Animals 24-7

News on dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, zoonoses, & nature

Kamala Harris: long record on animal issues, including pit bull attacks

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Prosecuted two dog attack fatalities, enforced pit bull sterilization ordinance, but favors adoptions of fighting dogs             SAN FRANCISCO––U.S. Senator Kamala Harris,  named vice presidential running mate to Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden on August 11,  2020,  brings to the election campaign both a strong record on animal protection and a mixed record in […]

Anna Briggs lived for animal rights & no-kill before the movements existed

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Quiet personality long set an example,  yet did not emerge as a leader of causes Anna Catherine Briggs,  101,  died on February 15,  2011 in Berryville,  Virginia,  21 years after publishing her autobiography,  For the Love of Animals. For the Love of Animals,  a 122-page paperback, was written essentially as a fundraising device,  distributed chiefly to […]

Orphans abandoned: Prodigal Pets by Susan K. Houser

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A History of Animal Sheltering in America & the Origin of the No Kill Movement 228 pages,  2018. Free download from: https://outthefrontdoor.com/prodigal-pets/ Prodigal Pets,  offered as a free download by “Out The Front Door” blogger Susan K. Houser,  is the best bargain in books that anyone could hope to discover,  if interested in how animal […]

Vicky Crosetti, 66: “She was a good friend,” to animals & humans

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ANIMALS 24-7 founding board member KNOXVILLE,  Tennessee––Vicky Crosetti,  for 19 years executive director of the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley and a founding member of the ANIMALS 24-7 board of directors,  died on January 22,  2020,  after a multi-year fight against lung cancer and a variety of other serious health issues. Crosetti would have […]

Spay/neuter resumes in Italy despite COVID-19, Camorra & Nigerian mobsters

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Quarantine keeps crime in check––for now             ROME,  CASTEL VOLTURNO,  Italy––The deadly global COVID-19 pandemic,  killing nearly 32,500 Italians to date,  might if anything have made Castel Volturno,  the unlikely spay/neuter hub of the nation,  just a little bit safer. Certainly stay-at-home orders seem to have at least temporarily reduced the mob violence for which […]

Fatal truck crash spotlights lack of attention to safety in dog transport

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Pit bull rescue was hauling 48 dogs to Canada             SHELLEY, Idaho;  PHOENIX, Arizona––Dog rescue-and-rehomers elsewhere around the U.S. on May 20,  2020 celebrated “National Rescue Dog Day.” Many from Phoenix,  Arizona,  and southern Idaho,  however,  searched the hills and woods around U.S. Interstate 15 milepost 105,  just south of Shelley,  Idaho,  for nine dogs––mostly […]

Puppies & kittens everywhere, but none in shelters to adopt

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Suspension of spay/neuter & intake services due to COVID-19 cuts adoptions by a third from 2019             NEW YORK CITY––Celebrating rehoming every dog and cat in custody soon after COVID-19 shutdowns began,  animal shelters from coast to coast are suddenly––and predictably––weeping,  wailing,  and tearing hair about having no adoptable animals to offer in response to […]

$5 for a cat head: True stories of animal welfare,  with hands-on tips for helping animals

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by Linda Chitwood Director,  The Homeless Animals Relief Project 200 pages,  $29.00,  c/o HARP, POB 371, Senatobia, MS  38668;  https://homelessanimalsreliefproject.org/index.html. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Describing herself as “eighty percent of the way to dead,”  longtime Memphis nurse anesthetist Linda Chitwood relocated forty miles south to Senatobia,  Mississippi in 1996,  apparently expecting to spend a lot […]

We need to open up spay/neuter – now!

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by Bryan Kortis, National Programs Director, Neighborhood Cats When the shutdowns in our country began due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus,  in early March 2020,  the animal welfare field reacted quickly.  Shelters were closed to the public,  services were curtailed to the bare minimum,  and cages were emptied through adoptions and recruitment […]

COVID-19 suspensions of shelter intakes & spay/neuter: at what cost?

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ANIMALS 24-7 readers raise two critical questions: 1) How will this impact stray populations months down the road? Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic,  all the shelters in Houston have either shut down or have very limited intake. As you know, Houston has tens of thousands,  if not hundreds of thousands, of stray dogs and cats […]