Animals 24-7

News About Dogs, Cats, Wildlife, Zoonotic Disease & Nature

Bullhead City shelter break-in: owner & pit bulls on the lam

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Pet theft in the 21st century more often involves pit bulls under euthanasia order than laboratory supply BULLHEAD CITY,  Arizona––Rhonda Kathrine Johnson,  51,  on the lam with her pit bulls Melony and Ginger,  sprung on Thanksgiving 2019 from the animal shelter in Bullhead City,  Arizona,  is unlikely to make the FBI “Ten Most Wanted List.” […]

Brother Wolf: “Warehousing is not working,” says director of no-kill experiment

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“Keeping aggressive animals isn’t the solution for lifesaving” ASHEVILLE,  North Carolina––“We are warehousing aggressive animals at Brother Wolf when we know this isn’t the solution for lifesaving,”  executive director Leah Craig Fieser acknowledged in “Warehousing is not working,”  a December 5,  2019 social media statement inspiring heated debate nationwide. “We inherited this way of operating,”  Fieser said,  […]

Pit bulls: An active 40+ year shelter director speaks out too, by Debra Boswell

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“Thank you so much, Deborah Turner!” Thank you so much,  Deborah Turner,  for your truthful and informative ANIMALS 24-7 guest column Pit bulls:  A retired humane professional speaks out at last.   I have been the director at a large open admission shelter in the south,  the Mississippi Animal Rescue League in Jackson,  Mississippi,  since […]

Pit bulls: A retired humane professional speaks out at last, by Deborah Turner

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“All dogs should be recognized as individuals,”  but what of the victims? Last week (and practically every week) a prominent animal welfare group talked on Facebook about how nearly all shelters now agree that all dogs should be recognized as individuals and no breed is inherently aggressive. Really?  Humans have been breeding dogs for specific […]

Hazel Park undid pit bull bylaw that should have saved 4-year-old

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“National Pit Bull Awareness Month” 2019 began & ended with fatal maulings             HAZEL PARK,  Michigan––October 2019,  designated the thirteenth annual “National Pit Bull Awareness Month” by pit bull advocates,  closed much as it opened,  with a blood-red sunset over Hazel Park,  Michigan,  barely 30 hours after four-year-old Benjamin Cobb was fatally mauled in his […]

Michigan hero takes on pit bull advocacy with a song & a trash can

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Oneil Colley serenades Michigan lawmakers for Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day             LANSING, Michigan––In the Michigan state capital,  at least,  Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day on October 25,  2019 upstaged National Pit Bull Awareness Day,  both officially celebrated a day later. National Pit Bull Awareness Day,  held annually since 2007 to whitewash the public image […]

More cockfighters than stars in Doris Day/Clint Eastwood country?

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Cock-breeding explodes around Carmel-by-the-Sea             MONTEREY,  California––By the look of it,  more might have been done in Monterey County to enforce legislation against breeding gamecocks if California had remained a U.S. territory in 1850 instead of becoming a state,  four years after overthrowing Spanish rule.             Exulted Humane Society of the U.S. president Kitty Block […]

“National Pit Bull Awareness Month” opens with two pit bull fatalities

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But HSUS and the ASPCA mark the occasion by pushing pit bulls for families Rottweiler kills a child,  too             NEW YORK CITY,  WASHINGTON D.C.––October 2019,  designated the thirteenth annual “National Pit Bull Awareness Month” by pit bull advocates,  opened with a blood-red sunrise. Only 24 hours earlier police in Bryan County,  Oklahoma,  and Hampton, […]

Someone said ANIMALS 24-7 should not exist. Help us prove him wrong!

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Dear friends & readers: Beth & I listen to you when you ask us to investigate and report about urgent animal issues, usually issues that no one else is covering in comparable depth. We stay up very late, very often, to make sure we live up to your expectations in a timely manner. Every now […]

How did Kumpf get elected top Detroit dogcatcher? Inside info raises questions

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Editor’s note: The September 24,  2019 ANIMALS 24-7 article Mark Kumpf named Detroit animal control chief. Remember Klonda Richey? drew many responses,  none more revealing than this one from Ed Boks,  another applicant for the job,  who formerly headed the animal control agencies serving Maricopa County,  Arizona;  New York City;  and the city of Los […]