PetHobbyist.com Site Blog

A particularly wrong-headed ban on pit bulls in Ontario, Canada may be well on its way to being repealed. From KC Dog Blog:

On Wednesday, Ontario MPP Cheri DiNovo officially proposed a bill that would repeal the provincial ban on 'pit bulls' while dog owners assembled in Queen's Park.... DiNovo noted that the government's ban has had no real impact on public safety and has led to the deaths of thousands of dogs since the ban was put in place.

"It's a badly drafted piece of legislation," said DiNovo. "All breed specific bans do is harm the owners and the dogs. It's kind of a gudge law. Yes, we should have violent dog legislation, but we should go after the dog, not breed specific stuff."

[....]

(W)hen the bill passed in 2005, there were 44 experts who testified in the initial hearings -- 43 of them opposed the breed specific law. When the ban got sent to court under a plea of it being unconstitutional, Tom Skeldon -- a man that two years later was forced out of his own township for being inadequate at his job -- was the only dog warden in all of North America that Bryant could get to testify about why the bill was needed.

So now, four years later, the biggest proponent of the bill, and his lone "expert" witness, have both been removed from positions of authority -- so the landscape for people opposing the bill has definitely changed.

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Dairyland Greyhound Park in Kenosha, WI will be closing as of December 31, 2009. Currently there is an email circulating the web basically stating the animals have until the end of the year or they will be euthanized, but this doesn't appear to be the case.

Wisconsin is a no-kill state in regards to the racers. The animals will either be transferred to their owners, transferred to another track or be placed for adoption. There are several greyhound rescues who are approved to take dogs from the track by the Department of gaming preparing for the influx.

Rory S. Goree of the national rescue Greyhound Pets of America recently wrote this on their blog:

An e-mail has been circulating recently with some figures and statements that to the best of our knowledge contain outright bogus or misleading information about the closing of Dairyland.

This is the information I can share with you all regarding this tracks closure from our volunteers heavily involved in assisting these greyhounds:

1) Currently the number of dogs at Dairyland (DGP) is unknown. A State official indicated they would have a list ready in 2 weeks. 900 was the number given in a recent newspaper article, but we anticipate that number is high and the realistic number is somewhere between 300-500 dogs.
2) There is confirmation from the track veterinarian, who is a State of Wisconsin employee, that no dogs will be left behind. The facility will stay open as long as it takes to find adoption groups for all the dogs that are left at DGP.

3) Hauls are being organized to move the pet dogs out of the track prior to the closing to relieve some of the burden. This is going smoothly. Racers can't be moved until January 1st, since racing will continue until Dec. 31st. A haul going east through Ohio is scheduled to leave Dec. 5th. Another haul is leaving for Canada around the same time. Both of these hauls are going to groups that are approved to accept dogs by the State of Wisconsin.

4) All of the regional adoption groups are all ready in communication with each other and are strategizing how to move the dogs and increase adoptions. Its a good team and confidence is high in their abilities to get the job done. The groups are from WI, IL, MI, MN, IN, OH and IA (the neighboring states), but we anticipate support from well behind that perimeter.

On December 31st, 2009 live racing will cease at Dairyland Greyhound Park bringing the end of an era to Wisconsin dog tracks. What does that mean for GPA-Wisconsin? Well, it means we'll need to continue doing exactly what we have been doing for the past 20 years, but just more of it. That is, finding homes for ex-racing greyhounds. Our strategic plan is to step up our efforts of public awareness through media coverage and special events to educate the public about what great pets greyhounds can make when their racing careers are completed. With that awareness, our hope is to generate more adoption applications than we normally receive this time of year, in order to place more greyhounds into loving homes.

On Monday a large number of rare rattlesnakes were taken from Robert Bryson Jr. of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, from his facility in Texas.

For more information and to be kept up to date on any developments, please visit the thread on our venomous forum.

Robert has a listing of the animals as well as information on how to contact him.

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We'll be doing some site upgrades and maintenance this weekend, and the entire PetHobbyist.com family of sites will be unavailable for a short period of time.

The work is scheduled to begin at 1 AM Eastern Time on Sunday, November 15, and will last until approximately 5 AM that same morning. This is historically a time of very low activity on the site, and will hopefully disrupt as few users as possible.

A very small number of our hosted sites will be affected by the maintenance, but most will not. However, all our other features, including the classifieds and the photo galleries, will.

This upgrade should result in better and faster performance on the site.

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The American Veterinary Medical Association today announced that a cat in Iowa became ill with the H1N1 ("swine flu") virus after the humans in her family became ill with the disease:

A cat in Iowa has tested positive for the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, state officials confirmed this morning, marking the first time a cat has been diagnosed with this strain of influenza.

The cat, which has recovered, is believed to have caught the virus from someone in the household who was sick with H1N1. There are no indications that the cat passed the virus on to any other animals or people.

Prior to this diagnosis, the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus had been found in humans, pigs, birds and ferrets.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) are reminding pet owners that some viruses can pass between people and animals, so this was not an altogether unexpected event. Pet owners should monitor their pets' health very closely, no matter what type of animal, and visit a veterinarian if there are any signs of illness.

The AVMA is actively tracking all instances of H1N1 in animals and posting updates on our Web site at www.avma.org/public_health/influenza/new_virus.

Are you doing your part to protect the right to keep herps?

This past year has been hard on our industry. From one battle to the next we're inundated with requests to speak out against proposed legislation. HR 669 wore us out, but the fight goes on – this week, we need to start another wave of grassroots action against a proposed ban.

On November 5 there will be a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Sub Committee for Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on HR 2811. This bill amends the federal criminal code to add the constrictor snake of the species Python genera (later amended to limit only Burmese and African rock pythons) to the list of injurious species that are prohibited from being shipped or imported into the United States.

It doesn’t matter if you keep one corn snake or several hundred ball pythons. Legislation like this will have a major impact on our industry. Opening the door to banning one or two species of snakes completely can make it much easier to add more. We are a major part of the multi-billion pet industry and the loss of even a portion of the reptile community could damage the pet industry as a whole.

USARK's science experts have done a cursory analysis of the USGS report and characterize it as "loose with numerous mistakes and inaccuracies. It is an oversimplification of a very complicated topic." The bottom line is it is not the solid piece of science our opponents wanted to use as a tool to break the back of our community. However, that has not stopped it from being mischaracterized as just that.

What can you do?

***November 2,3 & 4

Call and fax the Subcommittee and voice your opposition to HR2811. Be polite and professional!

Script:

My name is____. I oppose HR2811. It is overly simplistic and politically driven. It is poorly thought out and sacrifices good science for political expediency. The negative economic impact for my family and business would be significant. Please oppose HR2811. Thank you for your consideration.

Also please feel free to share your experiences making these calls in our Herp Law and Cities forum at http://forums.kingsnake.com/forum.php?catid=13#1755768.

Names and numbers to call below...

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