KC DOG BLOG

Kansas City takes steps forward on new shelter management

The Kansas City Star reported today that the city of Kansas City has reached a "tentative agreement" with a new organization called the Kansas City Pet Project to run the city's animal shelter.

The Kansas City Pet project is a brand new organization made up of several animal welfare advocates in the city.  I am the President of the board of directors for the Kansas City Pet Project and we have a great board that features Michelle Davis, who is the President and Founder of Kansas City Dog Advocates, and Heather Clenin -- who has spent the past several years volunteering at the animal shelter.  We also have hired an executive director with 25 years of animal sheltering experience.

The city staff will be recommending moving forward with the Kansas City Pet Project and the proposal will be voted on by the city council in the coming weeks. 

The news comes after a six month long RFP process after the city terminated its agreement with an independent veterinarian who had managed the shelter for 2 years after allegations of poor treatment of animals.  For the past 6 months, he city has been running the shelter while a new vendor was sought.

Because of my involvement in this, I'm not really at liberty to say anything more than is in this news article at this time, but if everything goes smoothly with the city council votes this is a great opportunity to move things forward for the animals in Kansas City.  The shelter is not without its challenges, but there is a huge network of animal welfare advocates, volunteers and rescues who are eager to support positive changes that will be taking place. 

 

 

"The Public" wants no kill success

Seagoville, TX is a small community of about 11,000 people that is a suburb of Dallas.

Until last November, the shelter in this community killed an average of 70 dogs per month. But in November, the city's police department took over the shelter, and turned the gas chamber into a storage bin fo donated dog food. The city has been 100% No Kill since then.  "I just have a real problem putting down healthy and adoptable animals when they can find a good home and be part of a family that wil take care of them," said Sgt. Karl Baily.

But last week, things began getting a little tense. The shelter, which had a capacity for 25 dogs had gotten up to 55 crowded inside.  The shelter had to find homes for 22 dogs by Monday, or the shelter's no kill status would over.

So what did the shelter do? 

They held three off-site adoption events over the weekend -- at a grocery store, at the local tractor supply company, and at a local Walgreens, and, of course, at their shelter - and they went to the media to get some free promotion for the events.

The net result was that 15 pets were adopted on Saturday -- meaning the shelter would likely be able to remain no kill afterall. By last night, all but 8 of the dogs had been adopted. So while they needed 22 dogs to be adopted, they found homes for 47. 

The success in Seagoville shows the success that comes by embracing the public and their willingness to adopt animals, they were able to remain no kill -- instead of simply blaming them for the animals being in the shelter in the first place and killing them instead.

"The Public" generally loves animals --and want to help save them. By promoting the animals, embracing their desire to support your mission, and holding off-site adoption events, shelters can make positive steps toward their no kill goals. It's not a pipe dream -- it's happening -- in cities across the country. 

Topeka law changes, euthanasia decreases 24%

A year ago, the city of Topeka repealed it's long-standing ban on pit bull type dogs in the city.

In the past year, Helping Hands Humane Society has seen a 24% drop in the number of dogs it kills in the shelter as a result of the change.

According to those at the Humane Society, most dogs that are now killed there are euthanized due to health or temperament - -and very few are killed because of lack of space. While the previous breed ban did not allow them to adopt out 'pit bulls' at all, they also had to give up 5-10 pens a day that were holding 'pit bulls' that had been confiscated from owners for being in violation of the law and were awaiting court hearings. Now, those cages are available for dogs of all breeds.

The change has clearly been a positive one for decreasing shelter killing, and is great news for the dogs in Topeka. It shows how one small change can have a dramatic affect on shelter intake and killing.

Valley View, TX woman dead from apparent dog attack

71 year old Donna Conrad was killed last week by one of her pet dogs. The woman was found dead by local authorities with deep puncture wounds in her head and throat.

The dog believed to be involved is her Doberman Pincher.  There was another dog at the scene that is not believed to have been involved.

Because there were no witnesses to the attack, there is little information about the circumstances that led up to the attack -- and there has been only 1 media outlet that has covered the incident -- a small TV station out of Nothern Texas.

Incidents like this are tragic, but very rare. And there is always a set of circumstances that led up to the incident (even if these circumstances are not known).  If we are to address issues of aggressive dogs, we must focus our attention on uncovering these circumstances (that usually relate back to poor dog ownership practices) and not focus on the type/breed of dog  involved, as breed is never a determining factor in dog attacks.

