HSUS: masters of the ironic fundraising ploy

'Shameless' doesn't come close. Click for bigger.

"It is time to STOP THE KILLING NOW!"

Why, yes. Now that you mention it, it is.

[Hat tip to my awesome cuz for mailing this material to me. She sent some thoughts on the irony of it all to the HSUS.]

What a terrible crime! We must execute the victims at once.

And they did. The ironically named Humane Society of Houston, Texas took in 187 dogs after undercover agents and other investigators broke up "what officials described as one of the largest dogfighting rings in the country," and killed all 187. No experts were consulted and no temperament tests were administered ["[a]lthough some were not aggressive toward people"] — almost as if the Houston Humane Society were living in a parallel universe where the Michael Vick story got no airplay. Unbelievable.

So, to review: pit bulls bred to fight are among the most human-friendly dogs on earth. Many pit bulls bred to fight don't want to fight. Pit bulls that don't get along with other dogs can, with basic management, be great companions even in a multi-pet household.

Check out the poor dog in the photo: starving, ill, submissive and friendly, wagging his whole rear end at the photographer. [Photo from Texas Department of Public Safety via the NYT.] This dog isn't a monster. He isn't a separate species. He's on the small side: in good health he'd probably weigh under 40 lb, like most gamebred pit bulls. He's a friendly dog in desperate need of some good care. There are excellent foster homes in Texas and around the country that would have been glad to help this dog. Houston Humane killed him.

Ah, but they've chosen to devote their time and resources to "nice, adoptable" dogs. Isn't that best?

Sure. Let's kill all senior dogs, all shy dogs, all dogs over 20 lb, and all dogs that would be kicked off Cute Overload. Better yet, let's kill all stray cats and dogs and give the money we spend on animal shelters to homeless people. While we're at it, we can give all we own to the poor and eliminate funding for other scientific research until a cure is found for cancer. See how this argument spins on and on? So I adopted a pit bull instead of a "nice, worthy" dog — I didn't mail a check to Oxfam this month, either. Anything else you'd like to lecture me about?

Seriously, Houston Humane people — when you have knowledgeable rescue groups and experienced foster homes volunteering to help take dogs off your hands, and you tell those groups to take a hike, give us a break with the "death was more pleasant than what they had to exist for" excuses. You know better.

As for the dogfighters themselves — according to the NY Times article, they're hardly the upstanding citizens you read about in the Stratton books. But then, they never were.

In between screaming obscenities at the animals locked in combat, Sergeant Manning said, the participants smoked marijuana, popped pills, made side deals about things like selling cocaine and fencing stolen property, and, always, talked about dogs.
[...]
The fight usually ended when a dog refused to cross a line in the center of the ring to confront the opponent, known as “standing the line.” Such dogs were usually drowned or bludgeoned to death the next day, officials said.

“These guys take it very personally,” Sergeant Manning said. “It’s a reflection on them.”

Most of the dogs seized were kept outside in muddy yards, chained to axles sunk in the ground, with only six feet of tether and no shelter, beyond, in some cases, a toppled plastic 40-gallon barrel. All suffered from multiple parasites, veterinarians said.

And Houston Humane couldn't find it in their heart of hearts to let even one of those 187 dogs live. You've raised that "blame the victim" bar to a whole new level, Houston "Humane."

Inside Animal Minds

They're smarter than we thought.

I'm such a hardcore little fact-checker.

Went to Los Angeles on Friday and wound up in the Grove Barnes & Noble, rereading everything by J... by J... [shudders]. Honestly, I can hardly bring myself to give him free publicity pronounce his name. He's the opposite of a fact-checker. His work is bad for dogs, and very bad for border collies.

Jon Katz has parlayed inept stockmanship and mismanagement of his dogs into a Slate column, a movie deal, the odd radio appearance and a string of books, and there's a website, too, but I won't link to it. [Oh, all right, dammit: here.] He is a willfully ignorant, patronizing author who wants you to believe everything he tells you about dogs in general and border collies in particular even though, gosh, he's never claimed to be an expert or anything. And besides, experts are just big old snobs, ha ha ha! He is like that man who wrote The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California back in 1845 with directions to a new route he'd never actually traveled himself and when a group of settlers took his "shortcut," they wound up struggling across the Wasatch Range and the salt flats of western Utah and were trapped in the snows in the High Sierra, where they ran out of food and resorted to cannibalism.

On second thought, he's much worse than that.

Here's sheep farmer and border collie handler [and owner/moderator of the Sheep Production Forums] Bill Fosher, in response to a complaint that those mean old border collie snobs "spew venom" at poor Jon Katz:

I spew venom at him because of some of the horrible things he has talked about on a local public radio call-in show, such as letting a five month old Border collie puppy "have a couple of hours of unsupervised time" with the sheep to "let her get to know them." He also claims that highly-trained Border collies are trained with clickers and treats and that poses and postures are trained, rather than actual stock work. He says things like this as if he knows what he's talking about, and in fact he doesn't know sh!t from shinola about sheepdogs, sheep [or] farming [...]

