest reserve of pristine forest and is a refuge for brown bears, wolves, bison, lynx, eagles and some 200 unique plant species. Four of the seven countries – Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic – have already ratified the Carpathian Convention, by which countries will work toward conservation and sustainable use of the land. To Preserve and Protect In 2004, citizens were encouraged to take a day off from work to pick up the plastic bags that litter the streets and fields. Some people, however, are miffed about the current restriction. Business owners complain that some products, like meat and fish, don’t travel well in paper bags, and customers say they prefer the cheaper, reusable plastic version. Headed in the Right Direction Rwanda: To help protect the country’s environment, Rwanda has banned plastic bags. Shop owners are no longer allowed to cvm.missouri.edu Drastic Plastic Ban give plastic bags to their customers, and police are stopping plastic-bag toters in the streets. Rwanda’s government has endorsed such environmental consciousness before. Madagascar: This island off the coast of Africa has pledged to triple its nature reserves by 2008. Madagascar, the world’s fourth largest island, is home to tens of thousands of plant and animal species, three-quarters of which, including dozens of species of lemurs, are unique to the island. But poverty and population increase are taking their toll, and much of the rain forest has been cleared to plant crops, leaving many species on the brink of extinction. The New Gold Standard United Kingdom: Sweeping new legislation before the British parliament will give pets five “freedoms”: • Appropriate diet • Suitable living conditions • Companionship or solitude as appropriate to their species • Monitoring for abnormal behavior • Protection from pain, suffering, injury, and disease The new Animal Welfare Bill, which sets a new standard in companion animal care, is expected to be passed in the com- ing months. Authorities will no longer have to wait until pets are actively being abused; instead, they’ll be able to intervene if they see animals being kept in a way that is going to lead to suffering in the future. Penalties will include prison sentences and fines of up to $9,000. Once the bill becomes law, there are plans to introduce codes of conduct for different types of pets. A sample Code for Cats includes items like these: • Keeping them indoors at night for their own protection and the protection of wildlife Planetark.org • Giving them access to private areas where they can hide out and use their cat litter • Making suitable toys available to stimulate their instinct to catch prey • Ensuring that they have mental stimulation so they don’t get bored or frustrated Lawmakers stress that this is not about setting up an intrusive pet police. “Most people will not notice this law,” said a government spokesperson. “It’s aimed at the few who don’t understand or care about the welfare of their animals.” 8 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Malaysia: A group of indigenous people crashed an environmental conference to protest the ruin of their native lands. The Iban, Penan and Kayan people are angry that palm oil plantations and logging companies are eliminating the forests of Malaysia’s Sarawak state. Besides destroying forests, logging causes silt runoff and pollution of rivers, damaging fertile farmland where native people have traditionally grown rice and other food crops. Some of the demonstrators wore orangutan face masks – to emphasize the destruction of animals’ habitat. The protest was organized by Tahabas, or the Sarawak Native Customary Land Rights Network. Power to the People! the decision, which prohibits the buying, selling and killing of Irish hares. And the league says it will continue to fight for a permanent ban on using the Irish hare for hunting and coursing. Germany: Dog attacks on mail deliverers have gone way down since 80,000 German postmen have attended classes to teach them about dog psychology. Dog trainer Stefan Biegier shows the postmen dog expressions, teaches them to watch for the danger signs, and offers practical advice on how to deal with dogs on their routes. One of his top tips: You can’t cycle faster than a big dog can run. After attending the course, Berlin postman Rolf Schulz said, “It gave me a real insight into how dogs behave and what causes them to bite.” The program is working. During the 2005 Christmas season, the number of dog attacks on postmen was the lowest in 10 years. Teaching Old Postmen New Tricks .tu f o cw ts .e du Ireland: The Irish hare has long been the hapless victim in a blood sport called coursing – using live rabbits as hunting lures for greyhounds. Now, the government has issued a temporary protection order for the hare. “It is no secret that I hold strong views on cruelty to animals,” said environment minister Angel Smith. “But my views are not the issue here. The real issue, which we all have to focus on, is that the overall numbers of Irish hare are low.” Whatever the reason, the League Against Cruel Sports has applauded Hare Today ... ... Gone Tomorrow? Black Sea: To save the remaining wild sturgeon, well-heeled Americans and Europeans may have to sip their fine champagne or vodka without that ultimate accompaniment – beluga caviar. The secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has suspended the global export of wild caviar over concern that the sturgeon population worldwide is dangerously depleted. For the ban to be lifted, nations that export caviar must ensure that sturgeon can survive over the long term. The export ban applies to Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine. It doesn’t cover sturgeon products sold within these countries. Let Them Eat Cake! South Africa: Tembo was classified as a “rogue” elephant after going on a rampage at the private game reserve where he was living. Faced with the possibility of death for his misbehavior, he was saved by a sympathetic vet who contacted animal trainer Rory Hensman. Hensman took on the ornery pachyderm, and now Tembo is giving rides to tourists at the Dinokeng Game Reserve northeast of Johannesburg. According to Hensman, Tembo has a wonderful nature, but he hadn’t had any training. And the trainer has even bigger plans for Tembo. He has worked with other “rogue” elephants and he hopes they can be used to fight poachers in South Africa. Since elephants have an acute sense of smell and they can travel anywhere in the bush, Hensman believes they are ideal for tracking poachers and going out on patrols. Their Memories Aren’t Too Shabby, Either! banbloodsports.com BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 9 thinking globally A Laysan albatross grooms his mate while incubating their egg on Eastern Island, one of the three islands of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. The birds mate for life and can live for about 50 years. A huge pooch, made of 8,000 Pepsi cans, stands in a city square in northwest China. As the Chinese calendar ushered in the Year of the Dog, debate was brewing, with animal lovers in Beijing demanding that dogs be treated as pets and that canine meat be taken off supermarket shelves and restaurant menus. AP Photo/Lucy Pemoni Harry the Maine coon, of Eltham, England survive open heart surgery. The five-hour op story was featured in the first episode of a B Father Justinos Mamalos with one of his dogs in the gardens of the Orthodox Monastery of Nablus – believed to be the site of Jacob’s Well – on the Palestinian West Bank. The monastery was built in 380, and has been demolished and rebuilt many times over the centuries as crusaders and other settlers fought over it. From 1981 to 1995, Israeli settlers killed 94 dogs in order to frighten Father Mamalos and chase him out of the monastery. 10 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Luan Dong d, is the first cat in the world to peration cost $18,000. Harry’s BBC TV series in January. Jenny Goodall/Daily Mail/Solo ZUMA Press/Arne Hodalic/eyevine A Toucan phone booth in Guaira, in Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso do Sul, home to the Pantanal, the world’s largest tract of wetlands. The toucan is one of the wetland region’s most endangered species. A Chinese soldier reads a letter from his family with his police dog. The dogs live with their trainer comrades, and breaking up is bittersweet when it’s time for the young soldiers to leave the army. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 11 Song Jianchun/ChinaFotoPress REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images Gohan the hamster and Aochan the rat snake inside their cage at the Mutsugoro Animal Kingdom in Tokyo, Japan. Gohan, meaning “meal,” was placed into the snake’s cage as food last October, when Aochan had stopped eating his normal diet of frozen mice. But the snake decided to make friends with Gohan, and the two are still on the best of terms. animals abroad My Passage to India Saving the dancing bears – and lots more saving wildlife, helping strays, rescuing cows, and just generally making the world a better place for animals. I’m here to visit just such an organization – Wildlife S.O.S., most famous for its bear sanctuary. For years now, they’ve been fighting the dancing bear industry – a terrible practice in which bears are kept in poor conditions and made to dance for spare change from tourists. The bears are captured as babies, their canine teeth are knocked out, and ropes are run through their noses. Wildlife S.O.S. has been offering spacious, wooded sanctuary for those bears. But they also run dog and cat spay/neuter programs, wildlife preservation, you name it! They don’t need any help wrestling bears into cages, thank goodness! But they do need an English-speaking writer to donate some compelling stories for their fundraisers, and a photographer to take nice pictures of the animals they save. So along with Troy Snow, one of the Best Friends photographers, we’ll see if we can give these folks a little of the Best Friends touch! In New Delhi, India, Kartick Satyanarayan and Geeta Seshamani run Wildlife S.O.S., saving the dancing bears and other wildlife from cruel exploitation. When we last checked in on them, a year ago, they had rushed to the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean to help rescue animals caught in the devastation of the tsunami. Now back in New Delhi, they’re not just saving the wildlife, they’re also creating spay/neuter programs for the city’s stray dogs and cats. To help build support for their work, Best Friends sent writer Elizabeth Doyle and photographer Troy Snow to visit with them. Here are some excerpts from Elizabeth’s online weblog. By Elizabeth Doyle Live from India! T here are monkeys playing in the city streets! Whole colonies of them, leaping between cars, grabbing goodies from trees, and looking at me like, “Man, it must be tourist season again.” A giant cow is holding up the taxis from the airport. She’s comfortable in the middle of the road and doesn’t plan to move; like the monkeys, she seems to consider this her city. I am usually at Best Friends, writing about the animals there. But there have been incredible things going on in the animal world of India, new animal organizations Remembering Gandhi I arrived in Delhi during a celebration of Mahatma Gandhi, one of history’s great animal lovers. (“A nation can be judged by the way it treats its old people, its young people, and its animals.”) On his way to pick me up at the airport, our host, Kartick Satyanarayan, stopped to 12 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 save a nilgais – a kind of giant antelope – who had strayed from the forest into the heart of Delhi. After getting the phone call, Kartick had gone out to set a trap, then caught the big fellow, brought him to the sanctuary for a checkup, and now, the nilgais has been released deeper into the forest. When he was done, Kartick drove to the airport to get me. And I read about the event on page 3 of the New Delhi Times the next morning. Delhi, like Gandhi, does have a way of teaching you tolerance. It’s never quiet here. Even in Las Vegas you can find silence at the top of a hotel, in your private little air-conditioned room. But in Delhi, the noise is part of the city, and part of life. You fall asleep to the sounds of people talking outside your window, phones ringing through the walls, and dogs barking. No one tries to escape the sounds. They don’t fight the noise; they live with it and let the chaos serve as a natural rhythm. Like the stray dogs, the sounds are an inescapable part of the city. The strays do look hungry, and it’s sad. But people treat them like fellow tenants of the city, and accept that these dogs share the streets with them. This is their city, too. With organizations like Wildlife S.O.S. doing lots of spaying and neutering, it seems like India could someday become a really animal-friendly place! I don’t know. I think I’m going to like India. dressmaker’s house. Geeta had brought me here because I’d noticed my clothes just weren’t blending in. And the minute I saw the glittery fabrics inside, all I could think was, “Can I have one? Can I have one?” OK, it was a little shallow. But you should have seen! Snakes are a charm We see a lot of strange things at Best Friends, but there are some situations here in India that I don’t think we’ll ever see at Best Friends – like a snake who’s just been rescued from a snake charmer! Kartick’s house is full of animals waiting to be brought to one of the Wildlife S.O.S. sanctuaries. He’s saving animals constantly. charmer who kept them in a box so small they had to be wrapped in a tight coil to fit in. One of the vine snake’s noses is bent from being squooshed. Snake charmers pretend to have great powers over snakes, and then sell magical amulets and such to people who believe them. But Kartick explained that a cobra will always follow a moving object with his head. It has nothing to do with the music or with being charmed. It’s just an instinct to follow the movement of the flute, which the snake charmer keeps moving left and right as he plays. The snake charmer keeps the vine snakes in side baskets during his act, and tells people that they are poisonous. But they’re nothing of the sort. Because of the tiny round boxes the snakes live in all day long, the practice is illegal. So Kartick has permission to confiscate snakes like these. But how did he do it? Kartick never likes to answer that question. He smiles and takes a phone call. He’s a pretty big guy. There’s also a great horned owl with incredible marmalade eyes. Some witch doctors believe that if you hang an owl like God is in all things As we drive across the city, Geeta Seshamani, another powerful force in Wildlife S.O.S., tells me a little bit about Hinduism and how it relates to helping the animals. She said that all their gods are just aspects of one god. And that it’s important to respect other people’s understanding of God, no matter what their religion. And to recognize that Between him and Geeta, they carry four cell phones at all times. One rings approximately every 10 minutes. (I timed it during lunch one day.) They’re known all around Delhi as the “ There’s a little bit of God in everyone you meet – including the animals. there’s a little bit of God in everyone you meet – including the animals, of course. Even inanimate objects, which she believes are growing spiritually in their own way, should be respected. After a conversation like that, I was about to feel very shallow stepping into a local ” folks who help the animals. And everyone seems to have their number. Two vine snakes and one flying snake are slithering around a spacious glass cage. They came from a snake Kartick Satyanarayan at the sanctuary outside Delhi BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 13 animals abroad lage to begin talks about bear dancing, they were greeted by men who surrounded them and pointed long knives at them. They had to speak carefully and diplomatically just to get away unharmed. Today, all the villagers are running small, humane businesses, and Kartick and Geeta are treated like minor celebrities whenever they make an appearance here. As I purchase my third necklace, a man rushes up to Geeta, showing her a silver ring. She explains: “He’s from a neighboring village. They still dance bears. He says this village is now more prosperous than his village. He wants to know, if they give up their bears to the sanctuary, whether we’ll help them start a silver ring business.” She had to tell him to wait. They need a little more funding to expand. But someday soon, Kartick vows, he’ll get every dancing bear off the street, and the practice will become extinct. this upside down in your doorway while she’s still alive, and leave her there until she turns into a skeleton, it wards off bad luck. Yikes! Not if you believe in karma it wouldn’t! But this one was saved by Kartick, just in time. There was a hedgehog, singed because he was going to be eaten, already thrown on the fire! But as soon as all these animals are healed, they’ll be returned to the wild. Kartick is on the phone again! Buy a necklace, save a bear! We drove from Delhi to Agra today. And along the way, we met some of the villagers who once engaged in the cruel practice of dancing bears for a living. But Kartick and Geeta have convinced them to turn in their bears to the sanctuary and start a better life for themselves. Today, they sell beautiful necklaces. (Hard for a shopper like me to think of a kinder profession than that!) And some of them met us on the side of the highway, hop- ing Kartick and Geeta’s American friends would like to buy some jewelry. I’m getting a little spoiled by the fact that Americans are million-billion-gazillionaires here. Back at Best Friends, I have 14 “ a pretty modest income, but here, Indian sellers see me and think, “A western woman! Let’s sell her something – she can afford it!” And they’re right. These villagers displayed necklaces – some of which were ornamented with more than 50 genuine garnets each – and asked for about $8. When I paid this small amount, they seemed to think I had just made them rich! One Muslim man was standing guard over his fellow villagers, making sure no one Bear attack! OK, maybe I’m exaggerating just a little! But a bear really did put his mouth all the way around my leg, hug me in both arms and try to carry me off! Kartick said the bear just wanted me to be his new toy. He pulled me out of the bear’s grasp and I was left with just a bad case of the giggles. Maybe I should back up ... We’d arrived at the bear sanctuary, and the air was as fresh as the leaves all around us. This is what the jungle smells like – sweet and invigorating. All along the dirt path, bears peered at us from behind exotic trees. They climbed on rocks, they splashed in ponds, and they wrestled one another. (Rocking like tipped-over teddy bears whenever they fell down!) A human might have given anything to live on these beautiful 20 acres. But they belong to the bears – bears who were once forced to dance on the end of ropes that were pierced through their noses with rusty iron needles. Today, they’re romping around like children – very fluffy children. Continued on page 45 Kartick said the bear just wanted me to be his new toy. ” pressured me too much. We were friends of Kartick and Geeta’s – so he demanded that everyone be polite. It wasn’t always like this. When Kartick and Geeta first arrived in these people’s vil- BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Coming in July! Summer Raffle And you can help to make it bigger and better than ever. prize? w raffle te a ne u dona tact: Can yo con please If so, alden nimal Society W Aileen sA ad t Friend c /o Bes el Canyon Ro 1 Ang 4741 500 UT 8 5 Kanab, -3965 ext 416 g s.or ) 64 4 (435 riend @bestf aileenw The Famous Best Friends You’re their Follow the daily lives of some special needs animals at the sanctuary. Be there for their journey to a new life. www.bestfriends.org/guardianangel BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 15 no more homeless pets news The Few, the Proud, the Furry AP Photo/The North Platte Telegraph, Beth Gilbert Baracus the platoon dog stays warm while traveling with U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Francisco Davila in Karabilah, Iraq, on December 5, 2005. Baracus is named after the character played by Mr. T in the 1980s TV series The A-Team because his namesake wore his hair in a similar “Mohawk” style. The Force Is with Him AP Photo, Jack Rendulich Tom and Nancy Simonton of Chicago had pretty much given up hope of finding their beloved cat, Yoda. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Yoda had darted from their car into a fierce blizzard along Interstate 80. But at a farm a couple of miles from the highway, Sarah Roberts and her family never gave up looking for Yoda. Every day, weather permitting, she and her husband, Mike, and five-year-old son, James, took the time to look around for the cat. And the Simontons would come out from Chicago to look for Yoda, too. But the chances of finding him were growing increasingly slim. Then, one warm January afternoon, while James was playing in the yard, his mother asked him to get a rake from the shed. “He came running out of there yelling, ‘Mom, Mom, I found the cat,’” Roberts said. Sure enough. The cat had the same mitten paws and green breakaway collar described weeks earlier by Simonton. Yoda was thin but healthy, and had probably been hanging out there for several weeks. At the happy reunion, the Simontons made good on their reward offer, handing young James a check for $300. Their Daily Constitutional Deb Penry “walks” her dog, Mister Bubbles, in Duluth, Minnesota. Penry adopted the poodle, who cannot walk, from a shelter and uses a wheelchair to give him his daily outing. Penry, who has two artificial hips, walks Mister Bubbles up to 10 miles a day for exercise. “I felt it was God’s destiny for me,” explained Valentina Yermakova when asked why she sold her St. Petersburg apartment and moved out of town to start an animal sanctuary. Yermakova claims to be an out-of-wedlock daughter of Nobel-Prize-winning physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who discovered the law of conditional reflexes through his infamous experiments on dogs. Like Pavlov, Yermakova has dedicated her life to dogs, but in a very different way. She says she developed her love for animals while living with her mother, a laboratory assistant, near the Experimental Medical Institute in St. Petersburg, where Pavlov worked. The apartment was full of all kinds of animals: dogs, cats, rabbits, and a monkey. Yermakova says that 16 years ago she suddenly felt the need to do more for animals, especially the large number of strays who roam Russia. Shelters are both few in number and, more often than not, precariously funded by private donations. At last count, Yermakova’s sanctuary had 56 dogs and 47 cats. Every week, she buys seven gallons of milk for her cats and cooks huge pots of porridge for her dogs. One of her supporters brings her a weekly supply of 120 pounds of sausage that is past its expiration date. In spite of her funding worries, the work of maintaining a home for so many pets has its rewards, Yermakova said. “I know for sure that people are not able to love someone as intensely as dogs can love their owners,” she said. Pavlovian Response! 16 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky Saving Their Bacon! What’s a homeless potbellied pig to do? Well, 431 of them have taken refuge at the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary in Tucson, Arizona. And they’re having the time of their lives! Sarah was found huddled behind a piece of rusted sheet metal with a litter of babies who didn’t survive. Today, she’s snuggling in blankets with a big, snorty smile on her face. And Chandler had never seen the outdoors before. He’d spent his life at a university having experiments done on him. Ironwood opened its doors in June 2001. “Potbellied pigs were brought to this country in 1985,” says its president, Mary Schanz. “They were initially a very yuppie, exotic pet.” But soon, she explains, people began to have problems with them. They’re smart, affectionate, clean, quiet pets. But they do like to dig up the yard, sometimes even the house. They can grow to be 150 pounds, and many zoning laws forbid them. Plus, if they’re not spayed or neutered, they can begin having babies when they’re still babies themselves. Ironwood welcomes visitors to their 80 acres, and pigs can be adopted or sponsored. Log onto www.ironwoodpigsanctuary.org, or call (520) 631-6015. No More Homeless Pets Briefs a commercial trash bin to bring attention to the killing of “dumped” animals. Van Engel, president of Paws-2-Help in West Palm Beach, Florida, settled into the large bin with just the bare necessities: bed, toilet, phone, food, and a dog. About two weeks into her stay, she rescued a kitten named Smoke. Smoke belongs to a homeless man who got into a fight and wound up in a hospital. When the ambulance arrived, the nurses called Paws-2-Help, and Van Engel had the kitten brought to her at the trash bin and arranged for Smoke and her person to be reunited. Although the story got wide media attention, Van Engel didn’t raise much money for the animals. But she’s not giving up. “I’m already planning our next fundraiser,” she said. Fixing Paradise: The small Caribbean nation of Dominica is overrun with strays and roaming pets. So Community Led Animal Welfare (CLAW) organized a weeklong spaya-thon in Roseau, the capital of the island. When it was over, 160 dogs and cats had been fixed, vaccinated, and given a checkup and other health care as needed. And the publicity has helped launch a long-term CLAW effort to promote the welfare of pets in Dominica. What a Dump! Dr. Eve Van Engel spent 26 days in City Helps Kitties: The all-volunteer Animal Alliance Welfare League (AAWL) of New Britain, Connecticut, which has been feeding more than 500 feral cats, is now getting financial support from the city of New Britain. This support is groundbreaking since many Connecticut cities do nothing to contain the large numbers of feral and abandoned cats. Most city shelters, including New Britain’s, don’t even take cats. New Britain is the first city in Connecticut to allocate funding to help take care of the feral cat population. This pilot program came about through the teamwork of AAWL, the city, and Sen. Donald DeFronzo. feeding the resident feral cats at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia. Then club officials decided to evict them because they are a “health liability.” But the cats had friends among many of the club’s members – military families, senators, congressmen, and diplomats. Among others, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a 20-year club member and animal advocate, was appalled. When the Washington Post spotlighted the club’s decision to trap and kill the cats, the public became involved. And now the club and the cats’ supporters have reached an agreement: The club will spend $1,500 to neuter, vaccinate, and transfer the cats to a less-public area on the grounds. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 The Strays Stay: For 40 years, volunteers had been It wasn’t just a festival for pampered pets in Kuala Lumpur, Maylasia. The annual event, sponsored by Purina to raise awareness of good animal nutrition, featured games and treats, but the local SPCA and PAWS were also on hand selling souvenirs and promoting pet welfare. The SPCA even brought along four neutered dogs who were available for adoption. Good Time, Good Cause 17 hurricane rescue Homecomings By Cathy Scott Six months later: rescues, reunions, adoptions At 14 years old, a deaf springer spaniel who was rescued on the Gulf Coast is displaying plenty of spirit in her new home in a small Canadian village. Angela Burns, who took the spaniel home with her and her husband, Michael, call their new family member Laya. Laya acts like anything but an old girl. She stands up to the other Burns dogs, a 10-year-old black Lab and an 11-year-old golden retriever. And she’s made friends with a paralyzed house bunny. “She lets our other two dogs know that it’s not cool to mess with her food,” Burns said. “She’s just 35 pounds, but she still has spunk in her. She’s definitely comfortable in our home.” Home is a large house on three-quarters of an acre in Cheltenham, a village of 500 on the outskirts of Ontario, Canada. “It’s a nice environment,” Burns said. “We have protected lands and farmers’ fields behind us. It’s wonderful.” Laya was discovered by animal control officers under a house in Waveland, Mississippi, just before the neighborhood was to be bulldozed by construction workers. According to her rescuers, she was malnourished and her eyes were crusted over with an eye infection. She was taken to the Humane Society of Southern Mississippi in Gulfport, held for five days, then transferred to a Best Friends rescue center at Celebration Station, a former amusement arcade outside of New Orleans, where she was put on intravenous fluids. That’s when she met the Burnses. A group of volunteers surrounded Angela and Laya as they prepared to take their new family pet home. She had tapeworm, a bladder infection, and a baseball-size tumor in her abdomen. But none of that was a problem to Angela and Michael. “She arrived at Celebration Station on December 28, the same day I did,” said Angela. “I didn’t even see her face. I saw her lying in her kennel with her back toward me and asked, ‘Is that dog available for adoption?’ It was like she was meant to come home with us. I’d told my husband I wouldn’t bring any pets home. [But] I talked to him and he said OK.” Today, Laya is feeling much better. The family vet is treating her illnesses, including the tumor. She spends a lot of time hanging out in the family room with the Burnses’ bunny. “They like each other,” Angela said. Along with the other household pets, Laya is being spoiled. “She’s getting all homemade, natural food,” Angela said. “With the tapeworm gone, she should start gaining weight.” Love at first sight For a cat named One-Eyed Jack, it was love at first sight for his new mom. On Christmas Eve, Jack was found injured on the side of a road in the New Orleans area. His tail was partially amputated and his left eye was missing. After a brief stopover at the Louisiana SPCA, he, too, was transferred to Celebration Station. “He was friendly right from the start, even with his injuries,” said volunteer Genevieve Ross. On January 10, after a five-day holding period during which volunteers unsuccess- One-Eyed Jack for a cat called 18 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 CORRALLED IN THE CANAL When a Vizsla mix was found in a canal with obvious birdshot injuries from being sprayed across the side of her body, the prognosis didn’t look good. She was so badly frightened that it took three hours to catch her. Today, the only reminders of her time in the canal are a few scars. But her X-rays reveal far worse: More than 100 pellets are imbedded under her skin, some in vital organs. Twelve alone are in her left rear foot. “They pierced every organ but her heart,” said Craig Hill, who, along with nearly a dozen volunteers, rescued the dog now called Kanal Girl. Hill is keeping Kanal Girl “because she chose me. She follows me everywhere I go.” Spray-painted inside the canal where she was found were the words “Kanal Boyz,” apparently the name of a street gang. “That’s where she was hanging out, so that’s why I spelled her name that way,” explained Hill. Hill and his fellow rescuers set out to capture Kanal Girl back in early November. “She was terrified,” he said. “She was scared and skinny. It took 12 of us three hours to get her. I jumped in the canal with fencing to block her.” Still, she continued to run the length of the six-mile canal. “We walked three miles to get her. We started to sandwich her in, then she took a turn at the pump station. [But] we surrounded her and blocked her.” Hill believes, from construction workers’ sightings, that the two-year-old dog lived along the canal at least two months. A local resident had been feeding her. She was found hanging out with a chow, who was picked up by the Louisiana SPCA. “I was told the chow was adopted by a family in New Jersey,” Hill said. “When I get back home [to New Jersey], I’m going to get together with them so Kanal Girl and the chow can see each other again.” In the meantime, Kanal Girl will stay with Hill in New Orleans. “She and I will be here until there aren’t any more animals to pick up,” he said. Photos: Carol Guzy fully searched for his guardian, Jack went home with Ross, to another Canadian home, coincidentally. “When he arrived at Celebration Station, he had three old fractures in his leg,” Ross said. “His tail and eye injuries were new. The whiskers on the left side of his face were missing and he was also missing a tooth. But I thought he was cute anyway.” One-Eyed Jack also has an enlarged heart and feline leukemia. “I’m giving him vitamin supplements and organic cat food,” Ross said. “He has a good chance of being able to live with leukemia for a long time.” To her, “Jack is the embodiment of all the suffering the animals of New Orleans have gone through. I think he’s amazing because he’s so brave.” At home in Peterborough, Ontario, Jack has settled in well with Ross and her fiancé, Luke Weynark, and their two ferrets. He sleeps in bed with them at night and on the sofa during the day. Weynark said the transition from New Orleans to their home was a seamless one. “We let him out of his plane carrier and he started walking around. It’s like he’s always lived here.” Ross says all she wants is to keep Jack comfortable in his new home. “I think he really likes being in a home again,” she said. “I’m going to make sure Jack has an easy rest of his life.” BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 19 hurricane rescue The Saints of New Orleans Rescue among the ruins It’s early morning as Craig Hill and Anne Welling head out together to the Lower Ninth Ward to check on some traps they set the night before. The sun is shining and they want to make sure they get any trapped dogs or cats off the streets before the day gets too warm. For the two-person team, it’s just another 20-hour day hitting the streets in a last-ditch effort to save the displaced pets of Katrina. It’s not an easy gig. Hill says he plans to catch a short nap with his adopted dog before heading out again at midnight, because he might not return until 5 a.m. But he’s determined to stay alert so he can capture even more animals. “What we’re doing is important,” Hill says. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” Hill has spent several days with Welling, teaching her the intricacies of trapping. “We make sure the animals don’t get hurt in the process,” he says. “The dogs are smart. They’re watching us.” Hill put his gutter company in South Brunswick, New Jersey, on hold until he’s finished, probably in the spring. He’s been in New Orleans since September. Welling, a student from Cincinnati, Ohio, has also put her life on hold so she can help the pets left behind when the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. Together, they’ve been setting traps in abandoned neighborhoods. They use wire cages baited with food to catch dogs and cats. They head down a street near a large rust-colored barge that still sits on Jourdan Avenue, a symbol to New Orleanians of the devastation left behind after water crashed through a concrete levee and destroyed the homes of the mostly working-class neighborhood. The area they’re working is the Lower Ninth Ward, which borders the Mississippi River to the south and St. Bernard Parish to the east. It’s where Fats Domino made his home. Many of the houses in the Lower Ninth were built with wood – stick homes, as they’re commonly called. Nearly every house was flattened. Those that weren’t were damaged beyond repair. Inside the rubble, dogs and cats still hide, waiting for the people to return. A few streets away from the barge, Hill checks on a trap he set earlier for a dog who’s reported to have puppies. “I used to see her sitting on this couch,” he says, pointing to a sofa in a vacant lot. “I haven’t seen her for a while.” That means she probably had her babies nearby and is attending to them there instead of sitting on the sofa waiting for her family. The next stop of the morning is Pauline Street near a Common Ground food distribution center. One of the workers there tips off Hill and Welling to a pack of dogs that’s been seen across the street ON THE ROAD AGAIN Jack and Nancy Dixon hit the road in their motor home in December and headed for New Orleans to try and make a difference for the animals. This wasn’t the first time Jack helped out during a disaster. He volunteered for the Red Cross after terrorists struck New York City. Nancy stayed home then, but this time she wanted to join her husband, so they decided to sign up with an animal rescue group. They got on the Internet to find one, and ended up at the Best Friends rescue center at Celebration Station in Metairie, Louisiana, outside of New Orleans. The highlight of their two-week stint as feeders and trappers was looking after a homeless dog who has yet to be caught. “We spotted a Benji-looking dog down on General Pershing 20 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 under a house. Hill and Welling pull a large dog trap from their van, put it near the front yard, bait it with canned dog food, set the trigger, and cover the wire trap with a blanket. Hill pulls grass from the ground and spreads it over the floor of the entrance. That way, he says, the dogs won’t feel like they’re walking into a trap. It’s a ritual he and Welling do each time they set a trap. They’ll return to the same traps two and three times over the next 12 hours to see if they’ve caught a dog. If so, they’ll bait and set the trap again for the next member of the four-dog pack until they get them all. “When we get one of them, they’ll no longer be