Ideas I love: Lobby Dogs at the Fairmont

The Fairmont Hotels has started a new program to appeal to animal lovers that involves having Lobby Dogs stationed in more than 60 of their upscale properties. These are "working dogs" who's primary job is to "Just sit around and be cute."  "We're a pet-friendly hotel and people are delighted to walk through our doors and see a dog just roaming around the lobby," said spokeswoman Julie Abramovic.

One of the dogs, Edie in Pittsburgh, is a shelter dog that was found malnourished and wandering the streets. Edie was trained and rehabilitated as part of a prison dog program where she was trained by inmates who work to socialize once-neglected dogs.

In addition to acknowledgment that pets are a growing part of people's lives, and promoting themselves as a pet-friendly hotel, at least in this case, the Fairmont is also promoting adoption and prison dog programs.  It is not uncommon for Bed and Breakfasts to have their own resident dogs, but it is rare that I see it in a commercial hotel setting. 

I love the idea, and it sounds like Edie has quite the life - -and it sounds like a place I'd love to stay.

Photo Credit: Kaitlin Bledsoe Photography via MSNBC

Effects of Spaying and Neutering on Behavior

Over the years, I've heard a lot of people/organizations that have claimed that people should alter their pets for a whole host of reasons. Generally, among the reasons listed is that it will make your pet less aggressive (this information is also sometimes used to justify laws mandating the spay/neuter of certain breeds/types of dogs).

While certainly there are a lot of good reasons to spay/neuter your pet (ease of population control being an important one), are the statements about improved behavior one of those?

Fortunately, there has been some research done on this topic. This research is not terribly new (the study was performed in 2006) but it has been sitting in my inbox to discuss for awhile and I've just never made the time to discuss it.

The research was done by Dr. Deborah Duffy and Dr. James Serpell, both at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Both were also involved in a paper about aggression as it relates to breeds of dogs that I discussed a couple of years ago.

In the effects of spay/neuter study, they interviewed more than 1500 dog owners (all breed club members with dogs of known heritage) with dogs over the age of 1 year old. They had a 50/50 male/female ratio and 40% of the dogs were either spayed or neutered.  In the interviews, the asked the dog owners to fill out the C-BARQ scorecard on a variety of different behavioral problems including:

- Stranger directed aggression

- Owner-directed aggression

- Dog-directed fear/aggression

- Dog Rivarlry

- Stranger-directed fear

- Nonsocial fear

- Separation-related behavior

- Attachment/attention-seeking

- Trainability

- Chasing

- Excitability

- Touch snesitivity

- Energy

Dogs from 11 different breeds were included - ranging in size from Yorkies to Rottweilers to measure differences among breeds.

The #1 reason people said they altered their pets was because of birth control (42%).  But interestingly, 31% said to prevent health problems and 18% noted to control/prevent behavior problems. So behavior modification is a major driver why people alter their pets.

The results of the research may surprise you.

Spayed females were more aggressive toward both strangers and owners than intact females.

Spayed females were more fearful and sensitive to touch than their intact counterparts.

Neutered males were much less likely to mark their territories.

Both males and females that were altered were more likely to beg for food and to engage in excessive licking of people or objects.

The incidence of dog-directed fear/aggression varied quite a bit by breed. Some breeds: Bassett Hounds, English Springer Spaniels, Dachsunds, Labrador Retrivers and Yorkshire Terriers showed more aggression after being altered, where Golden Retrievers, Poodles, Shetland Sheepdogs, Rottweilers, Siberian Huskies and West Highland Terriers were either just as likely, or less likely to have shown aggression toward other dogs when altered.

In a second study, the researchers used a convenience sample of more than 3500 dog owners (76% of which were spayed or neutered) and measured the same criteria.

In this study, dogs of both genders were more likely to show dog-directed aggression/fear or owner-directed aggression when altered.

Dogs of both genders were also more likely to have touch sensitivity and non-social fear when altered.

Altered dogs were also likely to be less energetic.

Interestingly, for one breed-specific group in this survey, Doberman Pinchers, altered females were much more likely to show stranger-directed aggression, but altered males were much less likely to show stranger-directed aggression.

It should be specifically noted, that in all cases, the vast majority of all dogs studied showed no forms of aggression at all, regardless of their intact status -- and that differences in the scores don't mean that either situation results in severe behavioral problems.

In conclusion, the researchers report that for most behaviors, spaying/neutering was associated with worse behavior, contrary to popular wisdom, although a few behaviors (energy level, urine marking) were reduced with spay/neuter.

