Niš (Serbia) - There are hundreds of dogs, wagging their tails and running free on fenced-off land in a Serbian town, and one man knows each of them by name. Sasa Pesic, out of work like around 17 percent of Serbians, came upon four abandoned puppies in woods near his home. The discovery changed his life dramatically, setting him on a path to becoming an advocate for stray dogs and opening a shelter in Nis in southern Serbia. Today it is home for more than 450 animals, but Pesic may soon have to move his canine horde as the city wants him to find a new location. "I know exactly how each dog arrived at my shelter, I know their names, personalities," says Pesic as he patted one of his charges. When the 45-year-old walks into the shelter, set on a piece of land near the center of town, hundreds of dogs of all sizes and colors run to him barking happily in greeting. The refuge is located at a former equestrian club stable that Pesic got rent-free from the owner back in 2010, where the dogs can be outside all day long. "It is only when night falls that we put them in their cages. They are happy this way," he says, adding that all the dogs have been vaccinated, sterilized and have microchips. There are 280,000 registered dogs in the Balkan country, but veterinary authorities say it is practically impossible to determine the exact number of stray canines, many being pets abandoned by their owners in hard economic times. An endless fight The sheer size of the problem makes the work of advocates like Pesic even more important, says Jovan Stojkovic, who is in charge of animal issues in the municipality of Nis. But recently the city, claiming the shelter's land belongs to it, told Pesic that he would have to leave with his dogs. That immediately sparked protests by animal rights groups. Tens of thousands of people signed a petition to prevent closing down the shelter, forcing the city authorities to back down and pledge to find a solution. "The city supports what Sasa is doing," Stojkovic tells AFP. "We are certainly not going to allow these dogs to end up back on the streets, that would be a disaster." For Pesic and his six volunteers, working with the animals is a non-stop business. "This is an endless fight. I don't have time to eat properly and even less to think about a private life," Pesic said. "You have to fight every day to provide food and care for all these animals." When starting out, Pesic was getting food for the dogs from local bakers and slaughterhouses. But supplies soon outstripped demand and he had to push for donations, especially through social networks. "People, especially from abroad, were rather open and backed our project. We need some $5,400 to $6,400, for our 400 to 500 dogs every month," he says. The battle to rescue stray dogs, which began in 2008, grew as people began bringing him abandoned pets that they found and the number of those ill-fated animals rose to 60, leading Pesic to move them to the current shelter. Ana Mitrovic, a shelter volunteer, believes the city will stick to its promise to help find a new home for the hundreds of canines. "I am confident that the city will help us to find, by the end of the year, a suitable location, a lasting solution to continue our activities," the 35-year-old woman tells AFP. And especially since the shelter is also trying to have its residents adopted. "Since opening, we managed to find homes for 250 dogs," Pesic says proudly.
Houlton, Maine - Abused, disfigured and abandoned. If anyone had good reason to have a massive chip on his tiny, furry shoulder, it’s Emerson the cat. Instead, the 10-year-old unofficial mascot at the Houlton Humane Society is devoting all of his remaining lives to spreading love and joy as he greets everyone walking through the shelter’s front door. Emerson is not like other cats, having suffered serious damage to his spinal cord and a snapped neck, according to his owner, and Houlton Humane Society, Executive Director Heather Miller. Those injuries left him without the use of his back legs, the inability to urinate and chronic issues affecting his ability to eat and drink on his own. But as Emerson clearly demonstrates as he gets around using a special feline wheelchair apparatus, it’s hard to keep a good cat down. “He was brought in to us last August,” Miller said Friday as Emerson wandered around checking out what was going on in the society’s reception area. “A lady found him, and when he was checked out by our vet, it was determined he had a broken neck, spinal cord damage, broken ribs and what looked to be chemical burns on his feet.” By September, Miller and her husband, Jonathan Miller, who have huge and very soft hearts for “special needs” animals, were working with Emerson on getting him to use a wheelchair that Jonathan Miller, in true Yankee fashion, had created using PVC pipes and bicycle training wheels. “It was almost too heavy for Emerson to get moving,” Heather Miller said. “But someone saw it on Facebook and sent us a cat wheelchair.” The “chair” holds Emerson’s back legs off the floor and allows him to use his front paws to pull himself around. It took awhile to convince Emerson of the benefits of the new adaptive device — the inherent laziness of cats did not help the process, according to Miller — but by December he was scooting around with little trouble. “We put him in the wheelchair for a couple of hours at a time,” she said. “In the beginning, he had to get his front leg muscles built up.” He is a sight to behold, Miller said. Emerson’s injuries left the cat with a permanent tilt to his head giving him a somewhat quizzical expression. The inability to control his bowels or bladder means he wears a kitty diaper, and Miller