This Christmas, just say ‘No’ to that doggie in the window

By Lindsay Pollard-Post

Who hasn’t had the experience of receiving a Christmas gift that they didn’t really want? An embarrassing reindeer sweater from Aunt Edna, a useless as-seen-on-TV gadget or a tacky tie are easy enough to return, re-gift or toss in the attic and forget. But when someone makes the mistake of giving a living, breathing, feeling animal as a “gift,” the consequences can be disastrous. 

In the days, weeks and months following the holidays, animal shelters across the country are flooded with animals who were given as “gifts,” only to be tossed out like last year’s fruitcake when the novelty wore off or when their guardians discovered that caring for rambunctious puppies and kittens is a full-time job.

One animal shelter in Texas reported a 25 percent increase in its population after the holidays as people gave up animals they had received as gifts. Most animal shelters are already bursting at the seams year-round with homeless animals. When the flood of surrendered animals hits after the holidays, shelter workers face the heartbreaking prospect of having to euthanize healthy, friendly, loving cats and dogs in order to make room for the newcomers. 

Of course, many less fortunate animals don’t end up in shelters, where they are safe, warm, fed, cared for and loved. Some people banish their dogs to a lonely life on a chain or in a cage in the backyard. Others hand their animals over to anyone who will take them, or they advertise them “free to a good home,” putting their animals in danger of being used as bait by dogfighters, sold to a laboratory for experiments or even abused by cruel people. Still others simply dump unwanted animals on the streets or in the woods, where they are likely to starve, get hit by cars or freeze to death.

That’s why if you’re thinking about giving a furry friend as a gift this Christmas, it’s vital to stick to the kind found in toy stores, not pet stores. Animals aren’t like other gifts. They require lots of time, patience and money—all of which are scarce during the holidays. That cute puppy or kitten won’t seem like much of a “present” after he chews up a priceless heirloom quilt, decides to use the Christmas tree as a fire hydrant, turns the house into a flea circus and racks up hundreds of dollars in vet bills.

Adding an animal companion to the family is an important decision that requires making a lifetime commitment to care for and spend time with an animal. A new puppy or kitten could be a part of the family for 15 years or longer, so it’s important not to rush the decision and to find an animal who is a good match for his or her guardian’s activity level, experience, abilities and personality.

If your loved one is prepared to make a lifelong commitment to a four-legged dependent and has plenty of time, money, patience and love to give, consider giving a “gift certificate” for an animal from a local shelter. That way, the recipient can decide which animal is best for them—and when. You’ll be giving more than the gift of unconditional love and companionship—you’ll also be giving the gift of life to a homeless animal.

Lindsay Pollard-Post is a research specialist for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.HelpingAnimals.com.

If chimpanzees could talk, what would they say?

By Kathy Guillermo

According to a recent study published in the journal Nature, scientists have discovered that a gene called FOXP2, which is believed to be responsible for the evolution of speech in humans, behaves differently in humans than it does in chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. The gene produces a protein in humans that differs by just two amino acids from chimpanzees’ FOXP2 protein. Think about it—if not for those two amino acids, chimpanzees might be able to talk. If they could speak, what would they say?

Actually, we already know what they would say, thanks to the work of people such as Roger Fouts, a professor at Central Washington University who is famous for teaching chimpanzees American Sign Language (ASL). Fouts’ most famous pupil is Washoe, who was the first nonhuman animal to learn ASL and who, in turn, taught it to her adopted son, Loulis. Washoe spontaneously combined words to describe her experiences and desires, using expressions such as “you me hide” and “listen dog.” She also invented names for her possessions, referring to her doll, for instance, as “Baby Mine.” She was even known to fib and tell jokes.

Perhaps Fouts’ second most famous pupil is Booee, a chimpanzee who was taught ASL while he was “on loan” to Fouts. More than a decade later—after Booee had been reclaimed and sent to a laboratory where he was subjected to hepatitis experiments—the TV show 20/20 approached Fouts about reuniting with Booee on camera. Although worried by the prospect of upsetting Booee, Fouts agreed in the hope that the reunion, which would be watched by millions of people, could potentially help Booee and other chimpanzees in laboratories.

I will never forget the footage of Roger entering the laboratory and signing, “Hi, Booee. You remember?” Booee, who had been sitting despondently in his small cage a moment earlier, jumped up and down in excitement, signing his name, “Booee, Booee, Booee,” over and over again. “Yes, you Booee,” Roger signed back. Remembering that Fouts always carried treats, Booee asked for them, even using an old nickname that he had invented for Roger—a flick of his ear with his finger. He and Fouts spent the next several minutes playing games of “chase” and “tickle” like they used to do all those years ago.

As Fouts had hoped, viewers were touched by the joyful reunion, and they were heartbroken when they watched Booee move dejectedly to the back of his cage when the time came to say goodbye. Because of the subsequent outcry, Booee was sent to a sanctuary months later, where he still lives.