The effects of spaying/neutering were often specific to certain breeds, and not always equivalent between sexes.

You can see an overview of the study, along with a powerpoint presentation with specific details on the study here.  (Note, I have not been able to obtain the complete study, so all of my reporting on this above is based on the powerpoint presentation attached).

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I'm posting this information for a lot of reasons. I think there is a lot of "conventional wisdom'" that exists in animal welfare circles that has shown to not actually be grownded in actual data and I agree with the researcher's conclusions that if pet owners have a more accurate expectation of possible impacts of spay/neuter surgery they will be better equipped to prevent negative behaviors.

I also think it's interesting to read this in a world where many people want to link intact status to aggression and a reason for major dog bites.  This may be true in at least some cases in male dogs, but definitely not for female dogs. 

I also like their conclusion that similar research should be done with other proceedures similar to spay/neuter (like tubal ligation and vasectomies) to see if those can create the desired results (ease of population control) without the possible negative impact of lost hormones.

Does this change the way we promote spaying/neutering as a form of population control?  Should it?  Does it change whether or not cities should try to make laws mandating spay/neuter for public safety (certainly, there is no support for this in this research, in addition to the reality that it doesn't work to control population)?   Certainly population management is essential to rescue success....but are there better solutions?

Addendum:  I should have also noted on this study (and it was wisely pointed out below) that the study is not neccesarily a causal study because all of the other factors were not isolated. So the study does just measure a correlation between spay/neuter and behavior types -- that is not necessarily causal. There is also the issue of whatever variable that comes with owners defining the behaviors vs scientifically defining the behaviors.  That said, I do think the study is interesting at the very least...

Weekly Roundup - Week Ending 9/18/11

Kind of a slow news week this week, and it feels like a lot of the bloggers out there have been busy also.  But some good stuff still to go through today.

Cities/States/Nations and Laws

The city of Tupelo, MS is looking at potential breed-specific legislation targeting owners of 'pit bulls', Rottweilers, German Shepherds and Doberman Pinschers.

The Australian Veterinary Association is cautioning the Victorian Government about the number of perfectly good pets that are going to be impacted by the province-wide breed specific regulations.

Last week, St. Louis discussed the potential for a mandatory spay/neuter law in the city. Thankfully, there was not enough support for the law (which has failed in virtually all circumstances) and the law was tabled.

A new election in Denmark has a new political party in place -- which could mean the possible repeal of the nation-wide breed ban.  Kenzo the Hovawart has the details.

Walker, LA passed a new dangerous dog law that defines dangerous dogs based on behavior, not breeds.

After a major dog attack in Waxhaw, NC, the city began working on a new dangerous dog law. Fortunately, they made a smart decision on a set a behavior based ordinance which should help that community.

Alert for folks in and around Waterville, ME -- the police chief their appears to be pushing for breed-specific legislation, likely involving multiple breeds of dogs.

Dog bites/Attacks

Major dog bites/attacks are rare - but when they happen, there is almost always a set of circumstances behind the attack. These can be prevented if we focus on the circumstances and not the type of dog involved -- as you can see, a variety of different types of dogs are involved in such attacks.

A 73-year old Australia woman was bitten muliple times by a "cattle dog". While authorities in Australia have been creating a host of hysteria about certain types of dogs, they have failed to make the public safer by recognizing that dogs of all kinds can be potentially aggressive and that responsible pet ownership is the key to improving public safety.

A Savannah, GA city council candidate was bitten in the face by a Blue Heeler. I'm highlighting this story because I love the fact that it goes into detail about the circumstances that led to the bite, and the council candidate's ownership of doing "everything wrong" that caused the bite. I really don't know that it was 100% the candidate's fault here, but mistakes were made on both sides and I think the recognition of that is a great step in educating people about public safety.

A Pittsburgh area boy was bitten by an Akita that was chained up in the front yard, but dug under the fence of the home (while on the chain) and bit the young boy as he passed by on the sidewalk.

A 6 year old Duncan, AZ girl was flown to the hospital after being bitten by a neighbor's German Shepherd while she was going door-to-door selling tamales.

No Kill News

Columbus, GA is taking steps to become a No Kill community.

Residents in Dobson, NC are pushing for changes to help their community become a no kill community.

Miscellaneous

A great story about Cherry -- one of the dogs saved from Mike Vick's Bad Newz Kennels who is doing very well under his new home.

A 'pit bull' in Atlanta sounds like he will be ok after being found with an arrow shot through his skull. Authorities are offering a reward for information in this cruelty case.

