From the NY Times article: Paul, a pit bull that the Pennsylvania SPCA says was rescued Sunday from a dogfighting ring, was also on hand Thursday night.Because nothing says "Michael Vick was cruel to pit bulls" like putting an injured, emaciated dog on display outside a football stadium.
Holy crap, Pennsylvania SPCA — if this is how you treat a suffering dog, I wouldn't trust you with a goldfish.
14 comments:
We are going to have to disagree on this.
There is NOTHING this dog could be doing that is more important than standing to bear witness to what has been done to it.
Nothing.
You can only put weight on a dog so fast, and this dog is being fed and watered as much as possible. It is not out in the cold is it?
No.
Hiding this dog behind doors is EXACTLY what the dog fighters want, just like hiding the dogs seized in puppy mill operation is EXACTLY what the puppy mill industry wants .... just like hiding the deformed, defective and diseased dogs cranked out by "AKC breeders" is exactly what they want.
Here's an idea: Why don't you research the current head of the Philadelphia SPCA and blog about her? I think you will find she is a Put Bull supporter of the first order, and a dedicated No Kill shelter advocate.
Then compare her to the head of the National Animal Interest Alliance, the front group for the puppy mill industry, who is a Dalmatian breeder and who sits on the board of the AKC. Explain her role in the current LUA Dalmatian efforts, and also explain why she wants rescues & shelters to be licensed as pet stores so they cannot operate at all.
Hide the dead and injured pit bulls? Sure! That's a policy that is 100% Michael Vick approved!
PBurns
Somehow I doubt the Paul reference is accurate. A dog taken in Sunday would not even be out of medical quarantine - even if it did not come from a fighting situation.
Dance, straw man, dance ;~)
Here's an idea, Patrick: use the Google image and/or video search to find photos/vids of dead or injured gamedogs.
Hiding them? Surely you jest. You can find [or could find, the last I checked] entire photo galleries of injured and dead/dying dogs on several pit bull rescue websites. There hasn't been a TV feature on Vick's -- now Roo Yori's, thank God -- Hector that doesn't feature a zoom-in on his chest of fight scars.
Clearly someone [PA SPCA or no, as Barbara's comment suggests] considered it more important to risk the welfare of an individual dog on the chance it might, somehow, benefit many. I strongly disagree. This was an unnecessary publicity stunt: an epic fail.
And what this masterpiece of poor judgment has to do with the head of the NAIA, or the PA SPCA leader's street cred, beats the heck outta me.
The dog wasn't at the stadium but one of two dogs shown at their shelter (and if the URL wasn't so darn long I'd repost it): "The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is holding a tailgate party with more than a dozen dogs, including two pit bulls rescued from a Philadelphia dogfighting ring."
That tail-gate party was held at the PSPCA: http://www.philly2philly.com/sports/sports_articles/2009/8/28/51573/michael_vick_debuted_last_night_and_so_did_spca
If the dogs are friendly, otherwise healthy, in good spirits, tolerant and interested in exploring the shelter grounds, I don't see how it's necessarily an awful thing to let them meet some folks from the public AT the PSPCA, which is where they were being shown.
Rinalia, that just makes it worse, if you ask me.
The fact that many pit bulls can deal with ginormous amounts of stress doesn't justify subjecting this dog, skin and bones, with what look like open wounds, to the stress of a human/canine meet 'n' greet. Especially when your group [the PA SPCA] is basically preaching to the choir. Especially when the dog was rescued just six days before.
[Another thought, for what it's worth: I adopted two pit bull/pit mixes that were in similar shape, and they were very different dogs, once they were actually healthy, from the friendly, tolerant dogs they were when they were merely "otherwise healthy."
As with Patrick, I'll just have to differ with Rinalia on this one.]
Links, including two from Rinalia's comment:
Vick debut sparks only handful of protesters
Michael Vick debuted last night and so did SPCA
Announcing the 2nd Chance Dog Campaign
I side with Luisa on this one. Dogs fresh from fight situations are under extreme stress and need weeks of down time before being exposed to the real world. If one of our foster homes put a brand new cruelty victim dog in this same situation, we'd be royally PISSED.