In the end, I really almost don't care about what he did to Devon/Orson. I care about what other people might do to their dogs if they emulate him.

Katz arranged for Orson, his first border collie, to be euthanized after the dog developed severe behavior problems and bit three people. Orson, or Devon, as he was originally called, was given to Katz by a woman who breeds conformation border collies from New Zealand/Australian lines. And would that breeder and importer of show champions be the same woman who called authentic, working border collies "needlessly hostile, undomesticated dogs"?

She would.

According to Katz, any dog that "violates the fundamental contract between humans and canines" [have your dogs signed that contract? Neither have mine] should be killed sooner rather than later, unless you care more about dogs than you care about children, you sicko. From Nathan Winograd's blog:

[F]ear mongering at HSUS has taken a new turn with the publication of an interview with best-selling author Jon Katz, author of “A Good Dog,” in the current issue of Animal Sheltering entitled: “I Chose a Child’s Face Over My Dog.” The question and answer format with Katz does nothing to illuminate the truth about aggression or dangerous dogs, and in fact, only serves to heighten stereotypes and perpetuate myths. That Katz killed his dog because of what he considered severe aggression is not what one takes from the article. That would have been a very different piece, a tragedy for all involved—Jon Katz, his dog, and the people his dog hurt. And maybe, just maybe, our hearts would have hurt for all of them.

Instead, HSUS asks a series of very deliberate questions which not only globalize the tragedy that occurred in the Katz family, but appear to assume the worst in dogs, and the worst in people who want to see less of them killed. Opposition is dismissed as irresponsible. Dog lovers are pitted against children. It’s the type of either-or, you-are-with-us-or-against-us, your-dog-or-your-child hysteria most of us, especially those of us who love both our dogs and our kids, dismissed long ago. In fact, the parallel to attacks the nascent animal welfare movement was subjected to from industries which hurt animals is stark. Our movement’s history is littered with these sorts of unfair accusations by those who profit from animal exploitation.

And the tenor of the article—which is merely restated as Katz' viewpoint giving HSUS “plausible deniability” about the viewpoints advanced—results in the following conclusions:

* Killing dogs becomes unacceptable only when people inappropriately “humaniz[e] dogs.”
* “Millions of people are bitten by dogs every year, many tens of thousands of children.”
* If you do not believe in killing dogs, you have made them “quasi-religious objects of veneration.”
* “Millions of Americans seek medical attention every year for animal bites or attacks.”
* “[F]or every troubled or aggressive animal kept alive for months or years, healthy and adoptable animals go wanting for homes and often lose their lives.”
* “Insurance companies are paying out billions of dollars to people bitten by dogs.”
* As a result of dog bites, “lawyers [are] injected into the human-animal relationship” and this is exacerbated by people who want to see dog killing end.
* Adopting a Pit Bull appears to be more trouble than it is worth.

Every one of these conclusions is deeply flawed and deeply offensive.

And speaking of deeply flawed and deeply offensive, here are excerpts from an online chat last summer:

Question: One other question, our new border collie is extremely sensitive to loud noises. If there is thunder is the far distance, she will cower and go hide under the bed. As you can imagine 7/4 was very difficult for her. is there a way to desensitize her to loud noises?
Jon Katz: Desensitizing is possible,but difficult and time consuming. I don't know any border collies who are sensitive to noise -- partly why they are such great herders. I put mine in crates when I leave the house or when storms approach.

Sweet Jebus. This just in.

Question: Hi Jon -- do you know of someplace near Boston where I could see a herding trial? I've seen the kind held in a ring, but would love to see the type held in a large, open space (my dream vacation is to go to Scotland and watch Border collie trials, but it's not going to happen any time soon. --- Thank you!
Jon Katz: Hey Keely, Izzy and I were just herding geese along Storrow Drive. You can go to the akc dot org website for lists of AKC sponsored herding trials. I am sure there are many in N.H. and Massachusetts.

Sigh. To the left is a scene from an AKC "herding trial." There is a dog back there in the dust of this small arena, and the run was given a qualifying score. Three runs like this, and your dog receives an AKC "herding title."


The photo below shows the Open field at Zamora, CA. This is a USBCHA trial. The AKC has never, and will never put on a sheep dog trial as challenging as Zamora. Click here to find the next real trial near you. Your dog won't win a "herding title" by doing well on a course like this, but everyone will know what he's made of.



Of course I'm just a snobby old elitist to bring any of this up. Katz again:

[Border collie snobs] tend not to favor a variety of approaches to training their dogs but adopt uniform--and very rigid--methods. Those dogs you see winning ribbons on TV don't get there by relaxing and finding their own way. Every move they make--the way they sit, at what distance from the sheep, how they hold their heads--results from intense, almost relentless training. I used to watch in amazement as trainers waited until a dog's head was pointed in precisely the right direction, then click a clicker, over and over again.

Where does he get this?