Animal Control officers in Kansas City, MO had an "oops" moment this week when they showed up to a home to break up a 'pit bull fighting" operation, and then confiscated 15 dogs that were a combination of Rottweilers and Mastiffs (no 'pit bull' type dogs) because they thought they were over the pet limit, then realized that the residence was zoned agricultural (where up to 25 dogs is allowed), the owners are licensed breeders and even if neither of these were true, the dogs STILL wouldn't have been illegal because they were too young to be counted under the city's pet limit.  The dogs were returned, but it was an awesome look at animal control officers that were seizing dogs that there was never any reason to seize.

A Kansas City area man plead guilty this week to beating and choking his pregnent girlfriend and then was arrested on Sunday for his connection to two cases of animal abuse including smashing a kitten against the bathroom floor on July 5 and drowning 2 kittens in a bag in a creek on July 20. Interestingly, the man was dating a girl in 2007 who mysteriously disappeared and is still missing.  If anyone ever wanted to build a case for animal abuse and abuse toward people being related, this guy seems like the case study.

Blogs

A couple of months ago, the animal shelter in Manatee, FL decided to adopt No Kill philosophies - in that time the shelter has gone from a 45% live release rate to a 65% live release rate. No Kill Tallahassee has the details.

The No Kill Nation Blog lays out the primary tenets of the No Kill Equation.

The Overpopulation rhetoric continues -- by Time 4 Dogs

The Poodle and dog Blog takes a look at a New York's new enforcement of its ban on dogs in neighborhood bars -- wondering if there really is a valid reason for this.

Profile: B -- Pound Dogs takes a look at his experience and changed perspective on Ontario's Breed-Specific Legislation. Ontario has a major election coming up next month -- and the results of that election could very well mean the life or death of thousands of Ontario dogs.

No Kill 2.0 - Winograd takes a look loopholes in existing laws that allow for killing to continue, and steps to take to avoid them.

Mandatory Spay/Neuter - -Why it does not work - -from New York City Animals

Tails: Free to good home -- Tails and Truths takes a nice look at adoption requirements...and eventually says this "I was hard for me to accept this truth -- that rescues are pushing people to backyard breeders and poentially god awful petstores," upon the realization that what once used to be "free to good home" rescues, now require 5 pages of paperwork to adopt.

They know what they know -- Winograd takes on the old-school animal rights movement.

Do pets dream? --  Paw Prints the Magazine takes a look at doggie dreamin'.

Merritt Clifton -- when the numbers just don't add up

Reporters looking to write articles about 'pit bulls' often find themselves looking to report "both sides" of the story.  Essentially, every expert organization in the country agrees that there is nothing inherently dangerous about 'pit bull type" dogs and that breed specific laws aren't the solution -- which leaves only a couple of independent sources to refer to when trying to find the 'pit bulls are dangerous" side of the equation.

One of those sources is Merritt Clifton. I've written about Clifton before, and his tendency to misuse data to support his personal agenda (or, possibly, because having the lone dissenting point of view is possibly the only way he has any relevancy at all to the conversation). Others have written about the inaccuracies of his data too --- and I'll mention those later.

While an initial look at Clifton's methodology shows some glaring flaws, the deeper you look at the numbers, the more glaring those flaws become.

In December 2009 the Clifton Report featured 2,694 "attacks doing bodily harm" and 1,493 "Maimings) in the 27 year stretch from 1982 to 2009.   There were several "interesting" things about these numbers:

1)  Clifton issued a 2006 report that suggested there were 2,209 "attacks doing bodily harm" and 1,323 "maimings".  A little math then shows that from 2006-2009, there were 485 'attacks doing bodily harm" and 170 "maimings" -- however, during the same timeframe, showed that the total numbers attributed to 'pit bulls, rottweilers and presa canarios" went up by 509 and 215 respectively - or more than the grand total of all dogs combined. This is, of course, mathematically impossible.

2) While HCUP estimates show that there have been an average of about 7800 hospitalizations (requiring an overnight stay) in the past 16 years, Clifton's study only included less than 100 per year -- or about 1% of the total hospitalizations -- and because he relies primarily on media reports for his information (and not, say, hospital reports), his numbers are statistically not representative.  Now, Clifton will say that his study isn't meant to be all inclusive, but only cover the "worst of the worst", he is basing which incidents to include off of media report information. It seems like it would be impossible to decide which incidents to include, and which ones to not include, based on media reports on the injuries, and impossible to assume that every, or even most, major attacks are covered by the media.

