Snarf was underweight with a heart murmur and a possible ulcer when he was rescued from a Kentucky puppy mill. He had hookworm, fleas and ticks, infections in his eyes and ears, red skin and patchy hair.

The 10-year-old Japanese Chin wasnt house-trained and didnt know how to play with people. He hardly seemed like anyones idea of a pet.

But thanks to several months of rehabilitation, he is.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals set up a rehab center for Snarf and the other 117 dogs rescued in October from the puppy mill.

The ASPCA is the only national animal welfare organization with a behavior team dedicated solely to rehabilitating victims of cruelty and disasters. Last year, the anti-cruelty behavior team coordinated rehab for more than 1,200 cats and dogs.

Many pets that end up in rehab are victims of abusive owners who have been arrested for dogfighting, hoarding or puppy-mill violations. Other animals survive natural disasters.

Snarf had been crated, isolated and used for breeding all his life before his six months in rehab.

His medical conditions were treated, and he was taught how to socialize and play with humans and animals, how to walk on a leash and to urinate outside of his crate.

Hoarded or mill dogs have been trapped in small spaces and denied human contact, so they lack social skills and often are afraid of sights, sounds and experiences, said Pamela Reid, an animal behaviorist and vice president of the ASPCAs anti-cruelty behavior team.

Can rehab save every animal?

Saving depends on your definition. We certainly save them from cruel and inhumane situations, Ms. Reid said. There are medical cases where its more fair to the animal to euthanize than to attempt treatment or treatment is not possible.

Dogfighting and disasters can be more challenging. Fighting dogs might show aggression toward other animals but appear sweet and friendly with people. Disasters bring their own kind of fear.

Ms. Reids behavior team watches how each dog reacts to pleasant greetings and unpleasant greetings. The behaviorists watch as workers clip an animals nails, pull a burr from its fur, give it a toy and food and take those things away. They expose the dog to a toddler-size doll and a life-size dog mannequin, scold it and watch it interact with other dogs.

Behaviorists look for eye contact, posture, the dogs tail and ears and what it does when it sees a person it knows.

A dog has to do well with the doll before behaviorists will recommend it for a home with children, Ms. Reid said.

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Approximately 25 animals, including nine dogs, five cats, five equines and several birds, were removed from the residence.

Given the choice between a real animal and a toy, new research shows that children prefer a living creature.

Even babies as young as 11 months old are naturally drawn to animals, including those that may frighten many adults, such as spiders and snakes, investigators from the University of Virginia and Rutgers University found.

The researchers conducted experiments in which children had the opportunity to choose between animals or attractive toys. The children, the study revealed, spent more time with all types of animals than with the toys.

The animals also sparked more curiosity and interest than the toys did, the investigators noted. For example, when focusing their attention on the animals, the kids gestured more, talked about the animals more and asked more questions. As a result, the researchers suggested that animals help children learn.

?The fact that children find animals so appealing suggests that children may benefit from having an animal, like a pet, in their lives,? Vanessa LoBue, from Rutgers University, said in a news release from the British Psychological Society.

?Our research develops the idea that animals may be a good instrument for learning,? she said. ?This is borne out by the widespread use of animal characters in children?s books and TV programs.?

The study was published Friday in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Every year more than 150,000 dogs and cats are killed in Alabama animal shelters. The majority are healthy and would become loving companions if they were adopted. In most cases, the cost of care and feeding, euthanizing and disposal is borne by the taxpayer.

It would be cheaper for the public and more humane for the animals if this population was reduced. The best way to bring the abandoned pet “surplus” under control is through spaying and neutering.

The catch is spaying and neutering can be expensive. To help bring down the cost, nonprofit organizations created spay/neuter clinics where these services can be offered by trained veterinarians at a lower price and under safeguards for the well-being of the animals.

Alabama had four such clinics and might have more had the Alabama State Board of Veterinary Examiners not ruled that such facilities could operate only if they were owned by a state-licensed veterinarian.

To overcome this objection, legislators, who wanted to address the over-population problem and also encourage competition that would reduce the cost of spaying and neutering, introduced a bill that will allow veterinarians to work at these clinics even if a veterinarian is not the owner.

Problem solved?

No.

Although the state board had inspected the clinics and found them OK, it opposed the bill on the grounds that care in the facilities was sub-standard. It’s a reversal that suggests that its opposition was based on something other than the welfare of the animal or even the freedom of veterinarians to practice in such facilities. If the board has serious concerns about standards, the better course would be to offer ways to ensure proper treatment of animals at these sorts of clinics.

The “spay/neuter clinic protection bill” has already passed the House and today it is being debated in the Senate, where the opposition is expected to try and block it.