dresses him in a “onesie” to avoid his getting chafed by the sling holding him in position on the wheelchair. Staff at the humane society have blinged-out the chair with bright stickers, ribbons and a jaunty pennant announcing that Emerson is “Number one.” As if he needed any reminders of that, Miller said. The tabby has his own Facebook page with about 14,000 friends and has helped raise thousands of dollars for local animal rescue organizations through personal appearances and endorsements. “The mailman asked me not long ago, ‘Who the heck is Emerson?’” Miller said. “He gets way more letters and packages than I do and has a lot more clothes than I do because people keep sending him outfits.” Around town, Miller said she is not known as “Heather,” but as “Emerson’s mom.” Spend a few moments with Emerson, and it’s easy to see why he’s gathered so many fans. “He is precious,” Caroline Rossignol of Connor Plantation. said when she met Emerson on Friday. “He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” Rossignol was at the humane society Friday with her grandmother Willa Rossignol to see about adopting a dog, but were sidetracked the moment they walked in as Emerson strolled/wheeled over to meet them. “This is a first,” Caroline Rossignol said of seeing a cat in a wheelchair. “But he seems happy and well adjusted.” Her grandmother agreed. And after hearing Emerson’s story of past abuse, she said she is happy he has found a good home. “Anytime I come to Houlton, I am going to come and see this baby,” Willa Rossignol said. Emerson is not the only special needs pet the Millers have. On Friday, Kino, a 200-pound St. Bernard with congenital heart failure and rescued from a meth lab, was hanging out near the front desk. “She has to be with me all the time,” Miller said. “I once had to leave for six days, and she did not eat the entire time I was gone.” In addition to Emerson and Kino, the Millers share their home with a variety of other special needs pets. At home are five dogs, two that are blind and three with three legs; four three legged cats and two blind cats; and a several rabbits with their own health issues, including seizures and blindness. Miller admits the ongoing costs of caring for and feed Emerson a special diet can be expensive and a lot of work. She declined to comment on the exact amounts she and her husband spend on Emerson and the other animal’s care, other than to say they are happy to sacrifice vacations and personal items to do afford it. “People know I will take in the animals no one else wants,” Miller said. “They all deserve a chance, [and] the payback is the in the reward of how forgiving these animals are.” But Emerson, Miller said, is very special. “He is my heart, my baby boy,” she said. “He has so much personality, and he doesn’t know he’s different.” People can learn a lot from the resilient feline who seems to only want to be near people, despite what humans likely did to him in the past. “Emerson holds no grudges,” Miller said. “He’s a very forgiving cat.” That’s not to say he does not have his moments, such as when Dr. Lori Brown, the humane society’s veterinarian, came in to examine Emerson and give his ears a good cleaning Friday afternoon. “If he could walk, he’d run away right now,” Brown said as she used elongated swabs to clean the cat’s ears. For his part, throughout the procedure, Emerson glared at the wall registering his displeasure as only a cat can. But soon he was again purring and doing what he does best — making people smile and reflect a bit on the blessings in their own lives. “People always feel sorry for themselves,” Rossignol said watching as her granddaughter tried to take a photo of Emerson, who was more interested in head-butting the cell phone. “But look at Emerson — he’s more human than a lot of humans I know.” The Houlton Humane Society gladly accepts donations mailed to P.O. Box 548, Houlton, ME 04730. Donations can also be made at animals@pwless.net
It’s no secret that New York City ain’t what it used to be. Anyone longing for the old, New York will be pleased to know that at least one group of people are keeping fun alive with parties as illegal as they are adorable. I am speaking, of course, of the underground gatherings of a small but dedicated group of ferret fanciers who brazenly flout the health department’s recently reiterated ban on keeping a tiny weasel in your home. A reporter from The Guardian was recently able to gain admittance to one of these decadent affairs (presumably after being blindfolded and led down a dark alley), and what he found may shock you. In The Guardian’s exclusive video snapshot of the illegal pet demimonde, the toothy terrors can be observed chasing each other around, licking humans they barely know, and taking hits of an unidentified brown substance. “They love this stuff,” sneers one libertine. Adds another, somewhat ominously: “When they calm down, they’re very affectionate.” One particularly concerning shot shows an all-out interspecies tickle-fest raging on a mattress. Thankfully, the camera pans away before things get too real. “They are the best of both worlds,” says one of the ferret ladies. “As playful as a dog, as clean and aloof as a cat.” She then added that cities where ferrets are legal have had no problems with “excessive biting.” Only the normal level of biting, thanks. This gleaming theme park of a town being what it is, there’s probably little hope that the practitioners of this alternative lifestyle will ever being able to step out of the shadows. Nevertheless, one ferretphile remains optimistic: “Hopefully one day, people will reconsider and not be fearful of something that they’re not necessarily familiar with.”