NO ONE trains a working border collie with a clicker. [I suppose a clicker could be used for training "obedience on stock" — but that is not the same thing as stock work.] Check out the YouTube video in the left sidebar to see a top handler at work with a good young dog, and read the terrific new book Top Trainers Talk about Starting a Sheepdog to learn more about the real nature of "summoning the dog's genetics," as Donald McCaig puts it.

Katz writes that border collie snobs are "annoyed" with him

because I have border collies in the first place (they think people like me shouldn't), because I don't take them to competitions (too many uptight people shouting at their dogs), and because I've homeschooled them, avoiding the pros and adapting their training to life on the farm. My methods are admittedly unconventional. Rose is a true heroine, but there will be no championship ribbons in her future. The snobs won't approve of my new technique with Izzy, either.

Oh, please. This is such absolute, self-serving nonsense.

Katz bothers me because I hate to see livestock stressed, because I hate to see dogs put in dangerous situations, and because I believe writers have an obligation to do thorough research and tell the truth.

And what Bill said: "I care about what other people might do to their dogs if they emulate him."

DoG help us. This may be a very bad year for border collies.

PETA wants to kill my dogs -- and yours

Ever-so-true billboard courtesy of the greedy breeder at Frogdog Blog.

They do. Really. It's the old "we must destroy the village in order to save it" excuse for mass slaughter. Dogs are miserable, exploited slaves. Owning a dog is the moral equivalent of owning a human. Or so believe the leaders of PETA -- and their solution is to make dogs extinct. "Find companionship with your own kind," lectures PETA prez Ingrid Newkirk. Pity Ingrid wasn't around to give dogs that message when they first sidled up to our campfires: poor beasts might have been spared the misery of long walks, tennis balls, home-cooked meals, the best spot on the sofa and advanced medical care. Silly animals -- how dare they link up with us! Let's kill 'em all, the sooner the better, one breed at a time or in bunches. [Yes, this solution is brought to you by the same folks who equate chickens on farms with Jews in concentration camps.]


And these hypocritical little PETA fascists, sitting on a war chest worth millions, say they have to kill the dogs they collect because the organization can't afford to take care of animals waiting for adoption. How insane is that, to kill a good dog rather than make the effort to place him in a loving, responsible home? PETA calls it "helping to alleviate cruelty and suffering." Suffering like this, I guess.

Did I say "fascists"? PETA also wants the government to have the right to neuter your dog -- all dogs. Weren't planning to breed Scout? Doesn't matter: you're not responsible enough to manage an unaltered dog. Risk of bone cancer? So what? Better your Rottie or Rottie-mix should die an early, agonizing death than for you to look at the science and ask questions and discover that people who really care about animal welfare -- those wild-eyed radicals in Scandinavia, for example -- have made neutering without medical cause against the law. [Imagine that.]

And now, just in time for the Westminster Dog Show, PETA comes up with ads comparing the AKC to the KKK.

“When it comes to contempt for ‘mixed breeds’ and a fetish for ‘pure bloodlines,’ there’s not much difference between the KKK and the AKC,” says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch.

I'm not making this up. The same group that throws all its weight behind bills designed to restrict dog breeding to purebreds -- California's AB 1634 [until the last desperate minute], Los Angeles city and county neuter mandates -- is accusing the AKC of "contempt for mixed breeds." You know, just like the KKK! Sweet Jebus.

Daphna, you're the ones killing adoptable mutts by the tens of thousands! You're the ones backing legislation that will allow only pedigreed dogs to be bred! You're the ones galloping through town in white sheets, Daphna, taking good dogs out of rural shelters and killing them.

Meanwhile, the AKC helps countless mutts, mixed breeds and purebred dogs get home safely. The AKC isn't perfect by a long shot, but the last time I checked, cross-burning was not on their list of upcoming events.

***

Forty-eight years ago this month, a brave group of college freshmen changed the course of American history: they began a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest segregation and racism. The four students cited as motivation the lynching of 14 year old Emmett Till:

[I]n the middle of the night, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, showed up at the house where Till was staying. Armed with a pistol and flashlight, they pushed through the house to find Till, forced him to get dressed, then dragged him away as the rest of the family begged them to leave the boy alone. On August 31, three days after the abduction, a boy fishing in the nearby Tallahatchie River found Till’s submerged body. The brutalized corpse was missing an eye, had a severed ear, a bullet hole in the head and he was anchored by a 75-pound cotton gin fan that had been tied to his neck with barbed wire[...]

The trial of Bryant and Milam ended in acquittal, as the all-white, all-male jury–warned by the defense that “their forefathers would turn over in their graves” if the men were convicted–voted not guilty on grounds that the state had failed to prove the identity of the body.

“That sent me some messages,” said Greensboro Four member Franklin McCain[...] “I concluded rather quickly that if that is all this life has to offer, then it’s not worth living.” But McCain and the rest of the Greensboro Four decided to seek change rather than accept the type of life segregation offered, and with their sit-in, they sparked a revolution.

Daphna, tell me again: how do the people at Westminster resemble the KKK?