But let's assume for a minute that Clifton's report is somehow, miraculously, still valid.  We still have some issues to clear up on this 2011 report.

So, I got a copy of the 2011 report directly from Clifton - -this is an updated version of the report from one published a couple of months ago that had a glaring mathematical 'gremlin' in it that even I felt guilty about beating him up over the numbers. So I pointed out that a couple of numbers were clearly wrong, and he went back and redid his math to come up with more 'accurate' numbers.  Which are still, well, odd.

Below are the numbers -- the first number is based on the December 2009 report linked to above, the second number is for the August 2011 report I received from Clifton himself. The third number is my calculation of the difference between the 2 numbers that would reflect the actual number of incidents in each category for the 19 months of 2010 and through the first week of August, 2011.

                                                                2009            2011        19 month total

Attacks causing bodily harm     2694              3383             689

Deaths                                                345                  451            106

Maimings                                         1493               1917            424

So does anything stand out to you about these numbers? 

Does it seem odd to anyone else that a full 20% of the "attacks causing bodily harm" over the past 29 years have happened in the past 19 months?  To put this in perspective, for the first 27 years of this report, Clifton reported an average of just under 100 of these "worst case attacks" each year -- but in the past 19 months it averages out to be about 450 per year -- a 450% increase.

Clifton is now reporting that 22% of all "maimings" over the past 29 years have occurred in just the past 19 months, and 24% of all fatalities.  There is just absolutely no data, anywhere, that reflects anything near this type of increase. The HCUP numbers listed above have shown a gradual 89% increase over the past 15 years -- but nothing close to the 450% that Clifton is showing, and nothing that would show a sudden increase like these number project.

There could be any number of reasons for this -- here are a couple that come to mind:

1) There is no valid statistical way to gather the information Clifton seems to be trying to gather.

2) There is much better access to information via the internet now than there has been historically -- which means that all of Clifton's historical data is majorily incomplete (which we've all known for years).

There are several other questionable numbers that don't add up in the 2011 report. He's showing an increase in 'attacks causing bodily harm" among "pit bulls, rottweilers, presa canarios, Dogo Argentinos, Fila Brasiliero and Cane Corsos" had an increase of 446 incidents over the past 19 months.  He's added more breeds to this category, but if you back out the 16 incidents of the added breeds, you have 430 incidents that have increased in this category.  However, the total number for "pit bulls, rottweilers and wolf Hybrids" went up by 614 -- which would lead to one to believe that there were around 170 incidents involving Wolf Hybrids over the past 19 months, but Clifton only has 81 total by these types of dogs over the past 29 years.

Then, there is the notes section. I got clarification from Clifton that the cases in the Notes section are included in the actual numbers.  So among the incidents that Clifton uses to mention how vicious 'pit bulls are' include:

1) A woman whose horse was startled by a pit bull and the horse kicked the woman

2) a girl who ran from a dog that never bit her and ran in front of a school bus and was hit by a bus (the girl likely ran from the dog because of the same hysteria that Clifton has helped create)

3) An attack incident involving 12 mixed breed dogs and 1 'pit bull' -- this shows up in Clifton's numbers as only a 'pit bull' attack because Clifton does not count mixed breed dogs in his reports.

4) An animal control officer who died from head injuries she suffered when she fell while trying to catch a dog.

5) A police officer who died from blood infection he received as part of a dog bite

6) And several incidents where the victims died from heart attacks

7) A person who was hit by a train when the dog they were walking took off after its owner (who was on a bicycle) and pulled the dog walker in front of an oncoming train.

8) A case where a dog's breed ID was labeled as an Akita, Weimaraner, Pit Bull and various combinations of mixes of these breeds -- but Clifton includes this case as a 'pit bull' even though he specifically notes that cases in which the breed of dog is uncertain are not included in the report.

All (and who knows what else) are bizarrely added to Clifton's report -- along with a host of other non-bite related deaths and injuries. This, I guess is fine, except he then used the data to support that certain types of dogs are more aggressive than other types of dogs based on a collection of data that includes non-bite-related incidents.

Clifton has also has apparently heard other peoples' criticisms that his data does not take into account breed population numbers -- and this time has decided to use, catch this, online classified advertisements for puppy sales, as a method to determine populations of various breeds. While I acknowledge that there is no good way to determine the number of dogs per breed, I am more than willing to acknowledge that online classified ads is a ridiculous method of trying to get that information.

