Every time...

...there is a story about a bad Pit Bull you can be assured that this will appear in the story somewhere.

(Officer kills 2 dogs charging at him, officials say, Shaminder Dulai, ChronBlog)

She last saw Vida, a 3-year-old female; Tyson, 2; and Rocky, 8 months, running around in the backyard at noon. Heavy showers had flooded portions of the backyard and late Thursday night the family had taken the pets off their chains to let them move freely to higher ground, Ramirez said.

Chaining Pit Bulls is begging for trouble. It's very seldom bad dogs, but instead stupid owners. Because of the Ramirez' idiocy two dogs are dead, one critically injured, and the "breed ban" morons will have another bullet in their gun.


Make it very difficult for stupid people to own Bully breeds and you'll virtually eliminate vicious dog attacks overnight.


Without having to resort to the continued slaughter of innocent dogs.

A word about dogs...

In the news today: Another terrible story about a so-called "pit-bull" attacking a child. This time the owner let the dog escape the house "repeatedly", according to the story, and attack the child.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the child and her family. They also go out to the dog, who's (rightly) going to be put down. To the owner of the dog I say: "Idiot".

To put it simply: Everyone that's going to be severely punished in this situation has done nothing wrong. The child? Just playing. The dog? Incapable of moral judgements. The dog owner? Oh, they'll get a ticket and a slap on the wrist, but won't be prohibited from owning pets in the future.

Not everyone should be allowed to own certain breeds of dogs. It's not that some dogs are "bad" per se. (as commenters to stories such as this and politicians would like you to believe) It's that the owners are ignorant of the realities and responsibilities of ownership.

To date, the wife and I have fostered three pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Jones, my rottweiler/boxer mix, is what many would consider to be an "aggressive" breed. We've had zero issues with our dogs attacking children, and zero instances where we would have had a 'close call'.

Why?

For one, Jones, Duchess and Rocky (our three dogs) have been trained to not bite, but to corner and contain. Even on the instance where a kid DID try to go in my backyard, Jones just barked at him. Once I came out and told him to stop, Jones let the kid come up and pet him. The second reason is this: Our foster dogs are NEVER left unattended outside. When we're gone they're kept in a kennel with a locked door. Until we get to know the personality of the dog (and remember, most of these dogs are rescued from horrible conditions) they're not allowed contact with children. Once we get a better idea of how patient they are, they're allowed to be pet by the older children in the neighborhood. At no time are the dogs left with very small children unattended. Not even for a minute or two.

Part of the reason for our constant attention is that bully breed dogs play rough. A high percentage of "baby maulings" are unattended Pit Bulls trying to play in a manner that damages the child. People say the Pit Bull "attacked" the baby when, in reality, they viewed it as a toy. The second part of the equation are dogs that are trained to fight and view the child as "bait". Often these dogs are released from chutes and allowed to run and maul docile "bait dogs" in rings. I'm not suggesting that this is what happened in this case, but I'm sure it happens.

There are three things that you're probably going to find in any story about a child mauled by a pit bull:

1. The neighborhood knew the dog was aggressive: You saw that in this story, this dog had attacked before.

2. You can bet this dog is an outside dog and "chained to a tree" is somewhere in its life: Although not mentioned in this story, chaining a sociable breed like a Bully to a tree is one of the most detrimental things you can do. Bully breeds bond to a family, and they want to be included. Our foster will get up off of the floor where she's lying and will try to curl up on my lap when I sit in my chair. Our send pit bull (who's currently undergoing heart worm treatment) would lay his head on my chest to hear my heartbeat. The point is these are dogs that don't handle isolation well.

3. The owner of the dog will never realize their dog could be aggressive: Which is the problem. There are too many people that own Pit Bulls for the wrong reasons, either as a status symbol, for fighting purposes, or just because they are cute puppies. (they are, go take a look at one) For certain breeds ownership should require dog training & approved socialization. If your dog attacks a person, you should be prevented from owning pets in the future.