Bonkers Brooklyn bunny hoarder Dorota Trec says she was keeping the creatures as part of a 16-year “genetic” breeding program — and would have made “millions of dollars” by creating “blue and pastel rabbits.” Trec has been charged with animal cruelty for letting 176 now-confiscated rabbits live behind a Gowanus tire shop in a squalid, droppings-strewn “garden.” But in an interview one day before Easter, she claimed there was a scientific method to her hopping madness. “I do research a lot of Darwin,” Trec, 35, said Saturday. “These rabbits are developed by me. They’ve all originated from the Netherland dwarf and the Belgium hare. After many years, you can start to see the results.” She said she would get six more rabbits — which she plans to rescue “from the slaughterhouse” to restock her “garden.” “Hopefully, I won’t get arrested, because I was already arrested,” she joked. Trec announced her Frankenbunny claim in a bizarre $2 billion lawsuit she filed last week to get her “free-range” bunnies back from the ASPCA. “Petitioner works with genetic material developing new breeds of rabbits, for example, rabbits that are small, fit, having somewhat big ears,” she wrote in the self-filed suit, which seeks cash damages from the animal-rights activists who ratted her out. “Petitioner also develops [a] number of different colors for rabbits, having special interest in blue and pastel rabbits.” “This project is advanced now and it is worth millions of dollars.” Trec says she would spend at least four hours a day working with her “herds,” including playing her flute for them. Authorities counter that many of the rabbits were sick and injured, some with syphilis and bite wounds. Meanwhile, there was bad news for bunny lovers. The rabbits remain wards of the state and will not be available for Easter adoptions. “They are still considered evidence in a pending criminal case . . . Until the court resolves ownership issues, the rabbits cannot be made available for adoption,” said a spokeswoman for the ASPCA, which is caring for the creatures at partner veterinary facilities. She wanted to make candy-colored Easter Bunnies.
When Kim Silva, retired teacher from the American School for the Deaf, decided to start teaching sign language to her cats, she had no idea how quickly they would learn. In 2009, after losing another beloved pet, Silva and her husband, John, who are both deaf, were ready for a new feline companion. "We fell in love with Bambi on Petfinder," Silva says. Silva's previous teaching experience was pretty much limited to humans, but she was optimistic that American Sign Language would help Bambi live most fully, and that the cat would be a perfectly good student. Bambi was at a rescue shelter in Texas, though, and it would take a while before she could be brought to Connecticut, where Silva lives. In the meantime, she figured, she might as well get started with the cats she already had, even though both of them could hear. A lot of deaf dogs have learned ASL. Groups like the ASPCA say training cats in general is possible (always using positive reinforcement, of course). Still, Silva says even "some deaf people have questioned if cats could learn sign." "Bobcat immediately understood," she says. "My other cat, Bear, was very old and was not interested." Bobcat learned one sign after another "until he learned the new vocabulary," Silva says. "Bobcat was a sponge for sign language! He showed off. He was fabulous." Bambi picked up the signs even more easily, since, Silva explains, she had "peer reinforcement and copied Bobcat." Thomasina, who then joined the family in 2013, after Bear died, learned even faster. The cats have a delightfully expansive vocabulary. Among the words they now know are: "come," "more," "sit," "stay," "shake," "high five," "sleep," "circle," "shrimp,' "play," "canned food," "finish" and "dance" (though sometimes they don't feel like doing that one). They also know "off," which Silva must spell out, letter by letter. A lot of the commands are carried out in one of the videos below. Silva hopes the clip, made by her son-in-law Tim O'Donnell, will inspire others to adopt deaf cats of their own -- and teach them sign language, too. "Cats become much more interactive with people because they want to communicate," Silva says. "Bobcat was a 'pillow that ate' before he learned sign. He interacted with other cats, but ignored people. After he learned sign at age 7 years, he became the extroverted show cat! My cats will also do tricks with other people who sign with them." While the talented cats respond to Silva's commands, they don't actually sign themselves -- at least not a whole lot. "Bambi likes attention and likes to play ball. She stretches up to tap my hands signing 'play' for me to get her ball," says Silva. Still, she remains hopeful her communicative felines will one day acquire more of this rather wonderful skill. "I would like for my cats to be able to sign to me and ask for food," she says. "I have seen this online in other signing cat videos, but was not able to teach Bobcat. I will try again with Bambi and Thomasina."