Clifton has for years used his report to drive hysteria about 'pit bull' type dogs, however, every bit of actual research and science disagrees with his report.

Actual scientific studies indicate that there are few differences in aggression between different breeds of canines.  The Science of DNA testing has also proven that visual identification of dogs (which all breed ID was solely done by until the past couple of years) is an unreliable way to identify a dog's heritage.  Clifton acknowledges in his 'analysis" that breed specific legislation is very difficult to enforce because for 'pit bulls' there is no breed standard -- and yet, doesn't acknowledge that his data is completely skewed by this same complete inability to identify types of dogs.

But Clifton carries on - ignoring science and ignoring the faulty numbers in his own reporting. And yet, because he is nearly the lone voice for the 'pit bulls are mean" crowd, the press eats it up. 

A lot of others have written a lot about Clifton's "report" over the past few years, most focused on his failed information gathering methods and other innaccuracies in the report (particularly in the Analysis section) and here are a few of my favorites:

No Pit Bull Bans -- which has a great part about his analysis about 'pit bulls' and his failed logic on that front.

Lassie Get Help -- has a great report that walks through the failures of the numbers -- but at a one-time glance at the 2006 report.  They just continue to look worse over time. She then takes on the inaccuracies in the analysis section in her part 2 -- including the false idea that German Shepherds are herding breeds.  There is also the strangeness that Clifton apparently thinks Bull Mastiffs and Presa Canarios are the same breed.

One other thing about Clifton's "analysis", Clifton uses insurance issues to justify the need for breed-specific legislation. Clifton seems completely unaware that several national insurance companies have no breed restrictions or premiums, and many of the ones that do have done so because a handful of people like Clifton have created an unfounded hysteria around certain types of dogs. 

Clifton then goes on to compare 'pit bulls' to "pumas" (yes, pumas) even though the dogs are clearly domesticated and Pumas are not....but hey, if you're numbers aren't going to really make sense, then why should the analysis of those numbers?

So this is Merritt Clifton. Possibly the leading voice in the "Breed Specific Laws are a good thing" movement - and these are his numbers. Filled with numbers that don't add up, an under-represented sample size, breed identification issues, reports of aggressive incidents that weren't, data periods in which more pit bull attacks are counted than total dog attacks, 19 months worth of data accounting for 20-25% of the report, random analysis statements and comparisons between dogs and pumas.

THIS is the leading voice of the anti-pit bull movement.  The people who oppose such legislation include professional dog training organizations, professional veterinary organizations, the national animal control association, animal welfare groups and real scientists.

Sometimes there is only one real side to an argument. This is one of those cases.

The significance of the upcoming new book, "Why Dogs Die Young"

Several months ago, I got the opportunity to attend a presentation by author Ted Kerasote -- who is the author of New York Times Best Seller Merle's Door.  During Kerasote's presentation, he talked quite a bit about his upcoming new book "Why dogs die young" that is due out in Fall of 2012. 

Not only did I find what Kerasote had to say about the research he found for his book interesting, I also think it has the potential to have a dramatic effect on the animal sheltering community.

Last week, Kerasote did an interview with Dr. Karen Becker describing many of the topics that are in the book: Links will be below. While I obviously haven't read the book (since it's not available yet), there are several key topics that came out during the interview, and in the presentation that I attended that I think could dramatically impact animal welfare in the US for years to come.

Kerasote began writing the book after he toured around the country talking about his book Merle's Door. In his conversations with many pet owners, he heard a lot of stories about people who's pets died at a young age and everyone was saddened that they couldn't get just a little more time with their beloved pet.

So Kerasote began researching why dogs in other countries lived longer than ones in the United States, and some of his findings will challenge a lot of long-held notions we have in this country. Here are a few of the factors he discusses in the book (and the interview):

Spay/Neuter

One of the primary findings in Kerasote's research is that terilization has a significant impact on both the endocrine and immune systems in dogs. There is also mounting evidence that sterilization leads to early death, increased incidence of ACL injuries, certain types of cancers and a wealth of other types of issues. 

Certainly this passes the "sniff test" of logic, as it only makes sense that removing major hormone-producing organs, especially at an early age, can have a significant impact on overall health -- and Kerasote does a good job of laying out this information.

Obviously, any kick-back against spay/neuter could have a dramatic impact on dog population over time.  Kerasote is not oblivious to this and the problems facing shelters right now. He does provide a viable alternative in the form of recommending tubal ligations and vasectomies instead of the more intrusive spay/neuter as a form of birth control. Unfortunately, in talking to all 26 veterinary teaching colleges in the US, not a single one of them teaches these surgeries. When he asked them if they were open to changing, he asked back "are you invested in having fewer unwanted puppies?  Or are you invested in spaying and neutering?

