Animal Welfare

Major pet store chain PJ’s Pets has announced that its stores will stop selling puppies on September 1, 2011, reports The Toronto Star.+ Rather than sell puppies, the chain will promote pet adoption from animal shelters or humane societies.

I applaud this decision. Puppies available for sale at retailers are often purchased from brokers that provide the retailers with puppies that are competitively priced but of questionable origins.

Many puppies sold at retail stores are from “puppy mills,” where mother dogs are constantly impregnated without regard to their health. The environment of puppy mills is typically unsanitary and overcrowded.

The mother dogs are typically confined in small cages without exercise or adequate care. They may spend their days in their own feces and urine. Some are put in stacked cages with wire flooring that injures their paws and legs. Some spend their entire useful life outdoors without shelter from the elements. Serious medical conditions that are common at puppy mills include malnutrition, parasites, urine burns, rotten teeth, severely overgrown nails, matted fur, skin diseases, blindness, ear infections, wire cuts and open wounds, and overall weakness.

Once the breeding dog has gone beyond its prime (usually at 4 years of age), it is often discarded, abandoned, or killed. The lucky ones are shot; the unlucky ones are starved to death.

The misery isn’t confined to the mother dogs. Upon their arrival at the retailer, the puppies are left in the display windows for prolonged periods of time without adequate care, socialization, or exercise. Prolonged isolation, inadequate care, and lack of socialization are detrimental to a puppy’s overall development. Because of the mistreatment of mother dogs, store-bought puppies are often born with defects that lead to a lifetime of poor health.

At times, new pet parents discover serious health problems in their new pets shortly after the purchase. When this happens, the new pet owner faces a grim dilemma of either putting the pet down or facing substantial veterinary expenses. (Most retailers do not accept returns.) Perhaps a handful of owners sue in small claims court for damages, with limited success.

Such are the evils of puppy mills.

+Vanessa Lu, “PJ’s Pets Ends Puppy Sales” The Toronto Star (16 August 2011) online: <http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1040266>

Photograph used under licence by stock.xchng; all rights reserved.

A Toronto man is facing charges of animal cruelty and possession of a weapon for dangerous purposes for allegedly attacking a family of raccoons with a shovel in his backyard last month.

Witnesses recalled being awakened by the sound of the man allegedly attacking a family of raccoons in his backyard on June 1, 2011. Police were called soon after.

The crown prosecutor told the court that it will proceed through a lesser charge of summary conviction, rather than by indictment. If convicted by indictment, the accused would have faced up to 10 years of imprisonment for the weapon charge.

Under the summary conviction proceeding, the accused risks 2 years in custody.

Animal Services found that one baby raccoon suffered from broken toes and was sent to a rehabilitation centre for treatment. The conditions of the rest of the raccoons are unknown as the mother took the babies away.

The allegations have not been proven in court. The accused is considered innocent until proven guilty.

Regardless of the outcome, I can’t stress enough that violence is never a solution in a free and democratic society like ours. If you feel your home is being invaded by unwanted animals - be they raccoons, snakes, or wasps - it’s perhaps best to contact animal services or a private wildlife control company so the intruders may be removed humanely. Anyone who beats a baby raccoon with a shovel is both barbaric and cowardly and is condemned by this office.

While relief workers are desperately seeking human survivors in Japan, more than one week after the earthquake and tsunami struck, there has been very little news media coverage of the plight of pets and other animals in the region.

One sliver of good news came to light when rescue workers found a dog guarding a second, injured dog amid the rubble, refusing to leave until both were rescued a few days ago. However, local rescue groups say that this example of attention to the problem is rare.

The truth is that, by and large, animals are not priorities for most at a time when more than 10,000 people are still unaccounted for.

According to NYdailynews.com, a woman was found by rescue workers wandering aimlessly with her collie. She said she had stayed in her damaged house for three days because many shelters refused to accept her canine companion.

Please consider donating to the following groups that are in desperate need of funds for supplies and assistance:

• Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. Use the widget at the bottom to donate. For updates, visit them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Japan-Earthquake-Animal-Rescue-and-Support/207835229228979.

• Animal Refuge Kansai is a rescue group located in the western region of Japan and is assisting with rescue efforts. Donate by PayPal at www.arkbark.net.

I have made a small donation to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support on behalf of PSWLaw as a gesture toward helping those animals that can be saved. I hope readers will also extend a helping hand to the animals who would otherwise be left behind.

Image courtesy of NYdailynews.com, used soley for news reporting purposes.