They are not equipped to live in the wild

The heartbreaking reason why you should never release doves at your wedding: ‘So cruel’

King pigeons, homing pigeons and ring-necked doves have no survival skills out in the wild, according to Palomacy. Thus, they will likely suffer and eventually die.

“The ‘dove release’ business perpetuates the idea that white birds can be ‘set free’ and they will just fly away and live happily ever after. Even under the best of circumstances, trained ‘wedding doves’ are hurt, lost and killed trying to get home,” the group’s website states.

“Never buy and release birds for weddings, funerals, prayers, blessings, as a ‘kind act’ or other ceremonies. White doves and other birds (like King Pigeons) sold to you have no survival skills and will suffer and die, bringing neither joy nor honor to any occasion. Releasing store-bought birds is both cruel and illegal.”

Yay for Felicity!

Branded Pit Has New Home

I'm really proud of how my community reached out to help a pit bull puppy who'd been abused and chemically branded with the f-word undergo surgery to obscure that and now she has been adopted into what I hope is a very loving home! Now if they can just catch the sick person who hurt Felicity in the first place, I would be very grateful.

More about Felicity

Reward Offered In Case Of Branded Puppy

The Lexington animal shelter is now offering a $1,000 reward for tips leading to an arrest in the abuse of a pit bull puppy.

Isn't she adorable? Look at this face!

I want this sadistic person caught

Lexington-Fayette Animal Care & Control (LFACC) needs YOUR help! LFACC responded to a complaint regarding an abandoned canine on Campbell St. Once officers brought in Felicity, a young pup, they realized she had been chemically branded by her owner and a profane word was spelled out on her hind quarters. LFACC needs the community's assistance in identifying the owner(s) of this sweet girl and any information you may have in this case. Felicity has now been transferred to LHS where she will receive plastic surgery and continued love and care. If you have any information please contact Lt. Agee at 859-255-9033 ext 229.

If you are interested in helping the Lexington Humane Society take care of Felicity, who will be undergoing plastic surgery to remove the profanity some sick person burnt into her skin with chemicals, you can donate to their Second Chance Fund. Anyone who abuses animals like this is just wrong, and may be abusive towards people, too. Look at that sweet face. It's so heartbreaking that anyone would treat another creature that way. I hope Felicity is adopted by someone who will give her the loving home she needs and deserves.

It makes me so angry that

anyone could treat another creature so cruelly. But it gives me hope that others stepped in to save such a fragile life. What an amazing spirit and will to live this dog has! The pictures in the story are heart-breaking at first (you have been warned), and then, with recovery, inspiring. Thanks to George Takei for sharing this on Facebook.

This Dog Was Tossed in a Trash Chute, Left to Die. Three Years Later, His Recovery is Amazing.

Patrick's owners had starved him for months before one day, three years ago, they did the unthinkable. Patrick was put into a trash bag, then dumped into a New Jersey apartment building's garbage chute that dropped him 19 stories down.

Luckily, just before the garbage was compacted, maintenance workers noticed the bag was moving very slightly. They soon discovered the emaciated, dying dog. Authorities were contacted, and Patrick was immediately taken to the Associated Humane Societies' Newark Animal Shelter. Things weren't looking good for the poor dog.

(Photo credit: Patrick the Miracle Dog Facebook Page)

I have to agree, for the most part

Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

It’s time to take a look at the line between “pet” and “animal.” When the ASPCA sends an agent to the home of a Brooklyn family to arrest one of its members for allegedly killing a hamster, something is wrong.

That “something” is this: we protect “companion animals” like hamsters while largely ignoring what amounts to the torture of chickens and cows and pigs. In short, if I keep a pig as a pet, I can’t kick it. If I keep a pig I intend to sell for food, I can pretty much torture it. State laws known as “Common Farming Exemptions” allow industry — rather than lawmakers — to make any practice legal as long as it’s common. “In other words,” as Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of “Eating Animals,” wrote me via e-mail, “the industry has the power to define cruelty. It’s every bit as crazy as giving burglars the power to define trespassing.”

