From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November
2000--
Anti-cruelty enforcement, rehoming, and rescue
"For the first time, in a country where human rights are routinely
violated, someone has been convicted of cruelty to an animal," London
Observer Service correspondent Martin Dayani recently reported from Bogota,
Colombia. District Judge Elsa Lucia Romero, of Suba, a northern Bogota
suburb, jailed two men for three months and fined them each the value of
35 grams of gold for allegedly setting a street dog named Lucas on fire
with a blowtorch and then leaving him to suffer for 24 hours with the burns
that eventually killed him. "Legally this was a watershed," Romero told
Dayani. "What was important in this case was that people had reported the
incident. I considered that the death of the dog caused upset among the
local residents," who demanded justice even though the 10-year-old
Colombian cruelty law was so obscure that Romero had difficulty finding a
copy of it. Continued Romero, "This case appears to have given publicity
to the wide-scale abuse of animals in our society, which is important, as
ignorance surrounding the legal rights of animals encourages impunity."
Added animal advocate Emiliano Castro, "Colombians will never achieve a
peaceful society based on human dignity and respect for one another if we
can't first learn to respect the rights of our brothers in the animal
kingdom."
Royal SPCA of Australia president Hugh Wirth on September 12 agreed
to comply with a federal court order obtained by the shock collar
manufacturer Innotek Australia, of Muddgeeraba, Queensland, which
enjoins him from commenting upon "any consequences or potential
consequences" of the use of the collars, pending the anticipated mid-2001
trial of a suit for damages brought against him and the RSPCA for uttering
previous criticisms. Shocking collars are banned in four Australian
states, and Wirth said he believes they should be banned in Victoria, as
well--which Innotek claims is an improper threat to their business.
Kentucky Assistant Attorney General Amye Bensenhaver in
mid-September issued a legal opinion holding that the Tri-County Animal
Control Center, of Greenup, is subject to the Kentucky Open Records Act
even though it is a for-profit institution owned and operated by private
citizens Don and Nora Grubb. Under the terms of the act, Bensenhaver
explained, the records of any organization which derives more than 25% of
its revenue from state or local government agencies "are subject to
inspection to the extent of its public funding." Trixie Foundation
president Randy Skaggs had requested 13 categories of information from the
Grubbs on July 31, while researching a pending lawsuit against 70 Kentucky
county judge-executives for failing to honor a 45-year-old state law
requiring every county to have an animal shelter. The Grubbs contended
that they did not have to respond.
An Erie County, Ohio probate court jury ruled on September 27 that
the Humane Society of Erie County is the proper recipient of $325,000 from
the estate of Ruth Ann Lovett, 72, who died on Christ-mas Eve 1996.
Lovett left the humane society $325,000 on condition that it should look
after Sinbad, her 14-year-old Siamese cat. After the humane society
euthanized Sinbad three months later due to kidney failure, 14 relatives
sued to overturn the will, which they claimed had been altered under
duress.
Hoping to avert massacres of surplus sled dogs lest they starve or
turn vicious from hunger, Alaska SPCA director Ethel Christensen in late
September sent 27 tons of ground frozen salmon to the Yukon River region to
help Native American trappers who anticipate a dogfood shortage this winter
due to failed local spawing runs. Taking an approach more likely to help
in the long run, World Society for the Protection of Animals veterinarian
Normand Joly, vet tech Manon Duval, and field officer Brian Faulkner
responded to essentially the same problem in Nunavik, northern Quebec, by
sterilizing as many dogs as they could at free clinics held August
28-September 11.
The value of dogtags may never have been better illustrated than by
the mid-September story of Princess, the 16-month-old German shepherd
companion of Yugoslav-born Mike Begovich. Born in the former nation of
Yugoslavia, Begovich emigrated to the U.S. in 1962, and now lives in
Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Princess was given tags bearing the
telephone number of a friend's sister. Begovich's mother died as a refugee
from the war in Bosnia circa 1995, and was buried in Copenhagen. This
summer Begovich returned to Europe to rebury his mother's remains in her
homeland. He took Princess to keep him company--but she vanished.
Fortunately she followed Senada Bajric of the Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja
one morning as Bajric walked her seven-year-old daughter to school. Bajric
read the tags and called U.S. Consul Ann Sides. Begovich and Princess were
soon reunited, with some help from the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak
Region.
The extent to which dogs can become institutionalized was meanwhile
illustrated by the story of Sandy, a 13-year-old wirehaired mongrel who
spent 11 years at the Eighton Banks Refuge in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear,
England. National publicity about his inability to find a home brought
hundreds of calls from people eager to have him--but when he was placed
with Simon and Anne Hunt, of Shearby, Leicestershire, he was miserable
until after a month they reluctantly returned him to the refuge. "He was
very pleased to see us and ran straight back into his kennel," said animal
care worker Kathleen Copeland, who speculated that Sandy had always been
so low in the refuge pack hierarchy that he hadn't a clue how to be top
dog, even in a one-dog home where love and attention were lavished on him.
The refuge now intends to keep him as a mascot.