But it's very possible that the dog is not slated for the shelter's adoption program, so any unintended negative consequences of the outing may be cancelled out by - well, you know.
Still. Makes my stomach twist in knots to see this. Why'd you make me look, Luisa?
My opinion: The dog is clearly physically compromised so all efforts should be toward stress *reduction* and recovery. If I was in charge of this dog's care, he would have a quiet area all to himself, individual walks w/me, and yummy homemade food. Post recovery, there will be plenty of time for human and canine visitors when his immune system is better equipped to handle the normal stress of these types of activities.
Well, I don't think it's worse than transporting a dog to a completely novel environment with hecklers and assholes abounding.
I'm not necessarily defending the PSPCA's decision. I just happen to think there is some information missing that only PSPCA officials or people present at the event could clarify (like, really, did they parade the dog around or was that a picture taken during the 20 seconds the dog was outside of his kennel on a shelter-approved walk?)
I mean, looking at that dog, I probably wouldn't parade him around in a stimulating environment. I just don't personally find it as offensive as my impression is that you do.
Count me in with Luisa on this one too. As someone who has fostered dogs rescued from various kinds of abusive and neglectful environments I can assure you that the dog you see in the first few days - even in many cases the first couple of weeks - after it is seized is,in many cases, not the dog you will have.
A change of environment is terribly stressful for these dogs. They don't need that stress added to the physical and psychological stress they're already under because of the abuse and neglect they've survived. What they need is a quiet, safe, predictable place where they can heal and learn to adjust to their new situation.
And - as a purely practical matter - the dog should not be in a place where it might spread disease or parasites to other animals this soon after being seized.
This looks to me like a classic case of a rescue group using a pathetic-looking dog to generate donations. Shame on them.
of course the notion of PBurns pontificating about what's best for pit bulls makes the head spin. This is the guy after all whose blog lately has been full of the most hateful, dishonest anti-pit bull screed an apparently intelligent person could spew (CDC sez pit bulls are killers! dogbite.org = good; Karen Delise = bad!; there's no such thing as a pit bull breed! any dog identified by any random person as a pit bull IS a pit bull! pit bull owners are often dogfighters! pit bull owners need to prove they're worthy!)
Geez, this dog is a body score of less than one, from his stance I doubt he can put energy into more than standing up.
Any added stress is going to raise his heart rate, his metabolism. this is not an underfed dog this is a walking skeleton which could go down at any moment with multiple organ failure.
My latest rescue was a long term starvation dog, but next to this boy, he looked fat. Yet when we gave him a very very light sedative,one any normal dog would not even notice, his wasted muscles could not support him.
The dog in this photo is not a dog whose survival, even with the best of care, is certain.
He needs quiet, probably fluids and round the clock stress free care. If I was a veterinarian at the SPCA I'd be having a heart attack. Unless as has already been stated, he is "serving a noble purpose" and his suffering is going to be relieved via one injection.
But then fine, take pictures to show the public, let this poor guy rest whatever his future was or will be
JenniferJ
Jennifer, you are right about the body scale of 1 or less. This is a dog that is close to death. Look at the muscle wasting along the spine or rather, the fact that there isn't any muscle to speak of. In this state, the body is using internal protein sources to survive which also means the dog's heart function is potentially compromised.
Regardless of the message, there is no reason to be exposing this animal to any additional stress! You are correct that the PSPCA vet must (or should) be having a heart attack.
Poor guy. He is in desparate need of a comfortable bed, quiet environment, high nutrient density food as well as medical support.
How about putting on display a healthy, shiny, sleek pit bull rescued from a fight bust a year or more ago -- one who is now adopted, trained, and ready to meet 'n' greet?
You can use blowups of the "before" pictures to great effect, let me tell you.
But this presumes that the organization in question HAS some fight bust survivors who have been fully rehabbed, physically and mentally, and are exemplary canine citizens.
Which one would hope is the whole point, right?
I agree with Luisa on this one.
That poor dog needs rest and recuperation, TLC,a warm blanket... not to be made a side-show of. Take a picture, make a sign if you want to showcase the abuse pit bulls suffer at the hands of humans. Bring them out to socialize when they might actually enjoy it, and are up for the outing.
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