Too-often society's knee-jerk is to take out the pet-ownership failings of humans on the pets themselves. The answer to the problem is not extincting a breed of dog, it's extincting the bad dog owner. The dogs will work it out on their own. They always do.

Pathetic.

Absolutely pathetic.

(That Big Bang Of A Dog-Fighting Bust Turns Into A Weak Whimper In The Courtroom, Craig Malisow, Houston Press, 03/03/2010)

The majority of Harris County dog fighters arrested after a massive 2008 undercover investigation were given deferred adjudication, served as little as two days in jail, had their charges dropped, or were never arrested.

As a country we put people in jail for failing to pay their taxes, for failing to pay traffic tickets, and a host of other things that many feel are non-criminal.

Yet, if you fight dogs, and are caught finding dogs, the resources, or will, to see justice served just isn't there. A majority of dog-fighting is done because there is no perceived penalty to doing so. While the animal rights groups are out trying to turn the world Vegan and protesting against College mascots, dog beauty pageants and circuses there is real, real suffering going on in the animal kingdom. THIS is the real animal problems that people should pay attention to. Not a small swatch of fur on an ice-skaters outfit. Sure, the other items are high-profile and make plastic celebrities like Pamela Anderson-Lee all giddy, but they do little to help the overall cause.

You keep protesting and eating grass and ignoring the real problem and I'll keep being an omnivore and working in the dog rescue trenches. Hopefully, some day, we'll get some help from local government to put a stop to this stuff. I just hope you don't try and hold a press conference taking credit.




Yes, I'm blogging angry right now.

Corridor Resuce Inc. Update. (02/24/10)

Now Dodson has a chance.....

(Bobbi Leder, Examiner.com/Houston, 02/23/10)

According to Deborah Hoffman from Corridor Rescue, two criminals were apprehended this past weekend after tossing a dog out of a van by his legs. Fortunately there were two separate witnesses - Corridor Rescue volunteers – who went from volunteers to heroes as the scene unfolded.

One actually followed the van (and called Hoffman who in turn called the Houston Police Department). The men in the van were arrested, charged with animal abandonment, and are now in jail.

While all of this was going on the wife and I were at the PetCo setting up for an adoption event. Suddenly Deborah's phone started ringing like crazy and the chase was on.


We haven't met Dodson yet, but I'm sure we will, once he gets back to his fighting weight, gets his mange cleared up and is ready to greet the world. In the meantime these things take time and money, so we'll continue our volunteering.

Corridor Rescue Inc. in the news.

Corridor Rescue Inc., the Dog-rescue charity with whom I'm a foster/adoption volunteer, was in the news recently on Fox 26...

(Kristine Galvan, Fox26, Feb 01, 2010)

It's called the Corridor Of Cruelty. Next week, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and Crime Stoppers will team up to shut down an area where hundreds of dogs have turned up, dumped, tortured and killed.

"Here we're seeing some bones," said Roger Haseman, an Environmental Prosecutor for Harris County, as he walked along the edge of the lot, near the intersection of Highway 59 and Little York. "I think they saw a few animal carcasses down here on this side of the street."

Haseman and assistant district attorney Belinda Smith have been eyeing the area for the past year when a woman named Deborah Hoffman, founder of a group called "corridor rescue," brought it to their attention. Hoffman coined the term "corridor of cruelty," and has rescued 140 dogs from the area since she discovered it.

Hoffman, along with her volunteers, have snapped pictures of dogs found stabbed to death and burned, but no one has ever been arrested.

Go read the entire thing, and watch the embedded news clip. It's a good news report that lays out several of the issues we're struggling with.


Soon I'll have an update on Maximus, the new pit-bull we've taken in as a foster.

