Quick clicks, good reading: The Sunday wrap-up

In no particular order …

O, Canada! What a horrid mess at the Toronto Humane Society, an organization that apparently went off the rails long ago. The place was raided, officials arrested, financial records being demanded, and the mummified remains of a cat in a trap caught and never removed from the ceiling were discovered:

“It sent chills down my spine,” said Kevin Strooband, lead investigator from the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “I don’t know what is going on here, but it seems like a house of horrors.”

[…]

The facility has been described by former employees as a place of unimaginable suffering, where the weak were stacked in overcrowded disease-ridden conditions and left to die in terrible pain.

Collection of articles here. I don’t even know where to begin … but this has to be the extreme example of a shelter industry so far away from its mission, so used to killing instead of saving, so overwhelmed with compassion fatigue — and too busy pointing the finger elsewhere — that demands for shelter reform and no-kill communities just can’t be heard.

A new broom sweeps best. Time for serious house-cleaning in the shelter industry. And if that means no donations until “leadership” leaves  and a new generation of shelter managers can be brought in to better care for sheltered animals and boost placement rates … so be it.

O, Canada, part II: Also coming from Toronto … a politician introduces legislation to reverse Ontario’s pit-bull ban.

Microchips, please: A police dog was killed  in a shelter. The dog, an older black Lab, was just another unadoptable BBD, who figured him for a skinny abandoned farm dog And the police department? You have a valuable animal like this and you can’t be bothered to microchip? And what’s up with kenneling this old guy at the water treatment plant. No one in the department could make him family? Poor Felony. So much for a lifetime of service.

Pets in the pews: Loved this piece on NPR this morning about church congregations that welcome dogs. Some admit it’s about building attendance, but I don’t care: It’s a great move. I’d even consider giving up my Sunday morning if I could take one of the dogs with me. Of course, since Woody’s Swedish, I’m guessing he’s Lutheran.

From the article:

[T]he Rev. Tom Eggebeen, the pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church […]  says churches have been slow to recognize the deep bond people have with their pets.

“The question was raised by other people, you know, why dogs?” he says. “Not only are they important family members, but there’s more to it than that. They belong to God, too, by gum.”

Eggebeen, himself a dog lover, says another question he is often asked is whether he believes dogs have souls.

“When God created life, he blessed every dimension of it,” he says. “So we share that with all the animals of the world.”

Services like those offered at Covenant Presbyterian are part of a growing interest among people whose pets are central to their lives.

Laura Hobgood-Oster, a professor of religion at Southwestern University, conducted a survey that found more than 500 churches nationwide conduct annual blessings of pets and animals.

Feathered,  fowl and looking for trouble: Heather Houlahan has some funny stuff about her turkeys, all of whom made it through Thanksgiving with their necks intact. The video is especially interesting: She wrote me a note that the turkeys were a gang of delinquents. The video is proof. And I thought geese were mean! Nice work by Rosie the English Shepherd, farm dog extraordinaire. That bitch doesn’t put up with any gobbler nonsense, that’s for sure. Start here and read backwards.

Social media matters: I spend part of yesterday setting up a fan page for our Dr. Marty Becker on Facebook.  Check it out and become a fan. Also, splitting up our various Twitter feeds. Mine, a combination of pets, sustainable agriculture, politics and any cockamamie thing that catches my eye, is here. The general PetConnection feed, which used to be my personal Twitter account, will focus solely on pet news and information. And finally, I set up a Twitter account for Dr. Becker, here. Christie and Kim have their own personal  Twitter accounts, as well.  Dr. Tony does, too!

Got a great link? Want to add your own Facebook/Twitter link? Toss it in the comments.

http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2009/11/…

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