If your cats resist cuddling, it may be for good reason. New research suggests petting might stress out some felines. What's more, cats living in a multi-cat home may be better equipped to deal with the strains of domestic life than their solitary peers, the study researchers found. A group of researchers aimed to find out whether there is any truth to the assumption that cats kept as single pets are more likely to have a better life than cats that share their home with other felines. "Many people keep groups of cats in their home and although they might seem happy together, some people have argued that because this is an unnatural setup, it is not good for their welfare," Daniel Mills, professor of veterinary behavioral medicine at England's University of Lincoln, said in a statement. "Our research shows this is not necessarily the case." For their study, conducted in São Paulo, Brazil, Mills and colleagues collected data on 23 single-cat households, 20 two-cat households and 17 households with three or four cats. The owners completed surveys about their pets' personalities and behavior, and they also handed over samples of their felines' feces, which contain telltale traces of a stress hormone. The cats' stress levels didn't seem to vary significantly as a function of their personality type. (The researchers had the owners rate their cats as bossy, timid or easygoing.) But younger cats (those less than 2 years old) living on their own were generally more stressed than younger cats sharing their home, the study found. The researchers speculate that even if cats living under the same roof don't seem too chummy, they might be able to organize themselves in such a way as to avoid each other, and thus avoid stress. "Also, and I think very intriguingly, our data suggests that cats who tolerate, rather than enjoy or dislike being petted, seem to be the most stressed," Mills added in a statement. The researchers think this finding suggests the cats that don't like petting can avoid the affectionate hand of their owners if there are other cats in the house that enjoy or tolerate petting. The researchers warned their results should be treated with caution since there were only four cats in the study that disliked petting, according to their owners, while 13 were put in the "tolerating category" and 85 in the "enjoying" lot. If anything, the researchers say their results highlight the importance of giving individual pets control over their environment, and cat owners shouldn't impose themselves on their pets. "If you have several cats you should give them the choice of sharing or having their own special areas to eat, drink and go to the toilet," Mills said. The results were detailed in the journal Physiology and Behavior.
Nestlé Purina PetCare Company (Purina) aren’t the only people suing Blue Buffalo, now consumers have jumped on the litigation bandwagon and Blue Buffalo is getting slammed by a multitude of lawsuits alleging deceptive advertising practices. The growing number of lawsuits filed against Blue Buffalo keep growing and they are claiming, among other things, that the company falsely represented that their pet food does not contain ingredients – such as chicken/poultry by-product meals and corn – when it appears as if Blue Buffalo’s pet food might actually contain those ingredients. Because of the number of class action lawsuits involved the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation has agreed to consolidate seven false advertising class action lawsuits filed against Blue Buffalo Co. Ltd. for misleading customers about the ingredients in its pet food. They alleged that Blue Buffalo misled its customers by claiming its pet food products did not contain any chicken by-products, corn or grain and led them to pay premium prices for the pet food. The class-action lawsuit was transferred to another court where several related lawsuits making the same allegations will be heard together. The smoking e-mails It is safe to assume that Blue Buffalo was aware, at some point, that their pet food did contain the vilified ingredient they based their marketing claim on, when during pretrial discovery—the process by which litigants demand internal documents and communications that could become evidence—e-mails revealed that Purina claims reinforce its allegations. In May, e-mails between a Blue Buffalo ingredient broker (Diversified Ingredients) and a major supplier (Wilbur-Ellis) suggest strongly that they did indeed sell pet food containing by-product meal. In an e-mail to Diversified Ingredients, a broker working for Blue Buffalo, a sales manager for supplier Wilbur-Ellis wrote that it did include “some by-product meal” in shipments from a Texas plant intended for Blue Buffalo. Realizing that the inclusion of by-product meal now has potential legal consequences, Diversified Ingredients expressed alarm to Wilbur-Ellis and a way to respond to the kibble crisis: “I think if we work together, we can band-aid this situation,” Diversified’s Collin McAtee wrote on May 15 to Darwin Rusu of Wilbur-Ellis. Referring to a “smoking gun,” McAtee added, “If you are going to fill these contracts for any reason, then I’m going to have to go to Blue Buffalo to address the breach of contract and undoubtedly divulge the details of what was shipped and the possibility that Rosser’s material is the smoking gun for their problems. That I do not want to do. If the finger is pointed in that direction and then later verified to have been the cause, then Diversified and Wilbur will both have to answer to this in litigation with Blue. The liabilities in this could be enormous. You are talking about massive product recalls, potential market share loss, etc. That would undoubtedly be in the several million dollar range.” Blue Buffalo then claimed they were duped by their supplier, by publicly revealing that contrary to prior assurances, Blue Buffalo admitted that ingredients from their supplier did in fact contain poultry by-product meal after all — proving that the central allegations in Purina’s false advertising lawsuit against them. Despite Blue Buffalo’s admission, no mention was made about taking steps to recall the mislabeled pet foods, nor to compensate the millions of consumers that purchased the falsely labeled products.