BARC & $11 Million (with a sprinkling of political grandstanding)

So the Houston Bureau of Animal Regulation and Control Care is on the cusp of construction for a new, $11 Million dollar pet adoption facility. Mike Snyder provided the details and, on the political blog, offered up this little tid-bit from Houston's Senate-Candidate outgoing Mayor:

I would encourage those to whom I've passed the baton to use words that I've used in many other contexts, whether it be with our parks, our libraries, our historical preservations, our building of our arts and cultural institutions. Talk is cheap and advocates come a dime a dozen. Ooh, did I just say that? I did. And there's a role for advocacy. But real advocates are those who are willing to donate both their treasure and their time to accomplishing the goal that they seek. They're not so into taking credit as they are taking individual responsibility for making sure change takes place.

Ignoring for a moment the irony of a politician using a public event, designed to get him some positive press coverage as he continues with his campaign, to question the motives of advocates and volunteers who have been complaining about BARC, I think it's important to look at whether or not this is $11 Million dollars that has to be spent in the first place....


1. Should BARC be in the adoption business to begin with? My gut answer is "no". To understand why we need to look at BARC's core mission. In its original iteration BARC was designed to contain and prevent the spread of disease that could be transferred from stray animals to humans. Running a "no-kill" shelter and tackling the considerable expense and time of adopting out animals is something the agency is not equipped to do. Are we setting BARC up for failure to score a few political points with voters?

2. Can the business of pet adoption be successfully farmed out? Yes, it can. Without much difficulty at that. Were I King of BARC (pay attention new BARC director) the first thing I would do is work on fast-tracking local charity organizations that handle pet adoptions. The second thing I'd do is to ensure that spay/neutering became a priority, and the third thing I would do is consider spay/neuter & release policies for feral cats. Why spend $11 Million for BARC to handle what other organizations are currently doing better? The "key" here is to reduce the kill rate at the shelter. What better way to accomplish this than to use existing resources to handle pet adoptions, and apply the majority of BARC money to veterinary services?


I guess, according to Senate-candidate Mayor White this is just another example of "false advocacy". Fair enough, for your sake I won't re-hash my pet rescue bonafides. This isn't about me however, it's about an animal control system that's rapidly running off the rails.

In Houston there's always a lot of talk about being world-class. It's almost to the point of comedy. I'm sure that, at some point, someone at BARC is going to suggest that this adoption center is world-class and other such nonsense. As an alternative, might I humbly suggest trying something that is truly world-class instead of reeking of world-classiness....

Why not set up a first-of-its-kind partnership between BARC and local animal rescue/pet adoption services? Yes, I know this is done in other cities, but what BARC could do is aggressively court these charity groups at a level we haven't seen before. It could be a working partnership between charity and gov't. What we're being offered is a top-down authoritarian bureaucracy which is doomed to, eventually, collapse under its own weight.

Dog Fighting: The Ball is in their Court

The following e-mail was sent to both Mayoral candidates today:

Good morning,

As you may or may not know, I spearhead the animal rescue effort in the Corridor of Cruelty. I coined the term nearly a year and a half ago, and have coordinated the rescue of well over 100 animals from the area since August of 2008. I’ve also worked with the Spay Neuter Assistance Program and was able to bring them to the Corridor beginning in February of this year.

As with most major metropolitan areas, there is a huge stray animal problem in Houston. This is one of the reasons I became involved with hands-on rescue - to create a better life for as many stray dogs as I could. The particular area off I-59and Little York caught my attention because of the great need that exists there.

Most people will agree that it is extremely sad the way in which dogs and cats are abandoned in the Corridor of Cruelty. And most will agree that it is a worthwhile endeavor to try and rescue and rehabilitate as many of them as possible. But aside from the live dogs being dumped in the Corridor of Cruelty, there exists a larger, even more insidious “dumping” problem. Over the past 16 months, my volunteers and I have watched as the dead dog dumping continues at a horrifyingly increasing rate in the Corridor. This type of activity is directly related to the gruesome “sport” of DOGFIGHTING. On a regular basis we find the corpses of dogs in black hefty trash bags littering the streets along the I-59 feeder road near Little York. These poor, tortured animals have either been used as bait or have been made to participate in organized fights. We always find these bodies on Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays - depending on when we are in the area along our feeding station routes. The reason we find them on these days is because the human criminals are holding dogfights on Friday and Saturday nights, and then disposing of their “waste” afterwards.