It would be unfortunate for taxpayers, for consumers and for the animals if this opposition carries the day.

We urge our state senators to support and pass this legislation.

Cubao dolphin show execs going to trial for cruelty to animals

By Julie M. Aurelio
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Typically, bigger animals tend to run faster than smaller animals, because they have longer legs, said Christofer J. Clemente of Harvard University, who led the research. But this only works up to a point. The fastest land animal is neither the biggest nor the smallest, but something in between. Think about the size of an elephant, a mouse and a cheetah.

Clemente and his team studied monitor lizards to show that that the same principle applies within species as well as across species, and to identify why this is the case. Because adult monitor lizards vary substantially in size, they are an ideal species for testing how size affects speed. The researchers timed and photographed monitors ranging from two to 12 pounds, as sprinted across a 45-foot track.

This video is not supported by your browser at this time.

These images were captured by Christofer Clemente and his team using high speed cameras and markers at key points in the bodies of monitor lizards. The research found that middle-sized lizards were the fastest. Larger lizards had to change the way they ran, which slows them down. Credit: Christofer Clemente

The researchers found that the midsize lizards were fastestand they discovered why.

Using high-speed cameras and markers placed at key spots on the lizards bodies, the researchers created computer models comparing characteristics of the lizards running strides.

We then looked at how the mechanics of the stride changed with body size, and we found that the changes in the stride were consistent with the changes in speed, Clemente said. Above a certain size, lizards were changing the way they ran, perhaps due to a decreased ability of the bones and muscles to support a larger body mass.

Testing this phenomenon within a single species helps clear up questions about why the biggest animals arent the fastest. Large animals tend to be closely related evolutionarily. So its hard to tell whether slower speeds are due to biomechanical issues stemming from size, or from any number of other factors stemming from a shared evolutionary history.

Looking at individuals within a species rather than making cross-species comparisons helps to eliminate this phylogenetic bias. The results bolster the hypothesis that large size creates biomechanical constraints.

Larger lizards legs can no longer support their body weight, and they have to change their style of running, making them slower, Clemente said.

More information: Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 85:3. (May/June 2012).

Provided by University of Chicago (news : web)

May 1, 2012

Updated May 1, 2012 at 10:34 AM CDT

Duluth, MN (Northlands NewsCenter)
When I was a child we used to take in all the baby birds that fell from the rafters in the barn and my mom would try to help us and wed desperately try to feed them and it was hard because often they would die. We didnt know the right way to care for them.

Growing up on a farm, Duluthian Caroline Sneve Routley learned to care about animals.
Through Wildwoods Rehabilitation, shes since learned to care for them.
Wildwoods lives up to its name by rehabilitating abandoned baby and injured adult animals.
The group is caring for a wide variety of animals at the moment.

We live in a world marked by its gradual shift toward equality. From absolute monarchs deriving their power through the divine right theory of kingship to the Declaration of Independence deriving its power through the consent of the governed, the history of our world is the story of this transition. With this transition, we have made it universally accepted that the torture or slaughter of humans is morally repugnant. We empathize with the cruelties of the Holocaust, the devastation of the Darfur Genocide, and the atrocities of the Bosnian War. We immediately denounce these incidents as horrifying and immoral, proclaiming that all people are equal regardless of their race or cultural identity. We recognize them as massive violations of human rights.

Similarly, when we hear reports about animals being slaughtered in factory farms or about the horrors of animal testing, we all instinctively cringe in pity for these tortured animals. In factory farms, hens are frequently starved for two weeks to coerce molting, forced to regularly resort to cannibalism, and often have their beaks removed without morphine or anesthesia. Meanwhile, in large manufacturing plants and reputable universities, mice are forced to grow tumors the size of their own bodies, rats endure purposely induced seizures and crushed spinal cords, and pigs and sheep suffer as their skin is burned off. Yet even though we feel pity for these animals and their drastic situations, far fewer people instantly reach the same conclusion that is reached when we witness violence toward humans: that animals deserve certain inalienable rights.

Why should we ascribe these rights to humans but not animals? Despite the huge progress made in promoting universal human rights, the advancement of animal rights has remained disturbingly stagnant throughout history. Unable to communicate through words and ill-equipped to defend themselves against humans, animals have been consistently exploited and used for human ends, our ethical duties to them tossed into the shadowy backgrounds. By asserting that humans are more intelligent than animals, opponents of animal rights justify this cruelty toward animals, claiming that since animals are not as intelligent or rational as humans, they do not deserve certain protections and safeguards.