in that pack mentality and they’ll eventually be friendly,” Hill says. “But out here, they’re scared to death of people.” In fact, that night when Hill returns to check on two traps, three of the dogs charge him and chase him to a corner street. But that doesn’t stop him. By the end of the week, he and others will have caught three of the four in the pack. “One more to go,” he says. For Corolla Fleeger, who uses a pole and leash to catch dogs and cats, the work of the extraction and trapping teams is paying off. “Over the months, we’ve been watching the numbers decrease,” says Fleeger, who lives in Redondo Beach, California, but has been in New Orleans for three months catching Katrina animals. Fleeger drives to an area a few blocks away from St. Bernard Development, a low-incoming housing project. There, she sets up a trap for an injured dog. She points to his bloody tracks, showing how he must have been frantic as he circled, walked inside a vacant house, went out the back door to a grassy area next to a canal, then retraced his steps. She points to a shattered sliding-glass door panel. “He cut his foot on this,” she says. Next, she walks over to a construction crew to ask if they’ve seen an injured dog. “People in the neighborhoods are our eyes and ears,” she explains. They have, indeed, seen a dog, but they aren’t sure whether it was the injured one. “He’s a pretty dog,” says Rachel Mahoney, one of the crew. “He isn’t scared. He’ll come to you.” Fleeger gives her phone number to Mahoney and her partner, Ruben Garcia, and asks them to call her if they spot the dog. “We love animals,” Garcia says. “If they survived Katrina, they deserve to live. We’ll call you.” Boulevard,” Jack said. “We went back and forth, feeding him and taking care of him.” Several trappers have gone out to catch him but have come back empty-handed. “He wants to be friendly but he’s scared,” Nancy said. “He doesn’t want to be hurt again.” Eventually trappers will get him, Jack said. “If they catch him, we’ll probably adopt him if his owners can’t be found.” If so, he’ll be a part of their menagerie of four dogs, five cats, and a python at their ranch-style home on five acres in Dublin, Georgia, where, Nancy said, “we have lots of room and lots of love to give.” They extended their stay in hopes the shaggy dog would be caught before they left. When he wasn’t, they drove to Tylertown, Mississippi, and volunteered at the main Best Friends rescue center for two days. That’s where they met a chow nicknamed Babs, another highlight. “Every time I had a break [from working], I spent time with her,” Nancy said. The Dixons were thinking of taking her home to Georgia, too, but couldn’t because she was sick. When they arrived home, they learned that Babs – whose real name is Tink – had been reunited with her people, George and Lawanda Davis. “I am so happy for her,” Nancy said. “She was so shy and so lonely. I couldn’t be happier. I cried and cried when I learned the news.” Did the Dixons make a difference during their stay? “I think we did,” Nancy said. And that, Jack Dixon noted, not only helped the animals, but it “made my wife happy, too.” BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 21 animals & society Animal Hoaxes Alive and well . . . and living on the Internet! 22 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 By Julie Richard t was only the second episode of comedian Ricky Gervais’ new podcast, but it started with what was clearly intended to become its trademark shtick. Quirky radio producer Karl Pilkington, the screwy straight man to The Office creator, and his writing partner, Stephen Merchant, excitedly regaled the duo with a bizarre story ripped from world headlines – an African lion had been pitted in a man vs. beast contest against 42 members of the Cambodian Midget Fighting League. In a spectacular triumph for Mother Nature, the lion had prevailed, killing 28 of the fearless fighters. The details, for those of us with a healthy appreciation for black humor, were delicious: the CMFL’s ad campaign affirming their willingness to battle “man, beast or I Did giant catfish swallow recreational divers whole? machine”; the disgruntled fan who taunted that the league record was so shoddy that a single lion could defeat the entirety of their numbers en masse; the Cambodian government’s agreement, provided it received half of all profits. The gauntlet was seized, the venue chosen, and tickets sold out three weeks in advance. The bout itself lasted a mere 12 minutes. When the bell rang, in addition to those who lay felled on the field, 14 others were critically maimed. The lion was unscathed and sated. Despite the victory, Gervais declared his outrage that the King of Beasts had been so ill-treated. After all, the lion had been innocently roaming his African range when he was pilfered, thrust into a crate, shipped across the seas, and dumped into a ring amidst a horde of bloodthirsty little people. The lion, Gervais asserted, had no choice. He was forced to fight. The midget fighters, on the other hand, willingly stepped into the fray. As the discourse reached hilarious pitch, listeners desperate for more details may very well have been tempted to Google the keywords “lion and midgets.” If they did, they may have been led to a BBC world news story. Or so it seemed. The skeptically minded might have raised an eyebrow at the Beeb employing the politically incorrect terminology “midget” so prominently in a “ headline. If they examined the page more carefully, they would have noted (despite the dead-on Beeb web graphics) the “small print.” A disclaimer shouted in capital letters: “This article is a FAKE and is not from the BBC.” Both the tale and the “BBC” webpage were born from an existential debate between a group of friends over whether 40 unarmed midgets could defeat one lion in an unarmed contest. One holdout claimed they could. Despite all arguments, he failed to be swayed to the diametrically opposed general viewpoint. One of the group used his computer expertise to create a mock BBC news story detailing just such an occurrence and e-mailed the blog link to his small clique. He thought the joke would end there. But, as things happen when e-mail is involved, his buddies began forwarding it to friends outside the circle. Of course, those friends forwarded it to others, and on and on it made the rounds. The originator awoke one morning, a few weeks later, to discover that his burst of creativity had suddenly gained legitimacy through the Internet and had ended up in the guise of truthful BBC reportage on myriad websites, including the heavily trolled Fark.com. Thus, an urban legend was born. Under the obvious influence of well-justified terror over the potential legal implications, the inventor immediately posted a warning notice on his original blog page that the article was untrue and did not emanate from the respected news organization. Despite his disclaimer, the story continued its digitized course unfettered. Bowing to events now way beyond his control, the clever author turned even cleverer entrepreneur by quickly developing an extensive line of Cambodian Midget Fighting League t-shirts and mugs from which he is currently enjoying brisk online sales. Those events unfolded in May 2005. But on a night before Christmas later that year, Gervais and his cohorts spent a fair number of minutes at the top of his show discussing the “news” story without once noting that it was fraudulent. As the podcast had blasted to first place on the U.S. and U.K. charts by achieving 180,000 downloads in its first week alone, it’s a fairly safe bet that at least a portion of listeners believed the tale, and have since related it to others ... and so on. Penguin in the bath! The lions vs. midgets story reveals just how strong the power of the Internet is and how quickly disseminated rumors can be accepted as fact into our collective consciousness. But sometimes anecdotes can have unexpected and very unfortunate consequences. Another story flamed around the Internet last Christmas, ultimately leading to an unusual press conference. Officials from Boston’s New England Aquarium faced the media in the company of one of their resident penguins. The poster child’s presence provided the photo-op weight necessary to quell rumors of a penguin abduction at the facility. A heavily e-mailed story had sped around the globe and had led to the aquarium’s receipt of a flood of concerned e-mails and phone calls. According to the account, a 12-year-old autistic boy had wandered away from his mother while visiting the zoo’s penguin habitat. When found, he was so agitated that his mother promptly took him home and drew a warm bath hoping to calm his frayed nerves. After leaving him to soak and decompress, she returned to find him enjoying a rather riotous splash with an adult penguin. The boy, following heavy interrogation, finally admitted he had secreted the aquatic bird away from the zoo in his backpack. (Alert readers might have instantly spotted a hoax if they wondered why the mother, having just returned from the penguin habitat sans the voluntary company of a penguin, needed to cross-examine her son so intensely to discern just how the creature could have ended up in their bathroom.) ” BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 23 animals & society How the tale began making Internet rounds, no one is sure. What is known is that it wasn’t original. An alternative version has been circulating for a decade now, having made an appearance months before upon the debut of the film March of the Penguins. The new spate, it was speculated, may have been spawned by the movie’s imminent DVD release. While the aquarium was busy debunking the fabrication and performing public head counts on their birds, a true and highly tragic event that may well have been sparked by the stories occurred across the Atlantic. A threemonth-old, extremely rare jackass penguin ran down leads, the Royal Navy launched a search mission, and at least one British child wrote to a newspaper pleading for the kidnappers to return the tyke in exchange for her own Christmas presents. Sadly, Toga has not been recovered. As every mother warns her teenager, gossip can have unintended harmful consequences. Animal hoaxes are rife on the Internet. Many exploit our love of animals to provoke action. While the loss of an innocent creature such as Toga resonates far more deeply for us, corporate America has suffered financial losses over e-mailinstigated yarns. “ Alligators in the toilet? Penguins in the bath? was stolen from a zoo park in the U.K. Baby “Toga” was the first and only black-footed penguin to be born in the zoo’s endangered species breeding program. He was still being fed by his parents and couldn’t survive for long without them. The incident made global headlines, a hefty, no-questions-asked award was offered for Toga’s safe return, the police The squeeze on Febreze Procter & Gamble is no stranger to such attacks. Long the target of animal rights activists decrying their animal testing practices, the company found itself embroiled in the rumor mill when cautionary e-mails were downloaded to in-boxes across the country in January 1999. The guidance seemed sincere, alerting pet owners to the dangers of the company’s fabric freshener, Febreze. “There have been multiple instances of dogs and birds dying after being exposed to Febreze,” the e-mail declared. “Febreze contains zinc chloride, which is very dangerous for animals. Do not use Febreze anywhere near your pets! Please pass this information on to other pet owners/caretakers!” Of course, concerned pet lovers forwarded it immediately – in multiples. It quickly gained such an air of legitimacy that P&G issued a refutation and the ASPCA’s National Animal Poison Control Center launched an investigation into the claims. Their veterinary toxicologists determined the product wasn’t a risk, and they released a statement asserting that Febreze was safer than many household products on the market. (Both organizations took care to point out that special care was needed around birds with any household product, because of the delicate avian respiratory system.) Still, the rumor didn’t die. It took three more years and another ASPCA press release in 2002 to finally silence the scare-mongering. (Although it’s highly likely that some ” How to Spot an E-mail Hoax Examine the claims. Most fake reports lack verifiable details, names and dates. They typically happened to a “friend’s neighbor” or a “work colleague’s mother.” Spot the dead giveaway. If an e-mail urgently begs you to “Forward this to everyone you know” so you can “help save lives,” you can bet it isn’t real. Honestly! If it says “This is not a hoax,” most likely it is. (Like if he says, “You can trust me,” trust me, you can’t.) Excess drama. Lots of !!!!! or WORDS IN UPPER CASE usually signify TALL TALE! Don’t be a dupe! Before you forward an e-mail (particularly if it’s going to start a scare), use your common sense and/ or check it out. And there are websites that scan the Internet for urban legends. Snopes.com and TruthOrFiction.com are just two of them. consumers, unaware of the debunking, still think the product is unsafe.) P&G fell prey to netlore once again in May 2004, when a new spate of e-mails raised an alarm on the dangers of Swiffer WetJet disposable floor cleaners, claiming the product contained antifreeze and was fatally toxic to dogs and cats. The distress signal came in what has become a familiar e-mail form – the cautionary semi-personal tale. The account went like this: “My neighbor recently had to put down their five-year-old German shepherd dog, due to liver failure. The dog was completely healthy until a few weeks ago, but a necropsy showed that he had ingested poison of some kind. My neighbor started going through all the items in the house. When he got to the Swiffer WetJet, he noticed, in tiny print, a warning: ‘May be harmful to small children and animals.’ He called the company and was astounded to find out that antifreeze is one of the ingredients. Just by walking on the floor cleaned with the solution, then licking its paws, the dog ingested enough of the solution to destroy its liver. My neighbor asked that we spread the word...” Again, people did. Again, P&G issued a press release asserting the product’s safety and, again, they were backed by the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center. Drowning in doodoo Not all Internet chatter is designed to deliver blows to company coffers or inspire heinous crimes. The preponderance falls in the “odd but true” (although they’re not) category. They provide a good laugh, make 24 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 their way into publications with somewhat flexible standards of journalistic integrity, and provide great fodder for those who enjoy a daily dose of amusing topical e-mails. Some, such as the sad account of the elephant keeper who met an undignified end after administering too heavy a dose of laxatives to a constipated charge and drowning in the ensuing unexpected torrent, are merely harmless tales of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others, such as the urban legend of alligators in New York’s sewer systems making their way into posh bathrooms via the toilet, have terrified a generation of children. The latter actually had its origin long before the Internet’s advent, illustrating the power of the rumor mill at large. It dates back to the 1920s but has found fresh life on the web. Each year brings a fresh torrent of animal alerts. In 2000, giant catfish reportedly terrorized the East Coast, swallowing recreational divers whole. In 2001, the scandaldu-jour was a fake website selling equipment to make “Bonsai Kittens” – cats stuffed into jars and fed through a tube so they could be kept in miniature. The year 2005 started off with an avalanche of outrage that made the national press after the hoax website Savetoby.com threatened that its creator would eat his pet rabbit, Toby, if he didn’t receive donations equaling $50,000. One of the latest canards (this in the form of a leaked company memo) warned that Huntingdon Life Sciences, one of the most despised animal testing labs, wanted to purchase orphaned dogs and cats rescued from Hurricane Katrina. Each one would earn the provider $5. But wait, there’s more. The person who rounded up the most homeless animals and delivered them to Huntingdon’s dark doors would win a fully paid Las Vegas vacation! The tattle was, of course, entirely false – nor did it take a rocket scientist to figure out the motivation for starting it. Your opinion counts! www.bestfriends.org/panel As Best Friends continues to grow, you can play an important role in shaping our future. Please log onto www.bestfriends.org/panel and join our research panel team today. Simply by filling out short surveys throughout the year, you can make a difference. up-to-date... fun! pace setting What’s next? It’s 2006, and the rumor mill is still healthily churning. Some may still be recounting the bizarre fate of a group of Cambodian midget fighters, while others may have moved on. While none of us knows what startling announcements or unfortunate incidents might suddenly land in our mailboxes in the coming months, one thing can be counted on: Sometime, somewhere in the world, a seeing-eye dog named Lucky will miss a red light and lead the fifth of his hapless owners to an untimely demise. interacti ve eye-catching educational BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 25 on the wild side Bosque “I saw them first many Novembers ago and heard their triumphant trumpet calls, a hundred or more sandhill cranes riding south on a thermal above the Rio Grande Valley, and that day their effortless flight and their brassy music got into my soul.” – Charles Kuralt Wings Over Wonderland Change image 26 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 By Clay Myers A primordial sense of excitement builds as the sun breaks over the horizon. The voices of thousands of snow geese grow louder with each passing moment. Then something triggers the anxious birds.... Lift-off! Suddenly the sky is filled with geese. Wave after wave of them fly right overhead; the sound from their raucous cries and beating wings is almost deafening. And then a quiet calm emerges, as the symphony of sound fades into the distance. You’ve just witnessed the famous morning fly-out of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. This impressive display is a daily occurrence during winter at the Bosque, and it’s largely why the refuge is considered to be one of the most spectacular in America. While the number of snow geese wintering at the Bosque is certainly impressive, for me, the real attraction is the sandhill cranes. These long-legged waders have always fascinated me, and I gladly photograph them every chance I get. I’ve found the Bosque to be the best place to witness the crane’s graceful flight and hear its melodious croaks up close. The Bosque del Apache provides critical habitat for the once-scarce sandhill crane. When it opened in 1933, only 17 cranes wintered there. Now, about 15,000 of these majestic birds return there annually. This significant turnaround is due to cooperation between the refuge and local farmers, who grow crops for wintering birds. There is also a complex irrigation system that floods low-lying fields, thereby promoting the growth of native marsh plants. The Bosque (pronounced Bo-skay) is located just east of Interstate 25 midway between Albuquerque and Las Cruces, New Mexico. There is camping and lodging about 20 miles away in Socorro. Bird Watchers RV Park is located just minutes away from the refuge entrance. Perhaps no other place offers us such easy access to an incredible amount of wildlife as the Bosque; it truly is an oasis in the desert. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 27 best friends animal sanctuary Hey, Good Lookin’! A lot of new faces show up at Best Friends every day, but nobody had seen one quite like this before! And Joanie has faced a lot of rejection for it. First, for unknown reasons, her mother rejected her. But some people rescued the tiny puppy and brought her to an animal shelter. Joanie’s next problem was that nobody wanted to adopt her. So the shelter staff called Best Friends and asked if she could come to live at the sanctuary. Today, Joanie’s days of rejection are over! Everybody loves her friendly, lick-lick personality. And since she has never looked in the mirror, she has no idea there’s a ny t h ing wrong with her face. A n d nobody here thinks there is, either! 20 Years Young How long can a cat live with feline leukemia? Cybella recently celebrated her 20th birthday at the Best Friends TLC Cat Club. Not bad at all! And it just goes to show that, contrary to what a lot of people think, feline leukemia is not a death sentence. Certainly some cats with fe-leuk, especially kittens, can be taken from this world prematurely, but others like Cybella can keep going strong long past the average cat who doesn’t even have the virus. Cybella lives with a whole group of kitty friends who have the same condition she does. At her birthday party, she announced that her swinging youth is just beginning. She then blew out the candles on her special-diet cake, and wished that ... but that would be telling! Nobody could really get near Lila. Even after months at the sanctuary, she’d still run and hide if anyone came close. So when Frank and Claire Gould were looking for a “friendly, kissy cat,” nobody was about to suggest Lila! Instead, we introduced them to Charlie, who’s naturally huggable and friendly. Frank and Claire agreed Charlie was perfect, but then who should step forward and start rubbing her face against their legs, asking to be petted? Lila! No one had ever seen her act that way before! Lila simply transformed into the “friendly, kissy cat” they’d asked for. So Frank and Claire adopted her and Charlie, and both kitties are now living it up at their new home in Las Vegas. 28 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Kiss-met All About Jazz Jazzy is a big proponent of “size acceptance.” In her last home, the bigger parrots kept beating her up! Just because she’s a delicate little bitty greencheek conure! They pecked and pecked, and even tore off part of her beak! Well, enough of that. To keep Jazzy safe, her person brought her to Best Friends and, here at the sanctuary, she’s proving what a tough little munchkin she really is. Her lower beak has been more or less glued back on, and now she’s getting back her confidence, and beginning to give her beak a good workout with proper bird food. Baby Steps Sometimes it takes baby steps to break old habits. But Gypsy the mule is taking bigger and bigger steps every day toward becoming a mule somebody will want to adopt. Her family gave her up because she was too darned skittish to ride. And nobody else seemed to want to take in a mule who runs away when you come near. So Gypsy came to Best Friends, where horse trainer Ann Hepworth has been working tirelessly with Gypsy, teaching her to trust. It’s been a slow ride, so to speak, but would you believe it? Today, not only can Ann approach Gypsy, but she can even ride her! You can read their daily progress journal in the Guardian Angel section of the Best Friends website. Minimize Me! Beulah arrived at Best Friends tipping the scales at a flabby 140 pounds – twice as much as she should weigh. The extra bulk was stressing her lungs and legs. Just taking more than a few steps at a time was cause for a nap! This poor Rottie needed to lose at least 60 pounds to live any kind of normal life. So, special care meant a customized weight-loss diet and fitness program – and lots of love to help her through it. With tons of encouragement and praise, Beulah slimmed down to 100 pounds in just 20 weeks. She was breathing easier and moving better, and a wonderful hidden personality started to emerge along with her waistline! To help her lose those last 20 pounds, Beulah joined the Best Friends gym, where she’s getting hydrotherapy three times a week. She has a touch of arthritis, so hydrotherapy helps her get the exercise she needs while taking the weight off her hips. She’s motivated, too: This sweet, affectionate animal really wants to be someone’s lap dog. Maybe yours? P.S. You can hear Beulah Blues, her very own weight-loss song, at www.bestfriends.org/guardianangel. Stalwart & True A frisky Siamese, Jazz was rescued from the streets of New Orleans several months after the hurricane. Nothing could keep this little guy’s spirit down. He was covered in fleas, infested with ear mites, and afflicted with sores in his eyes and open wounds behind his ears. But this furry, purry boy just couldn’t have been happier to be safe! Still, his problems were more than skin deep. His lungs were congested with a severe upper respiratory infection, and, for a double whammy, he tested positive for both feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus, two conditions that slam the immune system. Jazz was treated at our hurricane rescue center outside of New Orleans and at a local veterinary hospital before making the trip to Best Friends. Here at the sanctuary, with time and care, most of his medical problems improved. But his eyelids roll inward so that his fur scratches his eyes and causes painful ulcers. As soon as he’s strong enough, he’ll be having surgery to see more clearly, and without pain. Jazz will need special care for the rest of his life, but this little guy has a bright and beautiful life ahead of him. Be Someone’s Guardian Angel They come from shelters and rescue groups all over – perhaps lifelong – care at the sanctuary. the country to get the kind of special care they can Keep up with their daily progress and their amazonly receive at Best Friends. ing recoveries in the Guardian Angel section of the Most have suffered serious trauma – physical or website: www.bestfriends.org/guardianangel. emotional. Some recover quickly and are soon ready to be placed in good homes; others need long-term You make it all possible! Thank you for caring. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 29 best friends animal sanctuary at the sanctuary Once they were just cast-offs. sad faces are living “happily ever after” at Best Friends, the nation’s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals. Now, thanks to you, these once- 2 3 1 1. The Scarlet Feather. Samantha’s rescue group was evicted from its property, so today, she’s Best Friends’ very own “lady in red.” 2. The life of a celebrity! Ever since Dermott joined the Best Friends Guardian Angel program, he’s got so many fans, seems like everywhere he goes, they’re blowing bubbles! 3. Welcome to Fairyland! At Horse Haven, every winter morning has the makings of a postcard. 30 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 4 6 5 4. “Pardon me. Does Best Friends accept goats?” Of course! Step right in, Pepper, and join the family! 5. “Do I smell Girl Scout cookies?” The Best Friends dogs were delighted to welcome Girl Scout Troop #757 to the sanctuary. 6. “I am smiling for the camera.” Whoops, our mistake, Sprint! Must be a Persian cat smile. Indeed, Sprint has every reason to be grinning from ear to ear. He’s just found himself a home. 7. “Look, mom, no hands!” Ah, the life of a Best Friends kitten. His name, Bashful, just doesn’t suit him. 8. “In case you hadn’t noticed!” Ginny’s had it with the subtle hint dropping! From now on, she’s wearing a sign! 7 8 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 31 Each of the animals on this page is older, or needs some daily medication, a little extra help getting around, or the training and understanding to be comfortable again in a home environment. If you’d like to know more about giving one of them a home, please call the sanctuary at (435) 644-2001. There are more “special adoptables” on the Best Friends website at www.bestfriends.org/atthesanctuary/specialadoptions/. “We’re extra huggable!” Giant rabbit alert! These two are a couple of 10-pound lugs, and squeezably soft. They’re laidback, friendly, and love to be petted. Pierre and Pedro are brothers, in perfect health, and only about two years old. They’ll follow you everywhere if they think you have food. (In case you were wondering what that ba-doomp ba-doomp behind you was.) They’re expert diggers, and they like to snuggle with each other all the time – so cute! How they’re hoping they can be a part of your family! “I can’t help being shy.” Snickers is such a polite, gentle fellow. All he asks for is a couch to cozy up on, and somebody to stroke his ears. But he’s shy, and sometimes he doesn’t know how to step forward and really grab adopters’ attention. He’s a healthy, handsome boy who’s fully housetrained and great with kids. No cats, but another calm dog like himself in the home would be just fine. He’s waited so long. Is there someone who’d like to meet him? “I wish I hadn’t lost my leg!” Oh, Sammy with the heartfelt, lemonlime eyes. He was so sad when he arrived at Best Friends, having just lost his leg to an injury. Sammy missed that leg something terrible. In fact, he needed medicine to make him stop attacking the “phantom limb”. He is an affectionate lap cat who purrs at the very first touch, and rubs his head against you to ask for more. Sammy is hoping there’s a family out there who’d be willing to take him – medicine and all – and love him. 32 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Rescued from Hurricane Katrina! You saw her on the front cover of the last Best Friends magazine being rescued from the floods, but it turned out, she didn’t have a family to return to. So now she needs a home. Goldie is a playful two year-old who likes to run! She’s aloof until she knows you, but then she’s a very active, happy dog. She’s a 44-pound chow-chow mix, good with some other dogs, who wants to be more of an active best buddy than a lap dog. Would someone like to meet Goldie? “I like me just the way I am!” Gabriel was born with a funny front leg that’s always tucked up in front of him. But he doesn’t see any reason why that should make people pass him up on adoption days. Why, he’s an affectionate, purry lap cat who loves to give you all his attention. He likes other pets – cats, dogs – that’s fine! See how well he’d fit in with your family? And aside from some serious dental work that he had recently, he’s in perfect health. Is there someone for him? “I miss my person so much!” China lost her person to a tragic car accident. And for a long time, she was lonely and afraid of cars. (She was in the car when it happened.) She just loves people, and wishes she had someone to call her own again. She’s not crazy about other cats, but she met some small dogs, and said she liked them much better! China is a healthy, mature seal-point Siamese with stunning blue eyes. And she really needs a new friend. “Do you think I’m pretty enough for a home?” Angel has gotten prettier and prettier every day! When she arrived at the sanctuary, she was so skinny it was painful to see. But today, she’s a good weight, and looking terrific. She’s a shy girl, but she becomes close friends with people over time. And, yes, she can be ridden! Some horse-riding experience is recommended, though. Angel is healthy and very gentle, but this 26-year-old can get playful and spunky when she’s in the mood. She would just love to have someone to call her own. “Can I come play with your dogs?” Vienna would make the loveliest friend for them! She’s just 40 pounds, housetrained, loyal, affectionate, and she walks beautifully on leash. She’s nice to cats, too! Vienna had no luck finding a home at her last shelter though, and she’s starting to feel like it’ll never happen for her! She has a slight limp, and she can be very scared with people at first. But she’s so well-behaved, and loves to have her belly rubbed. A safe, mature home would mean so much to her. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 33 best friends investigative report New Bunny Sex Scandal! What happens in Las Vegas clearly doesn’t stay there Special Investigative Report Tomato the Cat’s By Tomato the Cat – Best Friends Investigative Reporter “ Thumping at bulldozers, ducking from birds. ” Tomato the Cat, founder of the Best Friends TLC Cat Club for kitties with disabilities, began his investigative reports in order to bring journalistic integrity to this magazine. Although he went over the Rainbow Bridge in 1998, he keeps writing anyway, explaining that he’s only used up one of his nine lives. High recognition came in August 2000, when Tomato received a letter from the Pulitzer Prize Board (really!), informing him that he was the winner of a Pulitzer Award in a special category: “Purr Prize for Service to Man’s Best Friend.” reporting from out near the Reno airport. It has been nine years since my Pulitzer Prize–winning report from nearby Las Vegas on the Great Bunny Sex Scandal of 1997. And contrary to what the authorities are saying, what happens in Las Vegas does not stay there. Here, in a quiet suburban neighborhood backyard, bunnies are multiplying at the home of Jackie D. At the last count, there were close to a thousand. That’s right: a thousand bunnies – and counting. Earlier today, I talked to Baby, one of the top bunnies at Bunnyville, where he’s King of the Porch Area. “Jackie was doing just fine,” he told me. “She was following all the rules about spay/ neuter and basic bunny care. “But then two things happened: First, she got sick, and then word got out about our colony, and people started coming by at night and dropping their unwanted bunnies over the fence. Jackie couldn’t keep up with what was happening ... and here we all are.” A Best Friends Rapid Response Team is now on the ground here, headed up by Bunny House manager Debby Widolf. “These are not like your typical house rabbit,” said Debby after her initial survey. “As their numbers have grown, they’ve gone back to being wild, and what we have here is a fascinating glimpse of bunnies in their natural environment.” Much of that natural environment is underground. The bunnies have dug a maze of warrens under Jackie’s backyard, where they spend most of their time. Dusk and dawn are their times for being out and about above ground. And that’s when Jackie puts out their food. The bunnies are well-organized and live by their own rules. So, for example, Reno, Nevada: This is Tomato the Cat there’s no mad dash when food appears. Even though Bunnyville is one big open area, every bunny is part of a group. They all know which group they belong in and where they eat. So no one crosses the line into another group’s territory. While some of them are eating, others will be bolt upright, scanning the land into the distance for any signs of danger. “Just because we’re in a backyard,” said Baby, as he eyed me warily, “doesn’t mean that we can drop our guard. Some local cats have been coming over the fence, and at night even some of the local humans take shots at us with guns. Plus, the occasional big bird will swoop down on us.” 34 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 There’s another, even bigger kind of bird that’s swooping up and down around the bunnies. The airport is planning a big expansion, and Jackie is going to lose her lease – just one more reason to get the bunnies moved as quickly as possible. “I don’t think we can just burrow further underground,” explained Baby. “We’ve been thumping at the bulldozers that are parked down the street, but so far this hasn’t frightened them away like you’d expect.” Baby and Rembrandt, another top bunny who rules a separate section of the colony, want to protect their does. When they’re out and about above ground, these alpha boys are wary of each other – each protecting their does, and doing a lot of posturing, leaping up and down, and scooting away any other bunnies who challenge their authority. But unless they can get some help pretty quickly, Baby and Rembrandt won’t have anything to jump up and down about at all. So they’ve set aside their differences in order to save the entire colony. With the big birds at the airport eyeing her property, Jackie is going to have to move soon, and with her own health challenges, she says she won’t be able to look after any of the bunnies much longer. So Debby and the Best Friends Rabbit Response Team have set up camp in their own warren next to Jackie’s property to help look after the bunnies, get them neutered as quickly as possible, take care of some of their health issues, and start finding new colony homes for all of them. Rembrandt and Baby and all the bunnies are looking for good new backyards to set up house. If you have a backyard that could accommodate 10 or more bunnies, Best Friends can provide you with a complete how-to kit for housing and taking care of them. A few of the bunnies are socialized and will make good household pets. But most are looking to live their own lifestyle as proud descendants of their European wild rabbit ancestors. Details are on the Best Friends website at www.bestfriends.org/bunnysex. How You Can Help Best Friends bunny manager Debby Widolf (left) with Jackie The (Original) Great Bunny Sex Scandal of 1997 It started with a call from a woman in Las Vegas who said she had too many bunnies in her backyard. We asked how they got there. Silly question. (OK, so she explained that she didn’t know about spaying and neutering. Go figure!) Next day, a team from Best Friends arrived with a big truck. They counted 178 bunnies as they loaded them. Five hours later, back at the sanctuary, they unloaded the truck – 187 bunnies. For the next week, it was round-theclock spay/neuter. Eventually they were all fixed. Lots of them went to good new homes. A few are still at the sanctuary living bunnily ever after. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 35 health & behavior Is Fido Spying on You? Sort of, maybe! By Faith Maloney I think you should question that person’s true motives. Oh, and clean up that messy room! Your cat just might rat on you to the first person who asks. Faith, confidentially Dear Faith, Can pets read our minds? A trusted friend took her sick dog to an animal communicator. Apparently the dog poured out his heart about what’s going on in my friend’s life and even all arou n d the house, and “told” her this was making him feel bad. That can’t be true, can it? It’s kind of scary if it is. Feeling Spied On Dear Spied, There are two questions here: First, do animals watch and pick up on our behavior? Second, can they spill the beans to animal communicators? I’m a firm believer that while we’re trying to understand our pets’ behavior, they’re trying to figure out what makes us tick, too. They’re constantly watching us and recording our behavior, our moods, our tantrums, our sex lives. (We’re an open book!) And our emotions and moods can affect our animals both positively and negatively – and more than we may realize. In his excellent book, Unlocking the Animal Mind: How Your Pet’s Feelings Hold the Key to His Health and Happiness, Franklin McMillan, DVM, says he helps his animal patients by helping their people work through their emotional issues. This approach could explain your friend’s experience. As for whether they communicate all these details to animal communicators and psychics, I’ve had mixed experiences. Many of these professionals have a real gift for sensing what animals are feeling. Some, frankly, are tuning into their own imagination. Incidentally, I always pay close attention to how my pets react to people they meet. If your dog or cat doesn’t seem to like someone, 36 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Dear Faith, I adopted Jerry, a six-year-old Labrador mix from my local shelter, and now I regret it. He is jealous of my other animals. I have another Lab mix named Max, and two cats, and he won’t let them come anywhere near me when we sit down to watch TV. If the others try to get close to me, Jerry just growls and blocks them. The cats have found they can get up on the sofa another way, but Max just gives in and goes away. I’ve tried correcting Jerry’s bad behavior, and I’ve tried just ignoring it, but neither has worked. He has really disrupted the pleasant atmosphere in my house. I don’t want to return him to the shelter unless I have to. Any ideas? Feeling frazzled Dear Fraz, With a bit of work, I think you can get Jerry to stop this behavior and settle down. Ignoring or trying to correct the behavior won’t work, but taking command in your own home will. You are the main resource for food and attention, and therefore highly prized. At TV time, or any other time Jerry tries to monopolize you, give Jerry a task to perform, like sit or stay, and reward him for compliance. Invite the other animals to come and sit with you. You can also ask Max to work for the privilege by commanding him to sit or down stay. The cats have worked it all out anyway, as cats will. Dogs like Jerry need to be reminded that this is your home and your rules apply. Be consistent with asking Jerry to do things before he gets any kind of reward. This reinforces your role in the house. Faith, in charge Dear Faith, I am really worried about my mother. She lost Benny, her little terripoo dog, about three months ago. All she talks about is trying to find his reincarnation. She goes to the shelters in our area every week looking for Benny. She even went to a shelter in another state when she was there for a convention. She is driving herself nuts. Is there anything to this, or is she just going mad? Worried Dear Worried, This isn’t as odd a response to grief as you would think. Even people who don’t believe in reincarnation will, out of desperation, turn to it to help ease the pain of loss. I did it myself many years ago. I lost Prince, a black Chihuahua, from liver cancer. I just couldn’t accept it, so I went looking for him in some other Chihuahua body. Despite months of looking, I never found Prince. But I did find Basil, a 10-year-old miniature pinscher, who was nothing like Prince except for the color. I’m sure your mother will find another dog to love and care for. Just give her time. Faith, patiently Dear Faith, Help! I just rescued a cat. She appeared healthy, but then we noticed that some of my other cats were losing patches of fur. Turns out they all have ringworm. My roommate is very upset, and she’s sure that the new cat brought it into the house. She wants her gone now, though everything was fine before. Can you offer any advice on how to treat the cats (one of them is a senior) and calm my roommate down? Worried for my cat Dear Worried, Ringworm is the curse of animal shelters, catteries, and cat lovers everywhere. It’s a fungus, much like athlete’s foot – not life-threatening, but annoying and itchy. And you can catch it from your cat. Cats (and dogs, and people, too) spread the fungus through airborne spores, so it’s hard to contain. By the time you see the telltale ring of hair loss, your cat will have been shedding the fungus for a while. Strong cats with healthy immune systems can fight off ringworm easily; it’s the cats with weaker immune systems that tend to catch it. Consult your veterinarian for treatment options, especially since one of your cats is older. Treatments vary from pretty aggressive (shave down the infected cat, use special medicated shampoo and pills) to passive (“What the heck, no matter what I do, it’ll be gone in a few weeks”). At Best Friends, we use an over-the-counter topical with clotrimazole as the active ingredient to put on the lesions to help cut down on airborne transfer. There are many common brands out there used for athlete’s foot. More severe cases are placed on a systemic antifungal drug called ketoconazole by the veterinarian. However you treat it, you are in for a six- to eight-week cycle before the lesions clear up. If possible, isolate the cat with the ringworm to minimize the other cats’ exposure and make treatment easier. And reassure your roommate at this point that ringworm is not only treatable, but having it once makes most cats immune for life. Incidentally, a vaccine is available, but it has received mixed reviews from vets and doesn’t seem to protect animals from contracting the fungus. Best of luck. Faith, reassuringly Join the Experts Online! Learn how to save the animals in your community with the No More Homeless Pets Forum. Pose your own questions or just follow the discussion. Whether it’s working with animals, raising funds for your organization, recruiting volunteers, or getting your message out, we can all use some guidance. Here’s your chance to talk to experts (and to each other) through a moderated online Q&A and find out how others around the country are successfully handling their challenges. Hosts of the No More Homeless Pets Forum bring a variety of expertise from many different fields. They represent humane societies, rescue groups, animal control and more. Get all the details at http://www.bestfriends.com/nomorehomelesspets/ weeklyforum/. Sanctuary Workshops How to Start an Animal Sanctuary An intensive, week-long workshop at Best Friends. Includes outreach programs, fundraising, community relations, and hands-on sessions with the animals. Attendance limited. Cost: $500, includes lunches, two dinners and materials. June 4 – 10 • November 12 – 18 Dog Behavior & Handling Workshop September 11 – 14 This in-depth workshop gives you the tools you need to relate to dogs in a shelter, sanctuary, and/or rescue setting. Learn about dog behaviors, safety, assessments, how to create a behavior plan and more. Attendance is limited. Cost: $275, includes lunches, a dinner, and materials. The Giving Heart Retreat: A Workshop to Replenish the Animal Lover’s Soul September 22 – 24 Animal lovers face many unique challenges of the heart. Dr. Linda Harper, a clinical psychologist specializing in pet loss grief and the special needs of animal lovers, will lead us in a workshop designed to rejuvenate your giving spirit. Cost: $300, includes lunches, a dinner, and materials. For more information, call Cathie Myers at (435) 644-3965, ext. 4317. Or e-mail humane.ed@bestfriends.org. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 37 ambassador to the animals It Takes a Hurricane How a Katrina is happening near you By Francis Battista housands of pets dying in a disaster … can they be saved? … help needed urgently … You’re thinking “Hurricane.” I’m thinking Anytown, USA, and the daily disaster that’s probably happening right where you live. It’s true: With a few notable exceptions, a Katrina-scale animal disaster is taking place in your own hometown or a city nearby, and no one outside of the local animal rescue circle is taking much notice. If you think I’m exaggerating, take your camera along to the nearest major city or county shelter, and capture the hope, fear, defeat, and resignation of lost and abandoned animals every bit as compelling as the expressions we all saw during the Katrina rescue operation that turned housewives into heroes, had national humane organizations fumbling for explanations, and tied up government phone lines with complaints. So let’s imagine a Katrina-level response to the disaster that takes place in and around, say, Los Angeles every year. More than 60,000 lost and abandoned animals are still being killed in city and county shelters every year – which is even more than the number estimated to have died in the Gulf Coast region as a result of the hurricane. Now imagine the national organizations staging their rescue efforts close to the disaster area (maybe at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds?), with rescue teams pouring in from all over the country and individual rescuers camped on the grounds of the old Ambassador Hotel near downtown or in the parking lot of a defunct market in East L.A. 38 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 T Housewives from Florida, Chicago, New Jersey, and the Gulf Coast are driving around L.A. in mini-vans with “Animal Rescue” painted on the side and rear windows. They are part of an army that’s feeding and catching the 100,000-plus street dogs wandering around low-income communities, and then shipping them around the country to new adoptive homes. Special websites are set up for Los Angeles reunions, donations pour in for the relief efforts, people across the country are calling up to say “I want one of those Los Angeles pets.” And dogs and cats once deemed “unadoptable strays” are now sought out as emblems and mascots of this heroic rescue event. Anderson Cooper and Geraldo are elbowing each other out of the way to snag an interview with the founder of Animal Rescue Los Angeles, a spontaneously created street rescue operation that’s embarrassing local animal control with their combination of rescue results and Internet savvy. NBC Dateline is doing a special from inside the shelter on the fate of one dog. Spokespeople from Best Friends, the ASPCA, HSUS, Noah’s Wish, and other groups are popping up on the news every other segment. Within a few months, things have turned around considerably for the animals, and the rescue groups are declaring victory and heading home. Humane organizations are regrouping, holding some follow-up meetings, and then it’s off to the next “disaster” – maybe in Houston or Miami or Chicago. People wonder how the animals of New Orleans could have been left on their own with no official plan to save them. But that’s the story every day in almost every city in this country. Dogs and cats are picked up off the streets or turned in by their families. Some are adopted or placed with rescues, the rest are killed. And that has been the truth about cats and dogs in this country for over a century. And please don’t tell me what a wonderful shelter your city has and how well the animals are treated. I know that. I work with many dedicated animal-care general managers. This is not about shelters and shelter workers. It’s about public policy and the status of animals in our society. Until very recently, the only way animals were even included in official disaster planning at all was if they were livestock with commercial value to farmers. And while the Red Cross has lots of good advice about what you should do for your pet, it doesn’t allow pets in relief shelters, nor make any provision for kennels to be attached to relief shelters. Last September, until public outrage had an impact, neither the police nor the National Guard had official plans for animals, other than that they weren’t allowed on evacuation buses, boats, or helicopters. Occasionally, when a local newspaper or TV station latches on to what’s going on at the local shelter or humane society, readers and viewers respond with outrage, and action is taken. If similar outrage were sparked in cities across the country, public policy would allocate adequate funds, pass and enforce necessary ordinances, educate the uninformed, and direct resources to insure that animals no longer die by the millions each year. But, for now, public policy does none of those things. Just like the official neglect of the animals during and after Katrina, animal control by death continues to be public policy in this country. And until public opinion forces a change in that policy, it will be up to individuals and private charities to do their best to save animals not just from natural disasters, but from manmade ones as well. Better to walk on in the dark Than to seek the dead, Smoking dreams of the ashen light Or linger by the embers, SnowWashed, in the dawn vapors. The ice floe Here Lies splintered like white Glass; now is the time to head Into the bright Wind, where the polar bear, His fur cloud-blown, Paces alone By the cold Sea, where the rocks near His lair, Stand shear And stark In the streaming waters And the tide has already Tolled The deep bells On the far shoal Of the misted hour of spring, where the gulls gather to bark Their glad, guttural spells To the emerald soul Of the ever-echoing Sea. Sharon St Joan A better world though kindness to animals. Best Friends is working with our members all across the country to bring about a time when there are no more homeless pets, and when every companion animal who’s ever born can be guaranteed a loving home. The sanctuary, at the heart of the Golden Circle of Southern Utah, is the nation’s largest for abused and abandoned animals, home on any given day to about 1,500 homeless dogs, cats, and other animals from shelters all over the country. Beyond the sanctuary, the work of Best Friends reaches far and wide, helping people set up spay/neuter, shelter, foster, and adoption programs in their own neighborhoods. In our home state, Best Friends manages a model campaign, working with shelters and humane societies statewide to bring an end to the killing of healthy homeless pets. And across the nation, the Best Friends Network of members and rescue groups works to help set up No More Homeless Pets campaigns in local neighborhoods. You can become part of the Best Friends Network on our website at www. bestfriends.org. Best Friends is supported through the donations of our members. Thanks to the generous hearts and hands of people like you, we can ensure that animals who come into the care of Best Friends will never again have to be alone, hungry, sick, afraid, or in pain. Visiting Best Friends The Best Friends Welcome Center is open every day except Christmas from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Mountain Time. The sanctuary covers a large area and some of the animal areas are several miles apart. Guided tours of the sanctuary leave from the Welcome Center four times daily. They need to be booked ahead of time. To book a tour, or for more information about visiting the sanctuary, e-mail visiting@bestfriends.org or call (435) 644-2001, ext. 0. Your furry friends look forward to seeing you soon! BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 39 the animals’ bookshelf Cold Nose, Warm Heart Pets who offer comfort By Sally Rosenthal Where the Trail Grows Faint: A Year in the Life of a Therapy Dog Team by Lynne Hugo. University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Hardcover, 142 pages, $22. Working as a Therapy Dog: Observations and Tips from an Experienced Therapy Dog by Breeze Stanart as told to Lorna Stanart. Hispen Books, 2002. Softcover, 67 pages, $12.95. The Courageous Corgi: The “Tail” of a Little Dog with a Big Heart by Lea Herrick. Cherokee Books, 2004. Softcover, 92 pages, $10. Cat People by Margaret and Michael Korda. HarperCollins, 2005. Hardcover, 163 pages, $19.95. espite the emotional and financial costs involved in animal guardianship, we must admit, if we are being truthful, that we humans come out far ahead in this relationship. Sure, we might have to cover unexpected veterinary costs, clean an occasional hairball from the living room carpet, and spend some very cold, precoffee moments waiting for our dogs to answer early-morning calls of nature, but, measured against the unconditional love we receive from our animal companions, we still get the better deal. Sometimes our animal friends sense we need comfort as well as companionship. Many readers have no doubt experienced this during periods of stress and illness. A few weeks before I wrote this column, my guide dog, Boise, and rescued cat, Toby, stayed closer than usual while my husband was hospitalized for a few days. Boise, on our visits to the hospital, offered her own brand of Labrador love to her dad while managing to charm the nurses and other staff. The authors of this issue’s selection of books have also recognized the ways animals offer unconditional love and comfort. Whether throughout the course of everyday life or in times of special need, our beloved animals, as these writers explain, more than prove the adage “cold nose, warm heart.” Poet and novelist Lynne Hugo knows only too well how much comfort a dog can offer. When Hannah, a rescued chocolate Lab, enters Hugo’s life, the author begins animal-assisted therapy with the exuberant canine in nursing homes in the Midwest. In Where the Trail Grows Faint: A Year in the Life of a Therapy Dog Team, Hugo chronicles the work and how it intertwines with her personal life. This deceptively slim volume evolved from a journal Hugo kept while taking Hannah on her pet 40 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 D therapy rounds. With exquisite insight, the author examines the lonely and difficult lives of the residents Hannah greets each week and reflects on the very basic human need for nurture. Her own life parallels these concerns as Hugo struggles with becoming a long-distance caregiver for her aging parents while confronting her own fears about old age. Despite its sobering themes, Where the Trail Grows Faint is not a depressing book – far from it. At its core, it is a life-affirming meditation on what is truly essential. And, as any dog lover will attest, how could a book about a Labrador retriever be anything other than joyful? If, after reading Hugo’s book, you feel drawn to pet therapy, you might want to pick up a copy of Working as a Therapy Dog: Observations and Tips from an Experienced Therapy Dog by Breeze Stanart as told to Lorna Stanart. Although there have been a lot of books about animal-assisted therapy published in the last few years, this little volume is my favorite for a number of reasons. Stanart packs a wealth of pertinent information into this handy, relatively inexpensive manual. And the book is told from the point of view of Breeze, the author’s own dog, who performs regular pet therapy work. Although using such an obviously “cute” device could easily backfire, it doesn’t. As someone who has volunteered with her own dog in a local pet therapy organization, I can appreciate all the more the care and effort that went into Working as a Therapy Dog. Stanart covers all the basics of Pet Therapy 101 and does so in a text that is readily accessible to beginners. Sometimes, however, the need for a little dose of pet therapy is closer to home. In The Courageous Corgi: The “Tail” of a Little Dog with a Big Heart, Lea Herrick has written a loving tribute to Ramsey, the rescued Welsh corgi who came into her life and returned her kindness with steadfast care during a long period of illness and recovery. As is the case with many rescued animals, Herrick knew only some sketchy details about his previous life. Drawing upon this knowledge and fleshing it out with a fictionalized account of the corgi’s early years, Herrick does a credible job of presenting the hardships faced by unwanted, neglected animals as well as the efforts of individuals involved in rescue work. The best part of this book for older children, however, deals with Herrick’s relationship with Ramsey and another beloved canine as they provide joyous diversion and comfort in a period of sickness. The Courageous Corgi is that rare story for young readers that should appeal equally to dog lovers of any age. I absolutely loved this book and read it in one sitting. Lest I be accused of neglecting the feline perspective on this topic, let me highly recommend Cat People by Margaret and Michael Korda. Both the publishing executive and his wife had been involved with cats while living in New York City, but it was only when they settled into a country home in Duchess County that their love affair with these animals blossomed. Although one could expect a couple with an upper-class lifestyle to be smitten with expensive pedigreed felines, that wasn’t the case for the Kordas, who opened their home and hearts to a succession of beloved ferals and strays, each of whom became a valued family member. Cat People is a lovely and loving tribute to cats in general and specifically to those cats who come in from the cold and choose us as their own and then offer a lifetime (or nine) of love. Charity, they seem to know deep in their feline souls, begins at home. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping ...with the Best Friends credit card Thousands of members and supporters are using the Best Friends Credit Card. If you’re not one of them yet, please sign up. A half of one percent of the money you spend on purchases using the card is donated to Best Friends. There’s no cost to you and it’s a great benefit to the animals. Call or write Best Friends for more information. A gift to the animals in your will or trust will help to ensure that the wellspring of kindness that you are nourishing today will never run dry. How your love can live on through the animals A gift annuity takes advantage of favorable tax treatment that’s available only to charitable organizations and their donors. Ask your financial advisor about investing in a gift annuity. And ask Best Friends about setting up a gift annuity that will benefit the animals. Call (435) 644-2001 and ask for the treasurer. And how you can make money by giving it to the animals Shop at ©MARC BROWN/BFAS The Best Friends Store T-shirts, treats, toys gifts and more www.bestfriends.org click the store icon TTouch is coming to Best Friends! May 6 – 10 • August 20 – 26 Kanab, Utah ALLEVIATE behavioral issues without fear or force ENHANCE the human-animal bond IMPROVE preformance and well-being of animals ESTABLISH an innovative career helping animals 800.854.8326 • www.TTouch.com Trainings@TellingtonTraining.com BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 For more information or to enroll: 41 point of view Conservative Views Members of Best Friends are spread evenly across the political spectrum. But there’s often an impression among the general public that people who care about the animals and nature come mostly from the liberal side of things. Best Friends talked with three prominent conservatives to get their take on this and their views on other animal-related issues. Rick Santorum is the junior senator from Pennsylvania. Newt Gingrich is a former speaker of the House of Representatives. cornellcollege.edu saved literally miles and miles of that river so that you have a healthy environment, you have biodiversity, and you have a quality of life both for the natural world and for the humans around it. Also, I just recently wrote a strong letter to the president supporting the creation of a coral wildlife refuge in the Hawaiian Islands, an area that I think is very important to designate as a very fragile ecosystem. Best Friends: Senator Santorum, you’ve introduced the Pets and Animal Welfare Statute into the Senate to crack down on puppy mills – breeding establishments that supply puppies and kittens to pet stores. Rick Santorum: And these puppy mills are also marketing dogs and cats directly to consumers, bypassing any kind of scrutiny from an intermediary and escaping any oversight with respect to government regulation. Our focus is on larger-scale breeding facilities and people who deal in large numbers of animals. It’s not aimed at the hobby breeder or people who have a family pet or a couple of family pets that they may breed. We’re trying to strike a balance. There are legitimate breeders out there. There’s a purpose for purebred dogs to be sold, and that to me is a great and strong tradition Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of the Washington Times. (Note: We talked with each of them separately, and have excerpted the interviews into a discussion format. You’ll find the individual interviews at www.bestfriends. org/conservatives.) Newt Gingrich Best Friends: Members of Best Friends are spread very evenly across the political spectrum. But there’s an impression that people who care about animals come mostly from the liberal side of things politically. Why do you think that is? Tony Blankley: Some of the organizations associated with the interests of animals clearly seem to be coming from a leftward side. I feel a strong sense of both love and obligation to animals, but I don’t confuse that with the theories of the rights of man, and that may distinguish me from some folks on the left. Rick Santorum: Some of the more vocal and radical elements of the animal rights movement tend to be of [a leftist] stripe, and so it’s easy to paint the picture using the most extreme elements of the movement to define the movement. Newt Gingrich: I actually think it goes back to the split in the Republican Party in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot and the conservationists all became Bull Moosers. And from that point on, the business wing of the party dominated, and the conservation environmental wing never quite regained the dominance that it had 42 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 under Theodore Roosevelt. But if you go back to an earlier period, much of the great conservation work in America was done by Republicans and by people who thought of themselves as the party of Lincoln. So unfortunately, we’ve been willing to allow the left to define the “If you go back to an earlier period, much of the great conservation work in America was done by Republicans.” – Newt Gingrich issues. And I say this having taught environmental studies, having a great passion for the natural world. Best Friends: What are some of the animal-related causes you’ve supported? Newt Gingrich: One of them is the work we’ve done with the Trust for Public Land to save the ecosystem along the Chattahoochee River, which is today the most heavily visited federal, national recreation area in the country. I’m very proud of the fact that we in America and one that should continue. We just want to be sure that it’s done safely for the animals and for the purchaser, too, because it’s not just an animal welfare issue, it’s also a consumer protection issue. So if you breed just a few times per year, you would not come under federal regulation, but if you breed seven or more litters per year, then we’re suggesting that that is the appropriate place for you to be looked at by the federal government and to be subject to inspection. Best Friends: Tony Blankley, you have quite a menagerie at home. Tony Blankley: We have four horses, three llamas, two sheep, six peacocks, a gerbil, 10 cats, and currently three dogs. We live on a small farm, just 12 acres, in the environs of Washington, D.C., in northern Virginia. My wife and I both like animals, and so there was nobody to say “no”! So when she was out one afternoon and found that there were some beautiful goats, and the word was that some people wanted to buy them for eating purposes, she said, “Should I bring home a couple?” And I said “Sure.” And that sort of tends to be the way we’ve expanded our animal [menagerie] over the years! We pretty much take care of them all ourselves. We have a stable girl who trades a little labor for keeping one of her horses at our stable. But the rest of the animals, basically, either my eight-year-old daughter or my wife or I take care of them. My two boys are away at school, so they don’t have as much of a daily role. Newt Gingrich: I grew up first with a cocker Spaniel named Taffy and later on with a Doberman Pinscher named Clyde. Right now, I travel so much that I haven’t felt it was really fair to have the kind of pets I would like to have. Both of my daughters have dogs and my younger daughter also has cats and my grandchildren love pets. I get great vicarious pleasure going home with them and hanging out with their pets at their house. Rick Santorum: Our German shepherd, Schatzie, is soon to be four years old, and she’s lying down about 10 feet from me [in the Senate office building]. She’s one of the sweetest, kindest dogs, and she’s wonderful with children. We recently had her spayed. Best Friends: You’re well known for your concerns over the sanctity of life. Is animal welfare a sanctity-of-life issue for you? Rick Santorum: Well, I’ve raised six kids, and I look at children and one of the things that’s a good indicator of when there’s a problem is how they behave toward animals. Animals are the most vulnerable. They can’t speak for themselves. So you see a child not acting toward an animal in a healthy way and maybe there’s a problem there. For me, there’s a responsibility of humankind to take care of God’s creation and to do so in a responsible way. And when I see folks who don’t, it leads to other problems in society. If we’re not treating animals decently and respectfully then it can lead to a general crudeness in our society. Best Friends: Another conservative, Matthew Scully, who worked in the White House for President Bush, has written a passionate book, Dominion, about our treatment of animals. He talks about vivisection and factory farming and how the whole animal world is becoming like a kind of warehouse of spare parts for us humans. Tony Blankley: I’m not against the necessary use of animals in experiments for science, but I’m certainly against the mistreatment and the unnecessary harm or pain that might be brought to an animal. Newt Gingrich: I don’t think that any animal should be tortured or any animal should be abused. But it doesn’t offend me if I’m eating chicken nuggets, and I realize that that puts me at odds with some of the more aggressive animal rights people. On the other hand, I recently was in Des Moines at a remarkable center for com- Rick Santorum logcabin.org munication with primates, and I watched a bonobo chimpanzee literally communicate at about a three-year-old level. That was a very unnerving experience because it raised a very fundamental question. If this animal is this sentient, this aware, this capable, has this level of social organization, then I think you do get into some serious questions about the right way to deal with that animal. I found it a very sobering experience, quite frankly. Rick Santorum: To me it’s a question of what the role of government should be. When it comes to pets, you have the dual issue of animal welfare and consumer protection. With respect to livestock, we have an obligation to make sure that animals are treated in a way that is not abusive, that is respectful of them. At the same time, we have to understand that these are animals that are not going to be pets. You don’t have the socialization issues, the psychological issues that are involved with respect to pets. There is a difference in that the end use is BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Tony Blankley “If we’re not treating animals decently and respectfully then it can lead to a general crudeness in our society.” – Rick Santorum 43 town.hall.org consumption in the case of livestock and as a mate in the case of a pet. Best Friends: So where does that leave you in terms of how we should be relating to animals like these? Tony Blankley: I don’t have a problem with meat-eating and the use of animals in leather shoes, etc. So, I may not be a hero of the revolution. I confess that [regarding how animals are treated in factory farms and medical labs, etc.,] some of it is probably out of sight out of mind, and perhaps I’m just another person not thinking about it and seeing the conditions and engaging my moral sentiments. But in my own life, I will go to fairly dramatic lengths to protect the comfort of animals – even to the point of trying to shoo a fly out the window rather than squash it. Newt Gingrich: It seems to me that it occurs at three levels. One level is that you want to maximize the chance for biodiversity and the U.S. should be a much more aggressive leader in helping relatively poor countries sustain extensive national parks designed around sensitive ecosystems. Second, you want to ensure that when you do have captive animals that are intelligent in zoos and places, that you have a fairly sophisticated approach to maximizing their psychological as well as physical well-being, because these are social animals. And the third is you want to set standards for medical experimentation that are respectful and that recognize that these are beings that do have sensitivities that are far greater than we would have thought 20 or 30 years ago. So that would be an example of how I would try to approach that challenge. Best Friends: In our modern world, are we all too disconnected from nature? Tony Blankley: Being as disconnected from the natural world as many urban people are is a real disadvantage for them. Walking in the woods and having a sense of nature and the animals in their own life cycles and habits and manners and mores really gives some better sense of where we fit into it all rather than simply seeing them on video or consuming them as products. I certainly think that it’s affecting our well-being and our centeredness. Best Friends: Speaker Gingrich, tell us about your interest in the dinosaurs. Newt Gingrich: I actually have a feathered dinosaur hanging in my family room that’s a cast of a Chinese dinosaur. It’s a prebird feathered dinosaur from the Jurassic. I just took my two grandchildren, Maggie and Robert, to the Atlanta Aquarium, and at Christmas I gave them a cast of a sabertoothed tiger skull from the La Brea Tar Pits as a gift. I’m intrigued by the notion that the world in the past has been very different. We watched a dinosaur movie together the other night and March of the Penguins recently. I think they would love to go to Antarctica sometime and actually see the penguins. And I’m trying to get them intrigued with the idea that this natural world of ours is so much bigger and richer and more diverse than we are, and that you can find endless joy by participating in it, studying it, visiting it, and there’s just a different way of thinking about life. And I see the dinosaurs as a part of that experience. editorial Continued from page 3 One largely unnoticed grouping of such “people of like mind” is the growing network, all across the world, of those of us who understand that it’s time to make peace with each other, with the other animals, and with the natural world of which we humans are simply a small part. In this issue, you’ll see them doing all these things: • Bringing yet more starving and terrified pets out of the hurricane disaster • Working together to help the “dancing” bears of India • Campaigning to save dogs from the that we’re all in this together – all part of something infinitely greater than ourselves – and that caring for the other animals, and all of nature, is the best way to care for ourselves, too. One of the great pleasures of being part of the work of Best Friends is meeting more and more of these good people. You’ll find them here at home and all over the world – in every country, culture, background, race, and religion. And, at heart, they all speak the same language: the language of kindness and caring. We call it the Best Friends Network – a community of like-minded people who can learn together, grow together, and do more and more good things together. Call it perhaps our own investment in the brave new world that scientists now consider inevitable. We can’t necessarily build the bones of that new world, or its brain. But as a network of a few million people who care about the animals and nature and each other, we may be able to give it a heart. Kindness recognizes that we’re all in this together – all part of something infinitely greater than ourselves. These people know, instinctively and deep down, that caring for the animals and nature is important. And, one way or another, they dedicate some part of their lives to doing good for the innocent creatures around us – the dogs and cats, birds and fish, the land, the oceans – however they can. Every edition of Best Friends magazine is a testament to these good people. 