I don't expect everyone in the world to turn vegetarian, but there a lot more ethical and humane ways to raise food animals than in today's megafarming production and processing. People just look the other way and there are folks who have never been on a farm who don't even know where that wrapped piece of meat came from--and even those who have grown up on farms would be shocked at how the megaproducers keep and slaughter animals. If I did eat meat, for example, I'd rather eat a deer that had a good chance to get away than a veal calf or debeaked caged chicken.

As far as animals, I eat the one thing I feel I can kill--fish. I do eat eggs, cheese, and drink milk, but I try to get the majority of that from free-range, organic sources when possible.

Contrary to many people's opinions, we don't need to eat animals to live. But, at the very least, can't we try to lessen their suffering?

Sad; we need to do better

Kentucky Ranks Last In Animal Protection

Kentucky comes in last or near the last in a lot of things. Turns out we're bad at protecting animals as well.

Barbaric and deviant

--both for those in the video and those fetishists who would pay to watch for sexual pleasure.

Chinese rabbit-crushing video condemned

In one widely-circulated video, a group of young women, smiling and giggling, cuddle and play with small rabbits and then crush them to death.

A woman places a rabbit on a table in one scene, covers it with a glass plate, then sits on it until the animal dies.

In another, a woman crushes a young rabbit with her stiletto shoes.

Sick.

Animals matter to me--do they to you?

Visit:
http://www.animalsmatter.org
Go the explore the map and look up Lexington, KY, USA, and my profile is there under 'eilir'.
World Society for the Protection of Animals
Wikipedia's article on the WSPA
Wikipedia's article on the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare

What a wonderful programme

War vets, shelter dogs heal together in program: Soldiers with PTSD find comfort, inspiration in needy pooches

With the war(s) and the oeconomy being what it is, there's been an increase in both veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and homeless animals. Pairing the two seems to help each in remarkable ways.

Don't get me started on what should happen to these men

Puppy-Throwing Video Raises Many Hackles

There's a lot of debate over the authenticity of the video, but in it a man appears to show the camera a black-and-white puppy, talks about how cute it is, then throws it off a cliff, saying that it was a mean thing to do. The video has (thankfully) been removed by YouTube. A name mentioned in the video may be the person shown throwing the dog to its supposed death. Even if the dog were already dead (it didn't move in the video) or if it were somehow faked (the yelping of the dog did not diminish as it got further from the recorder as it should have), it is sick. Really sick. And if it's true, then I think the person (and the cameraman, for that matter) should be prosecuted to the fullest. Oh, hell, I think they should be flung off cliffs, but that's not going to happen. But they shouldn't be allowed to remain in the Marine Corps, and they should serve time for their actions.

Then there's a local story (it'll only be up for 7 days...the Herald-Leader makes stories pay-per-article after that time, which is just annoying):

Alford plea in kitten drowning: Professor gets $500 Fine, No Jail Time

Bill Fountain, a horticulture professor at the University of Kentucky claims that he thought his neighbour's five-month old kitten, which he'd trapped, was a raccoon, and he drowned it because it attacked him. What rubbish. Granted the man's professional focus is plants, but he had to have taken at least basic biology to become a horticulturalist and I think anyone who has should be able to tell a kitten from a raccoon, don't you? And although he supposedly passed a polygraph, I find it interesting that several other cats in the neighbourhood were known to have disappeared--including another cat belonging to the same neigbhour. An Alfred plea is one where a person does not admit guilt but does admit that there is enough evidence to convict. This man should not be working for the university. He shouldn't be around animals or other people for that matter. Again, animal cruelty is sick--and if a person mistreats animals, there's a good chance he or she will abuse a person, too. Think of serial killers who as children tortured or killed animals, like Jeffrey Dahmer.

I'm also disappointed that the Kentucky Kernel does not appear to have covered this story when it first broke or the plea entry. At least Fountain's name doesn't come up online when you search their site.

Here's the original story as posted on Topix, appearing in the Herald-Leader on September 10th.

Man drowns neighbor's kitten in barrel, says he was attacked

Oh, these stories just make me so angry.

I can't imagine just abandoning an animal in a house

surely even a kill shelter is better than that...

Foreclosures Lead to Abandoned Animals