Using this logic, however, many humans would not even qualify to have rights since they do not pass this same test of rationality. Although infants are clearly not rational and are completely dependent on others for survival, it would be morally repulsive to suggest that infants dont have rights and can be subjugated at will. In the case of mentally challenged patients, as well, it is apparent that these marginal cases of rational capacity make the distinction between those who deserve rights and those who dont murky and undefined. If rationality is our means of measurement, it becomes difficult to justify why infants and the mentally challenged deserve certain rights, but animals do not.

This distinction between animals and humans becomes even less pronounced when the qualities that make us human are scrutinized further. Recent studies indicate that traits thought to be uniquely human have been identified in animal species as well, thus fundamentally challenging our reasoning for treating them differently. Orangutan mothers develop close, life-long relationships with their offspring, chickens recognize and abide by various social hierarchies, and meerkats in the Kalahari Desert even sacrifice themselves to stay behind and care for ill family members. All of these acts, which are so reminiscent of the way humans operate, makes it hard for us not to empathize with their compassion and see a bit of ourselves in these creatures.

Instead of capitalizing on the differences between animals and ourselves, we should utilize opportunities like these to celebrate our similarities. If we identify ourselves only through the differences among us, we lead ourselves down a path that advocates different treatment based on arbitrary differences, justifications that were frequently used to promote racial segregation and human-rights violations. Clearly, it is important, and even necessary, to focus on what makes us the same rather than what makes us distinct, and by doing so, we can take the first step in recognizing that animals ought to be afforded increased rights.

In order to properly respect animals, we need to embrace the set of rights that animals are due. Factory farming, which causes unnecessary pain to farm animals, should be abolished immediately. In its place, a system of open grazing should be implemented, where animals are fed their natural diet without hormones and are given open space to roam, allowing them to exhibit their natural behavior and live longer, healthier lives. This open-grazing method has been proven to be successful: In the New York Times bestseller, The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, author Michael Pollan even cites American farmer Joel Salatins sustainable farm as an example of how farmers can treat animals properly while simultaneously generating substantial revenue.

Similarly, animal testing should be avoided not only because of the outright violation of animal rights, but also because the majority of experiments result in failures that may actually harm human health if the results attained from animals and humans do not correspond. After analyzing more than 500 scientific publications from over a 10-year period, Andrew Knight, a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and the director for Animal Consultants International, concluded that results from animal testing were frequently equivocal or inconsistent with human outcomes, and that only two out of 20 reviews of animal models furthered valuable conclusions, with even one of those conclusions still remaining questionable. On the other hand, non- animal experimentation research such as in-vitro techniques, high-tech scans and human simulators could prove to be quicker, less costly and more accurate than animal testing.

Though there are a multitude of issues that need to be solved on the human front, the unique atrocities animals have had to endure for centuries justify taking action right now, since only then can we hope to finally correct our past and present wrongs. We are perfectly equipped to lead the change — countless rights movements in the past have taught us how to promote change, advocate equality and urge activism for a movement. All thats left is for us to finally take a stand and decide to make a tangible difference.

STUDENTS of the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) danced at the Pavilion Kuala Lumpurs entrance recently to spread the message of protecting endangered species.

The event was held in collaboration with Pavilion KL as they celebrated Earth Day recently.

Although it was a hot day, passers-by stopped to see 18-year-old Kevin Jang doing a solo hip hop dance.

The main highlight was the schools animals dance.

It involved about 50 students aged from 6 to 18 doing some simple yet meaningful dance.

The dance director and coach Karen Palko explained to the public that the dance moves represented tigers, rhinos, elephants, turtles, orang utans and the sun bears.

I choreographed it based on the way those endangered species move around, their habitats, and the dangers that they are facing, she said.

Palko hoped that people would learn to appreciate the vulnerable species through the dances.

The dance steps are simple and easy to follow. The students mastered all the steps within two hours, Palko added.

Pavilion Kuala Lumpur selected a group of preschoolers here to learn at least one movement of the animals dance from the students.

When the little children got their dance steps correct, they were given animal stickers as a small reward.

Francesca Marshall, 9, said she enjoyed dancing in the public together with her seniors.

I hope to save a few of the animals when people see the dance, she said.

Pavilion Kuala Lumpur also invited the preschoolers to join in the craft-making activities related to earth conservation at the malls entrance.

The tutorial video for the dance can be viewed on YouTube, under the title ISKL Flash Mob Dance w Music.

Published May 01, 2012, 07:56 AM

Fire at Menomonie High School kills 37 animals
The fire, which started shortly before 5 am, broke out in the animal science lab where animals ranging from rabbits to geckos to turtles to a hedgehog were housed. Students studied them as part of an animal science class.

By:

By Pamela Powers, The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Superior Telegram