“Pets in peril: Feds threaten to evict Galveston Island ... - KHOU” plus 3 more |
- Pets in peril: Feds threaten to evict Galveston Island ... - KHOU
- People with problem pets must make their own peace - Oshkosh Northwestern
- N.M.: Plague found in pets - Durango Herald
- Missouri House OKs penalties for owners of biting pets - News-Leader.com
| Pets in peril: Feds threaten to evict Galveston Island ... - KHOU Posted: 21 Apr 2010 08:33 AM PDT
GALVESTON, Texas — More than 75 dogs and cats might get tossed out of the island's only animal shelter in two weeks if the federal government follows through with a threat to evict the Galveston Island Humane Society from a building at 53rd Street and Avenue S that once was a National Guard armory. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages a lease with the city on the building long used as a police substation, has demanded it be vacated by May 1, Assistant City Manager Lloyd Rinderer said. The humane society, which cares for abandoned animals and those picked up by the city, has been using the 53rd Street building since Hurricane Ike flooded its shelter on 76th Street and Interstate 45 more than 18 months ago. If the corps forces the city to vacate the building, the humane society will be forced to ship animals to another humane society, and Galveston will no longer be able to collect abandoned or stray animals, humane society Director Caroline Dorsett said. The humane society's new building is under construction but won't be finished for nine months to a year. "We're in quandary," Rinderer said. Corps officials knowledgeable of the situation could not be reached for comment Tuesday, Ed Rivera, corps public affairs specialist, said. The corps surveyed the building without informing the city and claims the city had not complied with the lease agreement, Rinderer said. The corps objected to the city using the building as an animal shelter instead of as a police substation as specified in the lease from June 1995, Rinderer said. The city stopped using the building as a police substation when all its officers moved into the Joe Max Taylor Law Enforcement Center, 601 54th St. The 53rd Street building sat vacant for years, used only as storage for some police records, until the city in August 2008 agreed to let the Humane Society use it as a temporary shelter while a new shelter was being built. Within a month of that agreement, Hurricane Ike struck, flooding and ripping the roof off the animal shelter. As humane society employees and volunteers rescued thousands of dogs and cats left behind in hurricane-damaged houses, the city opened the 53rd Street building to house pets until their owners could come back to the island or until the humane society could find them new homes. The hurricane-damaged shelter was demolished, and the humane society broke ground on a new one at the same site in October. Rinderer said the corps also contends the city violated its lease by failing to make repairs it promised to the building when it signed the 20-year lease in 1995. The city never repaired the building, which Rinderer estimates to be more than 50 years old, because it lacked the money to do so, he said. The humane society has spruced up the place since it moved in, however, including laying new tile, painting the walls and installing new appliances, such as sinks, washers and dryers, Dorsett said. The humane society is using every inch of space in the building, Dorsett said. Volunteers transformed a shower into a laundry room and a garage into a kennel for large dogs. When the rooms get too crowded, as they often do, dogs in cages spill out into the hallways, Dorsett said. "We're making the best of a bad situation," she said. The city has been asking the corps to reconsider the eviction since late February, but so far, the corps has been unwilling to relent, Rinderer said. The city has asked state Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, and U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, to intervene and stop the corps from evicting the humane society. The organization cannot obtain another facility that is both financially feasible and operationally suitable for the needs of an animal shelter, Rinderer said. Dorsett said the members of the humane society board have been unable to find an affordable building zoned to allow an animal shelter. It would strain the society's finances to move a shelter into a new facility, which would have to be redesigned for animals and retrofitted with the shelter's phone and data lines, only for a few months until the new shelter is finished. "If only they'd let us stay just for another six months," she said. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| People with problem pets must make their own peace - Oshkosh Northwestern Posted: 21 Apr 2010 08:22 PM PDT (2 of 3) "Some people like to think they love their animals so much they're willing to be victimized by them," she said. "It's proof of how much they love that animal and proof of what a good animal person they are and what a good person they are. It's part of their identity." There's no national clearinghouse for where and how people acquire their pets, but about 63 percent of all U.S. households have at least one, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Ten to 20 percent of cats and dogs come from shelters and rescue organizations, sometimes arriving in well-meaning homes with heavy emotional baggage. Others, like Jellybean, just drop into the lives of their humans and stay a good long while. Jellybean is the nippy childhood bird of Jennifer Guild, who lives in Richmond, Va. The bird materialized one day, and Guild's parents took her in. After she and her siblings moved away, Guild took on Jellybean, despite a bird allergy. "Jellybean has always been pretty mean. When you try to take her out of her cage, she tries to bite you," Guild said. "My husband has always hated her." She tried her local SPCA with no luck, so Jellybean is confined to a back bedroom in virtual exclusion, at maximum volume. "Try sleeping in on a Saturday morning with a bird screeching in the next room," Guild said. About 5 percent of the dogs and cats placed in homes by the ASPCA's adoption center in New York City last year were returned, said its senior vice president, Gail Buchwald. Allergies and housing problems are common reasons, but many people don't relinquish pets out of shame or fear of being judged. "You can never predict an animal's behavior in a home 100 percent," Buchwald said. "To some extent, every adopter is expected to roll with the punches a little bit, to know that animals, like children, come with their personae and sometimes come with the sniffles and sometimes they might develop personality traits that we wouldn't have put on top of our list." Elizabeth Castro, who lives outside Chicago, finds her life with her cat Phil one huge compromise. He regularly urps between her sheets and she tried to foist him off on her in-laws, only to have him returned. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| N.M.: Plague found in pets - Durango Herald Posted: 18 Apr 2010 10:56 PM PDT SANTA FE - Several cases of plague among dogs and cats around New Mexico have public-health officials urging people to be wary of a possible spread to humans. New Mexico hasn't had any human cases of plague or hantavirus so far this year, but plague cases in pets can serve as a warning that human cases might follow, public-health veterinarian Dr. Paul Ettestad said. The wet winter and spring can mean growing rodent populations, increasing people's risk of becoming ill from the diseases rodents carry, Ettestad said. Plague is a bacterial disease of rodents generally transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas. It also can be transmitted by direct contact with infected animals, including pets. Symptoms in humans include sudden onset of fever, chills, headache and weakness. In most cases, there also is a painful swelling of the lymph node in the groin, armpit or neck areas. Prompt diagnosis and antibiotics can greatly reduce the fatality rate. The Health Department recommends seeing a doctor about any unexplained illness involving a sudden and severe fever. The agency recommends avoiding sick or dead rodents and rabbits and their nests and burrows; cleaning up areas near homes where rodents could live; and cleaning up nests and droppings with disinfectant. People also should air out shuttered buildings before entering. The New Mexico Department of Health's Scientific Laboratory has confirmed plague in a dog near San Jon in Quay County. Other confirmed cases for 2010 include a dog and cat in the city of Santa Fe and the rural Santa Fe County subdivision of Eldorado and a dog and cat from the Alcalde and Abiquiu areas in Rio Arriba County. New Mexico had six human plague cases last year, including one in which an 8-year-old Santa Fe County boy died. Hantavirus also is transmitted by rodents - especially the deer mouse - through their urine, droppings or saliva. People can contract the disease by breathing in the aerosolized virus. Early symptoms are fever and muscle aches, possibly with chills, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and cough. The state had four hantavirus cases in 2009, none of them fatal. It had two cases in 2008, both fatal.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Missouri House OKs penalties for owners of biting pets - News-Leader.com Posted: 19 Apr 2010 05:51 AM PDT JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Owners whose uncontrolled animals bite or injure someone else could be charged with a crime. House members have approved the legislation, which sends it to the Senate. The bill would make it a misdemeanor if people do not control their animals and someone else is bitten or suffers other injuries. Owners of wayward animals would face up to 15 days in jail and a fine of up to $300. Those who lose control of their pets twice could be sent to jail for up to six months and face a fine of up to $500. But no penalties would apply if the person who was bitten had been taunting, provoking or attempting to hurt the animal. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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