For over a year now I have contacted and continue to contact local authorities whenever we make another grisly discovery. I was encouraged, as many were, when the DA’s office and Crimestopper’s launched an anti-dogfighting campaign last February and used the Corridor as a springboard for their effort. As far as I know, not one arrest was ever made and I never saw a single billboard advertising the campaign. Supposedly there were 18 billboards and busboards also.

As we all know, DOGFIGHTING is a serious and dangerous criminal activity. If an elementary/high school poll was taken, I would not be surprised to learn that a great number of youths had either participated in a dogfight or been present at one. Is this type of activity something we want to run rampant and unchecked in our city? Do we want to be known as the “Dogfighting Capital of the U.S.”? Of course, not! But if our elected officials do NOT take a stand and provide for a special task force and budget to combat this crime, then I have no doubts that we will end up on the map known for this serious illegal activity.

Whoever wins the race for Mayor, I pray that you will be guided to do your best and utmost to stop illegal DOGFIGHTING activity in our city. It is not my job or the job of any other citizen of this city to get rid of this horrendous crime that takes place every day and eats away at the inner core of goodness of humanity. It is YOUR job!!! However, I stand ready to assist you in any way that I can to fight the fight against DOGFIGHTING in the Corridor of Cruelty in Houston.

Attached are photos of dogs found yesterday as well as photos from the past several months. Unfortunately, I have MANY more that I could show you. Just want you to see first hand what you are up against and what must be stopped…..for the dogs….for our youth…for our city’s future.


Respectfully,



Deborah Hoffman**
President and Founder
Corridor Rescue

Since children can access this, I'll spare you the picture of dog corpses that the rescue I work with is finding on an increasing basis.

So far the problem of dog-fighting, abuse and abandonment has been paid a LOT of lip service without any real action being taken. As with BARC, our elected leaders tend to extol animals verbally (and in campaign ads) extending to them little real physical effort, possibly because they have no campaign donations to give.

Yes, stopping dog-fighting, ending abuse and reducing shelter kill rates cost money, large amounts of money. Almost anything worth doing right is going to involve a cost. I said, in a prior post, that there were things I believe only the Government has the ability to handle, animal control is one of those things. There are also things that I believe we, as a society, should want our taxes to go towards fixing. Good water, roads, healthy children, and eliminating animal cruelty are at the tops of my list.

What about yours?

I await the answer of our elected officials. More rhetoric? Or are we going to see some action?




**It should be noted that all of the opinions on this blog mentioning my work with Corridor Rescue, as well as any positions that I promote regarding the same, are soley my opinion and are NOT reflective of Corridor Rescue Inc., Deborah Hoffman or any other person affiliated with CRI. In other words, the words on here are mine and mine alone unless otherwise noted.

The Corridor of Cruelty

In picture form: (Warning, graphic photos of dogs in distress. Do NOT CLICK if you don't want to see it.)

These are some of the dogs that are currently under the care of Corridor Rescue Inc. The rescue group that I work with. As you can see some of them still have a way to go.

We'll be out at the Old Town Spring PetFest this Saturday all day. Our booth is in front of Wunsche Brothers and will be easy to spot.

If you're interested in fostering (very rewarding experience) adopting, or just want to come meet some special dogs, please stop by. (Donations are good as well, as you can see, there are some rather large vet bills in the future for most of these dogs.

For the rest of the week only expect for me to update the Twitter Feed. Blogging always takes a back seat to charity work.