44 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 “ cooking pots of China • Being guardian angels to animals with special needs • Bringing an end to the killing of homeless pets in shelters …And so much more. The work of Best Friends is driven by the simple philosophy that kindness to animals builds a better world for all of us. Kindness recognizes ” animals abroad I thought about the bears at the sanctuary sitting upright and staring at the trees and sky as though they, too, are starting to think about a more peaceful life ahead. Village life Kartick sent us to the village with two riflemen. “Ummm ... Kartick ... Are you sure about this?” He was “pretty sure” it was safe. The rifles were “just in case.” Ahem! Kartick himself couldn’t go into the village. He does a lot of undercover work, busting poachers. And in this village, where he’d had some folks arrested for poaching, his cover had been “blown.” So he’s not very popular! The other folks, though, from Wildlife S.O.S. – the ones who came after the My Passage to India Continued from page 14 The vets were proud to tell me how they gave up private practices to live in just one room each at the sanctuary, devoting their days and nights to the bears. They have a big job to do when bears arrive from dancing on the streets. They remove from their muzzles the painful ropes used to control them. They clean up their infections, de-worm and vaccinate them, and give them thorough dental exams. The bears need that because some of their teeth have been knocked out by the bear dancers. So the root is sometimes exposed, causing constant pain. The vets put them on vitamin supplements and fatten them up. Soon, their coats are twice as fluffy, their mouths are healthy, and they’re ready for the “socialization enclosure,” where they meet bear friends – often for the first time in their lives. They taste foods they’ve never tried before, bear food like honey, porridge and fruit. And once the bears have really gotten used to their freedom, they’re released with a friend or two in a little enclosed area of the jungle, just for them. Pretty awesome! “ Once the bears are used to their freedom, they’re released in an enclosed area of the jungle. Back in the U.S., I’d been helping Wildlife S.O.S. with a lot of little fundraising projects: writing stories for their website, wording posters about wildlife that children can understand. Kartick wants a bear calendar, featuring a rescued bear each month. The village chief at his store But I guess you’re not arrests in order to help the villagers start a real bear initiate until you’ve gotten a bear new careers – are very well-liked. hug. And I got one of those when Shetty When we arrived at the village, the vilthe bear wrapped me in his arms and tried lage chief stepped forward. (He’s an old to lift me, his mouth wrapped completely man with a white beard, dressed in ragged round my leg! beige cloth.) I clasped my hands in front We all had a great story to tell over tea of me in the traditional greeting and made and biscuits on a little picnic table in the a small bow and offered the few words of jungle with monkeys running all around us. Hindi I knew. He broke into a huge smile After all, how many people can say they’ve and created an inner circle for the guests survived being kidnapped by a bear! while the villagers formed an outer circle Troy put in a very full day of taking around us. bear close-ups. And as we drove away No one in this village dances bears anyfrom “heaven on earth for bears,” Kartick more – all those bears are now living at the taught me the correct way to chant “ohm.” sanctuary. Everyone has taken up new trades (It’s harder than you think!) We chanted – sewing, weaving, quilting, shopkeeping. it almost all the way back to the hotel, as And Wildlife S.O.S. sends all the children to school. I bought two blankets from them. Well, no, actually I only bought one. Then, when I saw a second one I liked, I turned to my husband and smiled brightly until he got out his wallet. At this, all the village women started laughing and clapping. Universal female bonding! Continued on next page ” BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 45 animals abroad from them? Probably not! The Wildlife S.O.S. school has taught these villagers a skill that will support them for life. Plus, they can now read and write, which will help them get jobs. I had met their bears just a couple of days ago, living in good health among the trees, dining on honey, just as nature had intended. And today, I met some of the “owners” and their children – worlds better off learning arithmetic and embroidery rather than spending their lives asking tourists to pay to see a bear get jiggled at the end of a stick. Rescued bear cub A new school! We’re now in Jaipur and today we visited another village. It’s called Tonk, and Kartick and Geeta were able to come with us this time. Ten years ago, there were 82 bears living in the village, forced to dance on the end of sticks. Today, there are only seven, and these are simply waiting for bureaucratic government paperwork to be transferred across state lines to the sanctuary. Wildlife S.O.S. has set up an outdoor school in the village. The girls sit in a circle, sewing beads onto saris all day long, learning a trade they can use in the real world. In another group, little boys stitch embroidery. And the children take classes in reading, writing and arithmetic. “If it weren’t for this,” said Kartick, “all these children would grow up to be bear dancers.” And the cycle of torture would continue. The girls taught me how to sew beads onto their saris. Do I even need to mention that when it was all done I bought two saris 46 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Geeta with dogs at her sanctuary Thousands spayed! Why are so many of Delhi’s stray dogs wearing cute little sweaters? Because Geeta and Kartick have been spaying and neutering more than 6,000 stray dogs and cats every year for the past five years! When a dog’s been sterilized and vaccinated, he gets an ear mark and a cute little sweater to show he’s been taken care of. That’s why, as you walk around Delhi, you’ll see so many sharply dressed little dogs going by. Those sweaters mean “Wildlife S.O.S. loves me!” A few notes before you all head off to visit Wildlife S.O.S. for yourselves: Getting Around. Most tourists get around by hiring a driver. He’s paid by the day, so he picks you up in the morning, takes you everywhere, waits for you, etc. Your other main option is basically death. (Lanes? What are those?) So I recommend the driver! What to Wear: If you’re a woman, don’t be afraid to wear Indian clothes. The first day, you feel like you’re wearing a costume, and that everyone is going to stare at you. But they don’t. Instead, they think you’re dressed normally. So go for it! Indian clothes look great on everyone. Learn a little Hindi. People say everyone speaks English so you don’t need it. But knowing a few words and phrases makes you very popular! Other Things: Don’t drink the water. Keep a close hold on your wallet in public. And don’t walk around dangerous streets at night. But don’t worry – you’re probably safer than in some American cities! Visit Wildlife S.O.S. Meet the bears and see all the other great projects! They really can use your support. Tips for Your Trip clinic they’ve just built. And when I get home, I want to get right back to work helping them raise the funds they need. (Hint, hint!) Attention Horse Lovers! Did I forget anything? Oh, no! I can’t believe it’s almost time to go! I feel like I live here now. I’m going to miss Kartick and Geeta! I realize I’ve forgotten to mention Jose. (As an Indian name, it’s pronounced just like it’s spelled.) Jose Louies is a delightful character around the Wildlife S.O.S. This hog deer at the Wildoffice – clever, life S.O.S. sanctuary was charismatic, and rescued from a forest fire. absolutely invaluable to the organiMost of the dogs are zation. He does a street-wise, but for those lot of undercover who aren’t, Geeta and work with Kartick. Kartick have a dog and cat And when he’s not sanctuary outside of Delhi. I risking his life know – they have a dog and to save wildlife, cat sanctuary on top of the he’s running their bears, right? Kind of a lot! entire website! An But that’s not all! Their dog amazing guy. and cat sanctuary also welI should also comes abandoned pet monmention the brilkeys, retired pack mules, liant Hindu forponies, police horses, and Lila the bear cub, rescued from poachers tuneteller we at age eight weeks, is now being hand-fed met. He looked starving cows. The dogs are all spayed at the sanctuary. at my husband’s or neutered, vaccinated, palm and said, “You are destined to marry well-fed, and living in indoor/outdoor a very brilliant woman. I am sorry to tell enclosures (never cages) in large groups you that she is more intelligent even than of friends. There are plenty of Nepalese you are.” I decided the man must be a genius staff looking after them. The cat building and a genuine psychic! My husband thinks is made up of an enclosed cattery where all he’s a quack. the cats hang out together. And if they go up It’s the end of my trip (sniff), but to keep a ramp, they’re inside a simple stone attic. up with what Wildlife S.O.S. is up to, you The monkeys have a similar arrangement can stay in touch at www.bestfriends.org/ next door. And the pasture animals are all wildlifesos. way healthier and fatter than the ones we And as Geeta and Kartick would say, saw on the streets. bear hugs to everyone! Geeta and Kartick were worried we’d be disappointed by the homemade look of the buildings. But did they know that there are Help the Bears! To give a donation to many shelters in America where the animals Wildlife S.O.S., you can send a check to are simply kept in cages, or “put to sleep” at Best Friends Animal Society with Wildshelters just for not finding homes? life S.O.S. on the memo line. You can also find out more and donate online at I hoped they believed me that we were www.bestfriends.org/wildlifesos. impressed. Because their next project is to raise money for equipment for the onsite vet Come see us at the Best Friends booth at these upcoming horse expos: • Equine Affaire, April 6-9, at the Columbus Fairgrounds in Columbus, Ohio • Western States Horse Expo, June 9-11, at Cal Expo Fairgrounds, Sacramento, California www.bestfriends.org The Best Friends Wishing Garden May we plant a special wish for you? The Best Friends Wishing Garden is just outside the Welcome Center at the sanctuary. Each wish is written on rice paper that nourishes the earth and is then planted with a flower seed. Just send in your own special wish and we’ll sow a seed of good fortune for you. And thank you for helping to make Best Friends a dream come true for all your furry friends here. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 47 your mail I was brought to tears and many smiles by your many stories of rescues and reunions. It was a terrific effort that your staff and volunteers and visitors put forth to rescue, care for and reunite animals with their owners. Many of my friends don’t understand the bond that exists between animals and their guardians. It is as strong if not stronger than many human bonds. SUNNY MCCUBREY BY E-MAIL “Keep your head up. You are somebody.” I heard those words a few hours after arriving at the Best Friends hurricane relief center at Tylertown, Mississippi. After a 10-hour drive from Augusta, Georgia, I was ready and excited to help wherever I could. When Ross, the volunteer coordinator, learned I have three years’ experience as a veterinary technician, he put me to work in the “Hurt Yurt” or animal hospital. My primary job was to help with the evening dog walk. My first dog, who had pneumonia, was very sweet but slow moving. We hadn’t walked far when we met [a volunteer named] Kirsten. She came up to the little guy, stopped to pet him and talked to him like he was a small child. “Keep your head up. You are somebody,” she told him. I was amazed that somebody would say that to an animal. When I look back on my week at the rescue center, that’s the one thing that will stand out in my mind. “Keep your head up. You are somebody.” Those words stayed with me. I met some of the nicest people. I saw them work straight through lunch and dinner because they were more concerned about the animals than themselves. Everybody was there because they have a giving heart. And it amazed me that some of these people gave up their jobs to help these innocent animals. When I left, several people gave me things to remember them by. I have a shirt that says, “I love NY.” I live in Georgia, so I get asked about that. I wear it proudly. My thanks go to everybody who makes Best Friends possible. I was sad when I left Tylertown, but after a few days back at work, my boss gave me a little book that says, “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.” I will always smile when I think of my time in Tylertown. MELINDA BRANDON HEPHZIBAH, GA. 48 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 On the way, as we got near the middle of Ohio, we saw signs saying “Animal present when lights flashing.” After studying this for the next 10 miles or so, we concluded that there were sensors and receivers making the lights flash. The technology was solar-powered, making it cheap and pollution-free. I strongly approve of this, and would like to see it repeated across the country. ZEKE BENSHIRIM BLOOMINGTON, ILL. HURRICANE KATRINA My neighbor and I both lived in Arabi in St. Bernard Parish, one of the most devastated areas. My neighbor left four kittens in her bathroom because she thought they would be safe. After she realized how much flooding and damage there was, she became frantic to get someone to rescue those kittens. I was at Dr. Eric White’s office in New Iberia (about 130 miles east of New Orleans) with one of my cats, and he told me that he was going in and rescuing animals from our area. I told him about my neighbor’s kittens, and gave him her address. The next night he called me. He had the kittens! My neighbor and I rushed over to his office, and within the hour, she was reunited with those precious little ones. Dr. White also recommended Dr. Clyde Prejean, a vet nearby where we are staying, in Abbeville, Louisiana, who would care for the little ones until they were strong enough to come home. Today, they are seven months old, at home with my neighbor, healthy, and doing great. I thank God every day for Dr. White and Dr. Prejean. They are true heroes. And I know that they will truly be blessed for all they do for The Little Ones every day. MARIE MARULLO BY E-MAIL I read in Parachutist magazine that Mile-Hi Skydiving Center in Longmont, Colorado, sent its jump plane to Mississippi to help rescue animals left homeless by Katrina. The plane brought back 13 cats, 22 dogs and 3 gerbils as part of the Pet Rescue Colorado Effort. PATRICK WIGGINS BY E-MAIL I cried so hard after reading the story of Kekoa (“A Dog’s Last Days,” January 2006). One of my dogs is a rescue who was mistreated. Rena is a pit bull, a very misunderstood breed. When I adopted her, she was terrified of everything. If I approached her, she would shake. If I tried to put a leash on her, she would cower in the corner of the room. She would try to squeeze behind the couch if one of my other dogs came near her – even my six-pound Chihuahua. I’ll never know what was done to her. But what I do know is that after almost a year of love and kindness, she is a gentle, loving and forgiving dog. Do I fear her? No. I fear the monster that made her that way. It breaks my heart to know that with a little love and affection, Kekoa, too, could have been saved. We need to stop the stigma attached to certain breeds. It’s not the animals who are guilty; it’s the humans who mistreat them. SUSAN TRECARICHI AURORA, OHIO The story about Kekoa broke my heart. What especially brings tears is how Kekoa was not allowed his special Greenies treat. What difference could it possibly make, and why was he on a special diet anyway? I live in a small town, Fulton, in west Kentucky. When I moved here seven years KEKOA’S BROKEN HEARTS Letters & Photos Photos intended for publication must be addressed to Best Friends magazine, not simply to the sanctuary. Letters sent by e-mail and intended for publication must include your name and address. While there is only limited space in the magazine, many of the photos sent in each month appear in the Members & Pets section of the Best Friends website at www.bestfriends.org. BRIGHT IDEA! I am nine years old, and I was recently on a family road trip from Bloomington, Illinois, to Boston, Massachusetts. Our names are Satori and Dakota. People think we look alike even though we are not related and were rescued from shelters four states apart! Our parents constantly remind others to think about shelter dogs before “buying” a dog. SATORI AND DAKOTA BENEDICT, LOCKPORT, N.Y. Our daughter and our 12-year-old Alexandrian ringneck, Alex. Emma waited almost three years to get close enough to kiss Alex, and he finally let her. This is their first kiss. AMANDA K APOLNEK, ST. LOUIS, MO. Gina Groves, from Randolph, Mass., at the Best Friends TLC Cat Club. My 18-month-old daughter loves Best Friends magazine. The other morning she was awfully quiet, so I peeked in and caught her smiling and kissing all the pictures of the animals. CHANDA MAGALLANES WESTMINSTER, COLO. Abigail watched me taking my trash to the alley dumpster every evening around sunset. For several days, she chattered away at me from a distance. When she came close, I discovered she was pregnant and mostly skin and bones. She was looking for food and shelter and a safe place to have her babies. She started getting plenty of rations and shortly produced three lovely kittens after setting up house under my neighbor’s bed. (We have dogs.) All three kittens have good homes now, and Abby has adopted me forever. She even made friends with the dogs. No more alleys for Fast Abby! MARY ANN MARTORANA, SACRAMENTO, CALIF. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 49 your mail ago, there was no provision for animals; dogs were and are shot, abuse was and is rampant. We formed the Ken-Tenn Humane Society, and we have been able to make a difference for some animals. We have no shelter, but [we do have] foster homes, which are full. I care for 17 cats. When you send up prayers for our beloved four-legged friends, send one also for us. FRANCES DYER BY E-MAIL You shouldn’t even print stories like this. It not only puts one into a real depression, it makes me think you guys have no heart. Shame on you. CORY ENGLE EL CAJON, CALIF. In spite of being involved with golden retriever organizations for 20 years, I still see Kekoas in every happy dog and family, in every rescue. I know they are out there – those we don’t know about, can’t see, perhaps don’t have the skills to help. I have to ask: Could I have helped Kekoa, if I’d known? Kept him in a large, airy kennel with lots of good, healthy food and attention at a distance? I feel like it would have worked for him and for others, if I only knew and had the space and time. Or, am I kidding myself that these persecuted and neglected guys could at least have peace and a measure of calm and contentment? JO JANE BINSFELD BY E-MAIL We have a motto at my house: “He or she who complains gets to do it themselves.” Unless “Disgusted” (“Health & Behavior,” January 2006) can do as much as Hooters to help animals, she has a lot of nerve to badmouth their kind efforts to promote The Big Fix [spay/neuter program]. I am a very liberated granny, and I think Hooters did a good thing, and as an animal lover, I’m very grateful for their help. They are blessed in more ways than one. JAN GARDNER BY E-MAIL The letter from “Disgusted” contained a comment that was racially offensive. I know that your magazine has the liberty to edit material, so you should have done so or not published the comment. EVONNE BLYTHERS BY E-MAIL 50 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 PICTURE PROTEST In your January issue, you show a picture of a girl and her pig [at a county fair]. This is not good news and really shouldn’t be celebrated by Best Friends. It is absurd to picture a young girl cuddling with a creature that she is going to sell for food. LESLIE WEISS BY E-MAIL HOOTERS In the article on the Wife Swap TV program (“When Reality TV Bites,” January 2006) I noted you are approving of the woman who exclaimed “they are my children” when the other wife put the dogs and animals at a boarding kennel for a week. You need to check into how that woman really viewed the situation. She was mad because she apparently views the animals as her possessions. I work with abused and neglected animals. When we suggest to people that they are not taking proper care of their animals, most protest with some version of “it’s my dog, cat, etc.” They say they love their pet, but in truth, they neglect them. The other woman was a neat freak, but notice how she fell in love with the kitten and is taking very good care of him. And notice how dirty and matted the “animal lover’s” dogs were. How about the cat, ferret, and other animals pooping in the house? Did they have a clean litter box? Did they get clean water and food? At least the neat freak stated she didn’t like animals because she was not around them. She also changed and fell in love with the kitten. I doubt the other woman has taken to walking the dogs, changing and cleaning up after the other animals and seeing they get peace and quiet. (Remember the children partied all night with loud music?). I can work better with a person who is honest enough to say she doesn’t like animals than with someone who pooh-poohs any notion that she isn’t treating her pets correctly. BARBARA LINK JACKSONVILLE, FLA. THIS REALITY BITES THE EYES HAVE IT! I did my annual volunteer week at Best Friends in May 2005. I spent tons of time in the Kitty Motel, which houses some of my favorites, like Judah and Audrey. I snapped this picture and thought it spoke a million whispered purrs. I think he has found a home and been renamed, but his picture sure shouts, “I’m ready. Come and get me!” Talk about focused. PAT DEWALD FT. LAUDERDALE, FLA. “Stay close to the earth. Then when you fall down, it won’t hurt so much.” – Birgit Nilsson, supreme Swedish soprano, 1918–2005 A HARD DAY’S PLAY I had just returned home from a hard day at work, and Angel wanted to play. Needless to say, I dropped everything and played with her. MICHAEL DIGAETANO RICHMOND, VA. Posters, CDs, audio tapes and more... Offered to help you bring about a time when there are No More Homeless Pets in your community. The Perfect Gift for Your Best Friends Give a subscription to Best Friends magazine to your friends and family. YES! I want to be part of Best Friends, and read all the good news about animals and animal lovers. Subscribing Membership $25 a year Supporting Membership $45 a year Sustaining Membership $100 a year (or $10 a month) Guardian Angel $240 a year (or $20 a month) A donation of ____________________ Order online through PayPal (can also be ordered by fax or mail). Go to: Amount enclosed: $_____________ Check/M.O. VISA MC AmEx DISC Card no.: ____________________________________ Give Gifts of Life and Love Sponsor an animal with special needs as a gift for friends and family. Exp. date:____________________________________ Signature: ___________________________________ Your name:__________________________________ Address:_____________________________________ City: ________________________________________ State:___________________ Zip: ________________ Phone:______________ e-mail: __________________ This is a gift for: Name: ______________________________________ Address:_____________________________________ City: ________________________________________ State:___________________ Zip: ________________ BMS gifts.bestfriends.org to choose an animal go to 5001 Angel Canyon Road Kanab, Utah 84741 • (435) 644-2001 e-mail: info@bestfriends.org www.bestfriends.org BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 51 your memories Minka’s Moxie By Rebecca Erwin Spencer Always full of surprises! urvival instinct is pretty amazing. Most of us can’t fathom living alone outdoors in the elements for eight long years. Faced with nearly a decade of not knowing where our next meal is coming from, no shelter, and no one to love us, most humans would just as soon pack it in. Yet that’s how our cat Minka lived. Somehow, she survived. The circumstances regarding those eight arduous years are complex. In 1994, our neighbors abandoned her, and she lived outdoors in the various backyards of our block. As a result, she lost all trust in humans and never let anyone come within 10 feet of her. We felt sorry for Minka. Even though she wasn’t our cat, we put out food and water for her. We’d see her stealthily creep up our back stairs to the landing where the food awaited her, and we’d hide so as not to scare her. If we appeared while she was eating, Minka would scurry down the stairs, through our garden, leap over the fence, and disappear into the adjoining yards, often having to avoid a barking neighbor dog in the process. Her lair was a mystery, probably under a porch several houses up the block, but we were pretty sure she lived exclusively outdoors. We worried about her during chilly winter months when the rain sometimes wouldn’t relent for days. Would she survive the weather? Would she brave the rain and run all the way to our yard and up our unprotected stairs for food? Time and time again, Minka surprised us. There she’d be, creeping up the steps, wary of anyone or anything that might cross her path. Untrusting, but still surviving. Imagine doing that for eight years. Then, in November 2002, we found Minka lying beneath our back stairs, ill. An animal had bitten her hindquarters. Flea-infested and at death’s door, Minka finally had no choice but to let us near her. Even then, she fought to keep us away. We were certain the old cat was finally about to die. But the veterinarian surprised us. She could be saved, he said, and made quite healthy again. We gave the OK, but with trepidation. Would this semi-feral cat permit us to keep her in our home with our two indoor cats and our Boston terrier? Would she even let us touch her? Minka surprised us again. Within six months, not only was she healthy, she practically lived on our laps. She would hardly leave us alone, often nudging us for attention and 52 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 S leaping into our laps without warning to make herself comfortable and warm. She barely tolerated the other pets; they always gave her a wide berth. But she regained her trust in humans. What little trust Minka had, she had for us. And it grew and grew. Three years passed. She became as much a part of our family as any of the animals. Minka was unquestionably content to live indoors with us and had no desire whatsoever to venture outside again. Early last year, at age 15 (our best guess, give or take a few years), we learned that Minka’s kidneys were failing. We started in-home treatments, but she began deteriorating quickly. A week before Thanksgiving, we considered euthanasia. Minka surprised us yet again. Her health took a turn for the better, almost near normal. Apparently, she had one more of her nine lives left to live. She made a miracle comeback that lasted through the holiday to mid-December. Maybe she’d be with us many more months to come. But sadly, no. Her failing kidneys exacerbated other ailments until the day finally came to ease her suffering. We joked numerous times, after we brought Minka inside where it was warm and she had all the food and water she could stomach, that she must’ve thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Well, now she has. My fondest memories of Minka are the times she’d scurry about our house aimlessly from room to room, her eyes vibrant, happily digging her claws into the carpet, and then dashing down the hall energetically. Maybe she was chasing an imaginary mouse, maybe just expending joyous energy. But in those moments, she seemed so happy. So content. So alive. Seeing that joie-de-vivre made rescuing her so satisfying. We wish she could’ve been with us longer, but we’re glad Minka joined us for the past three years. She deserved special care and love, just as all lonely survivors do. Muffin Marie: I visit your grave every day and want you to know how very much we miss you, baby girl. We will forever see you running down the sidewalk, coming home from your jaunts at the creek. We love you. Jake: My beloved Jake had degenerative mylopathy. He had a wheelchair the last few weeks of his life and was able to run for the first time in two years. Carol Ann Ellis Youngsville, N.C. The Radtke Family, Sheridan, Wyo. Amanda Groves, Littleton, Colo. Dazzle: She was a darling little neighbor dog. Through her, I met her people, who in turn have helped me through many trying experiences. We believe she was 18 years old, both blind and deaf, but that never kept her from giving loads of love to all who knew her. Barbara Garlough Hot Springs Village, Ark. Misty: In loving memory of Debbie Radicchi’s wonderful companion. She was a special dog who lived a long, love-filled life and touched the hearts of many. Your mom misses you terribly, Misty. Her lap is empty, but her heart is filled with your spirit and energy. Sherron Laurrell, Swedesboro, N.J. Miss Murphy Huffaker: Although you had FIV, you were my “Funny Girl” for 15 years. I especially miss being awakened at night by your less-thandainty snoring, and your patiently waiting for me by the shower each day. You were very loved and are very missed, but the memory of your unconditional love for me will stay in my heart until you greet me once again on the Rainbow Bridge! Mary Huffaker Monticello, Ky. Gessie: You came into my life as a tiny thing who slept on my pillow and snored in my ear. Over the years, you grew into a beautiful lady, much too large to sleep on any pillow. For 10 years you were my roommate, my confidante, and my friend. You were my good morning and my goodnight. I miss you more than words can tell. Marilyn McKnight Falmouth, Mass. Your memorial notices and donations to the sanctuary are deeply appreciated. We publish all memorials on the Best Friends website and send you a copy. Once placed, no name, no memorial, is ever removed. Here in the magazine, “Your Memories” is a selection of those memorials: photos, poems, and stories of your most memorable moments with a pet who has passed over the Rainbow Bridge. So please send in your funny stories and anecdotes, your memories, and your memorials. Include a photo, too, if you have one. And if you’d like your best friend to rest in the peace and beauty of our memorial park here at Angel Canyon, or you would like a special memorial placed in his or her name, please write or call for information. Thank you and bless you. Angels Rest Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Kanab, Utah 84741 angelsrest@bestfriends.org (435) 644-2001, ext. 118 Angels Rest B Lulu of the Tamalpais: Lulu will be missed by the countless friends she made during her 20-year residency at the Tamalpais Retirement Community, especially by her devoted caretaker and companion, Della DeMoss. Nancy Martin Greenbrae, Calif. Duke Bunny: Sadly missed by his people, Kenny, Sue and Ken Bursynksi. Judith Hopper Grand Junction, Colo. e kind to animals, Be kind to trees, Be kind to the earth and everything on it, Be kind to children and one another, …and God will be kind to you. And that’s a promise! Signed, GOD BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 53 on the light side A police officer in Fremont, California, is nursing his wounds – and likely his pride – after a pack of angry Chihuahuas sent him to the hospital. The officer suffered minor bites to his ankle when five pi nt-si ze d pups escaped the house of a 17-year-old boy the officer was escorting home after a traffic stop. The dogs rushed the doorway, biting the policeman’s ankle. He returned to work less than two hours later – probably wearing thicker socks. Bad His Bach to the Is Worse Than (Ankle) His Bite Bone pet hits the right note, he gets a reward,” she says. A star pupil, Fuchs the cat has given concerts, cut CDs, and accompanied his music teacher on the baby grand. Bellos the dog has been taught how to dance. “It took me six months, but I eventually taught him a set routine,” Theby says. Other students include Katie the hen, who learned to play the xylophone and specializes in Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. According to Theby, teaching animals to play instruments and dance is simply another form of communication between pet and person. One might add that it’s making for good communication between her and her customers. So, cue up the band – and pass the tip jar! Catch of the Day Billy Joel he ain’t, but don’t tell that to Fuchs, the piano-playing cat! He’s getting high marks for style at the Wittlich Fame Academy in Germany. Fuchs is one of a bunch of pets learning to bring out his inner Madonna – or Mikhail Baryshnikov – at the academy, which taps into talents that go way beyond sit, stay, and roll over. Teacher Viviane Theby uses the tricks and techniques of animal trainers. “If the Plucked from a pond by a hungry heron, an ornamental goldfish was a sure snack until a stroke of good luck landed him hearthside in a fish-friendly home. The careless heron dropped the 10-inch fish down a chimney in England just as homeowner Bill Brooks was sitting down to dinner. The goldfish bounced off a pile of potato peelings that had just been thrown on the fire and landed on the hearth. Brooks promptly scooped him up and plopped him in a bowl of water. He named his new charge Sooty. Bitten, blackened and a little flame- 54 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 Young Cross-Stitcher of the Year in England for nothing. The three-year-old bird picked up her award after she picked up the habit from her person, Sandra Battye. Sandra said Spike spent hours sitting on her shoulder, watching. “One day I just sat and didn’t stitch. It seemed to frustrate her. Then suddenly she picked up the needle in her beak and began cross-stitching herself. I was staggered. Now I can’t stop her.” While patterns confuse her, Spike’s great at pulling and pushing the needle through the fabric, a fact that wasn’t lost on Cross-Stitcher magazine editor Cathy Lewis. “We were amazed by the photos of Spike,” she said. grilled, Sooty was otherwise OK and found a new home in a pet shop. The shopkeeper said his weight (about a pound) is what saved him. “He’s got a heron’s beak mark on his back and has lost some of his scales. I think the bird must have landed on the chimney and had the fish in his mouth sideways. When the bird tried to flip the fish straight to swallow, it must have dropped him, maybe because he was too big or too slippery.” Sooty isn’t the only amazing fish story circulating these days. There have been instances of fish, tomatoes, frogs, and coal falling with rain. Last year it rained minnows in England after the fish were sucked up from the sea and blown 50 miles inland. Tattletale! If you’re cheating on your spouse or significant other, it’s best not to have the affair in front of your pet parrot. Whenever Chris Taylor was away on a business trip, he’d call his livein girlfriend, Suzy Collins, and hear Ziggy, his African grey parrot, in the background trilling “Hi, Gary” in a flirtatious voice. Chris didn’t think anything of it. But when he got back home, Ziggy kept greeting him with the “Hi, Gary” thing. And when Chris and Suzy were sitting on the sofa together one evening, someone on TV said the word “Gary” and Ziggy started making all sorts of lovey, smoochy noises. “Do we know anyone named Gary?” Chris asked. Suzy looked blank. A few nights later, in a voice like Suzy’s, Ziggy announced: “I love you, Gary.” “I started laughing,” Chris told reporters. “But Suzy’s face was like beet root and she started to cry.” Suzy then confessed that she’d been seeing someone named Gary. Spotted and Potted “I was devastated,” said Chris. Suzy left that night, but after a while, Chris couldn’t bear having Ziggy around any longer, sounding like a recording of the affair between Suzy and Gary. “I couldn’t get him to stop saying that [expletive deleted] name.” he said. He ended up giving Ziggy away. Parrots are highly intelligent, can easily live for 60 years, and in the wild they mate for life. When they’re turned into pets, they get very attached to a single person, and tend to treat that person as a mate. So it will probably take time for Ziggy to adjust to his new life. There are lots of parrots like Ziggy looking for good new homes. So if you’d like a chatty friend at home, get in touch with a parrot adoption organization, rather than just buying one at a store. And be prepared for a long relationship. Oh, and speaking of relationships … well, enough said! Born to Stitch She hasn’t mastered patterns yet, but give her time. Spike the budgie wasn’t named It’s too early for an intervention, but a certain owl would be wise to lay off the marijuana. A Sarasota, Florida, family found the decidedly doped-up screech owl hiding out in their Christmas tree. Animal control officers from Pelican Man’s Bird Sanctuary came to get the owl, who smelled like pot. “They examined the owl, looked at his eyes, ... and the owl was, in the vernacular, stoned,” said Jeff Dering of the sanctuary. Blood tests confirmed that. The bird, named Cheech, was released a few days later, but not before bringing a lot of attention to the money-starved sanctuary. BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006 55 ...And They All Live Happily Ever After “ here at Best Friends, and this is my story. I’m Noodles, one of the pigs Some people say I remind them of Miss Piggy from The Muppets. I do have very long eyelashes! But I wasn’t feeling so glamorous a few months ago. One day, my family decided to move. And ummm … I think they forgot to bring something … something kind of round and squeaky and … guys, you forgot to bring me!” That’s right. I was left in the backyard all alone, wondering where everybody went. I was hungry and didn’t have anybody coming to say hello. It was so lonely out there! But someone must have realized what had happened and called Best Friends, because now I’m here at the sanctuary, where I love getting my belly rubbed and I always let out a snort-snort-snort when somebody tickles me. I have a slight limp from long ago, when I had an unfortunate encounter with a snake. But nobody minds my funny little walk; they say I’m perfect and oinky just the way I am. So that’s my story. And thanks to the wonderful people like you who support Best Friends, I’m living “happily ever after.” God bless you for caring. ” 5001 ANGEL CANYON ROAD • KANAB, UTAH 84741-5001 (435) 644-2001 • www.bestfriends.org 56 BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE March/April 2006