There are still problems with the tubal ligations for some shelters and pet owners (not all are equipped to deal with a dog in heat), but I certainly think that as more research is done about the health impacts of spay/neuter (particularly juvenile spay/neuter), it is well worth exploring viable alternatives.

Breeding

Karesote also discusses how American ideals on spay/neuter have led people down the road of linking unaltered dogs to poor education about dog ownership. The net result is that most people do alter their pets.  However, he reasons that because most people alter their pets, dogs have to come from somewhere (ie, dogs somewhere have to breed), and that we've essentially narrowed the canine gene pool in this country to include a lot of health problems that decrease longevity in dogs. Karesote notes that if dogs have to breed to have more dogs, it is important to discuss how do we do this in the best way possible?  The answer isn't necessarily insisting on altering every genetically healthy dog.

Vaccinations

In Karesote's presention in Kansas City, he noted the HUGE number of vaccinations his dog Merle received during his lifetime. He notes that there is a health impact of over-vaccinating dogs and that we should make steps to only do those that are absolutely necessary. I'm still amazed at the number of cities that mandate by law that dogs get over-vaccinated (there are a few cities in our metro area that still require an annual rabies vaccine even though 3 year vaccines have been around for years and many veterinarians think that vaccine may last up to 5-7 years). Boarding facilities are also very bad about requiring over-vaccination.

Nutrition

Based on his research, Kerasote has strong recommendations about diet and isn't a fan of most processed foods (most of which are way too high in carbohydrates vs the high-protein diet dogs do better on).  There has been a movement recently to higher-quality packaged foods, and also a movement that more people are cooking at home for their dogs, and I expect this trend to continue.

No Kill

Interestingly, in a second part of the interview with Dr. Becker, Kerasote does seem to talk a bit about the No Kill Movement. He doesn't really call it by name in the interview (which I think is interesting), but notes that the notion that we should quit killing dogs in shelters is a growing zeitgeist -- and while some communities are doing better at this than others, the overall feeling that we should stop killing shelter animals is there. Dr. Becker also notes that the successful communities have been replicated in other areas....so it is not a flash in the pan.

Kerasote notes that the problem doesn't seem to be that there aren't enough adopters, but that shelters have not been successful in matching up the right dogs with the right owners.  This isn't something he talked about when he was in Kansas City, so I am interested in reading more about this in the book.

Conclusion

I'm excited for this book to come out. I think Kerasote will provide an interesting perspective on many of the topics that are not terribly honestly discussed in the animal welfare community. While these topics are not new, particularly on the spay/neuter  and breeding topics, the conversation has really only existed in small pockets in the breeding and veterinary communities and have oft been dismissed by the animal welfare community because they felt a) the sources were biased and b) they think talking about them hurts their mission in trying to prevent shelter killing.

I also think some of the findings wil have an impact on city governments, who too often have mandated things like vaccinations and spay/neuter that have a negative impact on canine health.

Kerasote seems to be an unbiased party in this -- and seems to only care about the well-being fo dogs.  Whether you agree with his positions on these topics is somewhat irrelevant.  He is a NY Times Bestselling author, and him bringing these ideas to the forefront will make them part of the conversation and change people's mindsets.

It will force us to have the conversation about what is truth, and what are alternatives.

This doesn't have to hurt the rescue mission (and I'm excited by the prospects of him discussing the no kill movement in some form in the book). It just may change the way we handle thinks like sterilization, and breeding, moving forward. 

For more:

Kerasote's interview with Dr. Becker on spay/neuter and breeding (along with Dr. Becker's written overview) -- the radio interview itself is about 15 minutes long.

Part 4 of the interview with Dr. Becker -- where Kerasote talks about animal sheltering, No Kill and dog friendly communities (this interview portion is about 6 minutes long).

Kerasote's web page that discusses the book (with a lot of links to other information).

Hat tip to Time 4 Dogs who pointed me to the interview.

Weekly Roundup - Week Ending 9/11/11

It's been a really crazy couple of weeks. This is possibly the busiest I ever remember being professionally (at my real job) as well as really busy personally (with some animal welfare stuff in Kansas City that will certainly be blog fodder at some point).  So the blog has been pretty quiet.