Purina claims that testing of Blue Buffalo’s pet food were conducted in a “highly sophisticated, independent lab“, while Blue Buffalo calls their testing “junk science” and claims the testing was performed with a rudimentary microscope under less than optimal conditions with questionable methods. Regardless, the results of testing and analysis reveal that, in some instances, 9 out of 10 Blue Buffalo products tested contained poultry by-product meal, even though the packaging indicated otherwise. Instead, tests indicated the products contained several signature elements of poultry by-product meal: eggshell, raw feather and leg scale. Further, that quantities of grain were found in samples of Blue Buffalo’s pet food that were labeled “grain-free.”
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When most people adopt a dog, they’re in it for the long haul. They recognize that by bringing this new life into their own, they are responsible for the care and well-being of this animal. While it can be challenging and time-consuming to house train a new pet and teach them how to walk on a leash, most people are happy to do it because at the end of the day, they love nothing in this world more than their dog. Or so this is the way that we hope most people feel about their pets, however, many times this is not the case. There are over 70 million homeless cats and dogs currently living in the U.S. While some of these animals were born to feral packs, many were simply abandoned by their guardians and left to fend for themselves. Only around six to eight million stray cats and dogs find their way into the shelter system and a small fraction of those that do end up in forever homes. Although the majority of these animals will never get their happy ending, those that do are completely changed for the better. Luckily, this was the case for Echo the Great Dane. Echo’s guardian first saw her future best friend online in a Facebook post. The poor white puppy was extremely thin and deaf, she had been abandoned by her previous caretaker because she was “too much to deal with.” Echo was purchased from a backyard breeder when she was far too young to be separated from her mother. After this trauma, Echo was subjected to abuse, neglect and unimaginable horrors in the care of the woman who purchased her. But all of this ended when she was rescued by Louisiana Great Dane Rescue and then adopted into her new forever home. One year later, Echo’s new guardian wrote an open letter to the woman who cared for this pup before she did. Here is what she had to say: To the girl that “had to get rid of” the nameless and “useless, not able to deal with” puppy with a belly full of rocks a year ago: Thank you for giving her to rescue instead of putting her down like you had threatened in your Facebook post. I just want you to know that she’s safe, although I doubt that you care. Because you didn’t care that she was hungry or thirsty. Didn’t care that she was filthy. Didn’t care that she was deaf. You did care that she was a free puppy and took her home from the BYB who is just as guilty as you are. Did you comfort her when she cried the first night she was away from her mother and siblings? Did you hold and pet her when she got scared in her new “home”? I like to think that you did do at least that for her. I don’t know if it was you or her “breeder” who decided to spay her at 6/7 weeks old. But I want you to know that she doesn’t seem to have suffered any damage from that surgery at a way too early age. She is only alive because of the Louisiana Great Dane Rescue that always keeps an eye out for dogs that are discarded like her. And we are happy that they chose us to adopt Echo. See, that’s what we named her. We figured even though she is deaf she deserves a name, just like any other pet or person… Do you know that she knows a bunch of ASL signs that we use to communicate with her? I doubt you even still think of her anymore. She gets three meals a day and it took me a long time to get her to trust me that there will ALWAYS be another meal and that she doesn’t have to eat rocks and other things she found outside. And that she doesn’t have to try and drink as much water until she got sick because there would always be more water later. Yes, she is very spoiled and may not always “listen” to me when I tell her to do something but she sure couldn’t be any more loved. She is my heart dog and every person and dog that meets her loves her immediately. I am working with her on therapy dog training to get her registered as a Therapy Dog so I can take her to all kinds of places where she can bring love and joy to people in need of just that. I just wanted you to know that she’s safe and loved, even though you will probably never get to read these words.