Things should be back to normal this week and I have some pretty interesting stuff I plan to bring out....and I'm really looking forward to that. For now, here's the weekly roundup:

Cities/States/Nations and Laws

In the wake of a tragic attack in Australia, a family is now calling for a Nation-wide breed ban in Australia.  In the Brisbane area, there are more than 1000 dog bites in the city each year, less than 15% of which come from dogs that that they are trying to ban.  Seems as if education and owner responsiblity that would address all of the dog bites instead of such a small percentage would make sense...

Sonoma, CA briefly debated the idea of a breed ban in the community (which would have violated state law), but quickly dismissed the idea when there was only opposition from the community.

A very good editorial from the Tonawanda News in New York discussing why Lockport, NY should not institute any type of breed-specific regulations.

Animal workers in Ontario are continuing to push the provence to get rid of the provincial pit bull ban -- noting that attacks have only increased since the ban was enacted in 2005.

Dog bites/attacks

I'm going to be really parring down this section and only including articles where the circumstances of the attack are pretty clear or if there is another specific reason to mention the attack. Attacks are not common, nor are they a breed-specific issue -- but they are caused by a set of circumstances.  And the better we understand those circumstances, the more able we are to prevent attacks.

A 69 year old woman was attacked by her own American Bulldog -- the woman was tending to injuries the dog had sustained in altercation with another dog when the injured dog lashed out at her. Dogs with injuries, and ones that you cause pain to in touching those injuries, can be aggressive in defending themselves.

An 8 year old Lakewood, CO boy was attacked by an at-large German Shepherd that ran up and attacked him. Lakewood is a suburb of Denver -- and thus, has been subjected to decades of misinformation from area politicians and the media on aggression being a breed-specific issue.

A 6 year old San Diego girl was bitten by a 'pit bull'.  The attack occurred when the young girl "threw candy into the dog's face" and the dog lunged back at the girl biting her.

No Kill News

The book "Redemption" now has a Cliff Notes version -- great for sharing with your local politicians and law enforcement officers who may not take the time to read the entire book.

Miscellaneous

San Francisco's Animal Shelter is struggling due to the high volume of animals that have come in this summer. Thus, they've issued a public order: Don't bring your dog here, the shelter is full.

Kansas City area animal control officials are dealing with a huge influx of cats after rescuing them from "The worst case of cat hoarding" they say they've ever seen. The case invovled more than 100 live cats, ant more than 50 dead ones, in the woman's home.

An interesting article from the American Bar Association Journal that discusses the new ruling for service dogs in the American's With Disabilities Act -- and how it may pose problems for cities with breed bans moving forward.  A lawsuit in Denver is the featured case.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a new HSUS initiative in Missouri that would require a 3/4 vote of the state legislature to overturn voter initiatives. I'm opposed to the legislation for a large number of reasons -- but this article does a great job of summing up some of the reasons why I am opposed to this bill (Not to mention that it is going to be a huge spend of money by HSUS that could be better spent on directly helping animals).

Blogs

Austin Pets Alive stepped up last week when a nearby city shelter was threatened by wildfires.  The Pet Studio has the details.  O is for Onward, Ryan Clinton's Blog, also has some details of the devastating wildfires in Central Texas.

A Mutt by any other name: Labradoodle Creator now has big regrets -- Paw Prints the Magazine shares the news.

Growling is Good - -Paw Prints the Magazine reminds us a little about canine behavior and why growling as a warning is much better than becoming distressed and never warning people. Helping dogs overcome that stress is essential....but stopping them from growling is not.

A Fasle Debate -- Winograd takes on the false notion that in order to be a "No Kill" shelter, a shelter has to be closed admission.  The reality is that there are numerous open door shelters that have become No Kill. 

Dog vs Dog -- what former 'fighting dogs' have taught us about dog behavior -- This is a great post from Bad Rap yesterday talking about dog/dog aggression with some great insights on what leads to this type of common aggressive behavior, and how to help prevent it.  I love this quote: "We humans have been too busy blaming dogs for behaviors we ourselves set into motion."

Where are they now?  The dogs of 9/11 - 10 years later - -from Zoe, It's our Nature

Stanley and I -- I had a reader send me this blog post from "The Nervous Breakdown".  It's the story of a woman who fell in love with a dog at her local shelter and tried to adopt -- but was denied (several times) because she had a 6 year old child and the shelter wouldn't adopt a 'pit bull' to her and the sadness she felt when she couldn't adopt him.  This is a really touching article and I fear, all too common due to the blanket requirements shelters put out their on their pets.