Unfortunately, more than 1,000 other chimpanzees remain caged, lonely and miserable in laboratories, despite overwhelming evidence that they are highly intelligent, sensitive animals. They are injected with drugs, infected with diseases that they would never normally contract and subjected to traumatic psychological experiments. When they’re not strapped to a table, they languish in cages—often in windowless rooms—that bear no resemblance to their natural forest and jungle homes. Their spirits are broken from years of needles, scalpels, toxins, pain, solitude, fear and the overwhelming nothingness of waking up, day after day, in a cold metal box.

 

The U.K., Japan, Austria, New Zealand and the Netherlands have prohibited the use of great apes for invasive research and testing. The U.S. is the only country in the world that continues large-scale use of chimpanzees in experiments. That may change if The Great Ape Protection Act—a bill that would phase out the use of chimpanzees in invasive research and retire federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuaries—ever becomes law.

If chimpanzees could talk, they would almost certainly say, “Let me out,” as one of Booee’s fellow inmates signed. Yes, it’s time to let them out. They are not test tubes with fur. They have thoughts, feelings and desires. It’s time to let them be chimpanzees.

Kathy Guillermo is the vice president of laboratory investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.StopAnimalTests.com.

If activists are silenced, who speaks for the animals?

In the last few years-ever since the passage of the chilling Animal Enterprises Terrorism Act and the implementation of an earlier incarnation of the law-the free speech rights of some animal activists have been trampled in McCarthy-like fashion. People who spoke at public events about the torment that animals are forced to endure in laboratories, sent faxes in protest, ran an informational Web site and organized and attended protests on public property-activities associated with constitutionally protected free speech-found themselves facing prosecution as “terrorists.”

This should give all Americans pause. People who engage in nonviolent protests and civil disobedience are sitting in jail cells, stigmatized by one of the most politically charged and discrediting labels of our time, while people who wake up every morning and go to jobs in which they torment and kill animals in laboratories continue to enjoy their freedom, paychecks, social lives and families.

As a case in point, PETA just released the findings of an eight-month undercover investigation at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Wearing a hidden camera, our investigator documented circumstances that violate our moral sensibilities about how we ought to treat animals and represent what we believe are dozens of violations of federal laws and guidelines governing the treatment of dogs, cats, rabbits, monkeys, mice, rats and pigs.

Tiny mice with grotesque tumors were left to suffer from cancers that had nearly grown bigger than their bodies. Laboratory workers couldn’t even manage to make sure that all mice had water, and one worker admitted that mice in the laboratory die of dehydration “all the time.”

Monkeys were kept deprived of water so that they would cooperate during experiments in exchange for a sip. Imagine these animals’ lives: They had holes drilled into their skulls and metal hardware attached to their heads. They live in tiny cages, all alone, without even the touch and comfort of a companion. They are so emotionally and physically traumatized that they constantly whirl or rock back and forth. And on top of all this, they are always thirsty-so thirsty they’ll do almost anything for a few drops of water.

Our investigation also revealed that shelters near Salt Lake City sell dogs and cats to this university as though they were disposable laboratory equipment. Our investigator’s video footage shows dogs at the shelter wagging their tails as lab techs approach their cages to assess whether they’d be good “subjects,” unaware of the invasive, painful tests that are about to be conducted on them. This is a betrayal of these vulnerable animals and also of the public, which counts on animal shelters to be havens for homeless animals.

So think about it. People who drown, burn, cut open, shock, poison, starve, forcibly restrain, addict and inflict brain damage on helpless animals-whose only “offense” is that they weren’t born human-are walking among us, being granted tenure and promotions and receiving huge chunks of our tax dollars to bankroll their cruel and crude experiments. On the frequent occasions when they violate federal animal welfare laws in their laboratories, the government usually just asks them to pinky swear not to do it again. Meanwhile, compassionate people who are willing to speak up about one of the great injustices of our time and use nonviolent protest tactics to effect change for animals may be locked up.

Like all other citizens and businesses, companies and people who abuse animals are already protected from violence and criminal acts by state and federal laws that have been used effectively by police and prosecutors to punish people who engage in illegal conduct against them. To shield them from public opinion and discussion and to protect them from peaceful and heretofore lawful pickets by locking up those who dare to challenge the suffering that occurs inside laboratories is an attack on every American’s right of protest.

Justin Goodman is a research associate supervisor for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as well as an adjunct faculty member in the department of sociology and criminal justice at Marymount University in Arlington, Va. He may be reached c/o PETA at 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

Pork for Dinner? In a Pig’s Eye

In a recent article for The New York Times, science writer Natalie Angier wrote about a study led by Dr. Donald Broom at the University of Cambridge in which 4- to 8-week-old piglets were introduced to a mirror in order to gauge their reactions. Even these extremely young pigs were quickly able to figure out that a bowl of food reflected in the mirror wasn’t behind the glass but rather was behind the pig.

Angier also mentioned the recent release of the first draft sequence of the pig genome. A member of the team of biologists who worked on the project was quoted as saying that “the pig genome compares favorably with the human genome.” My immediate reaction was, yes, but how does our genome compare to the pig’s?

After all, we are slow-thinking animals. It is not entirely our fault, but we can do better. Thanks to steady sales pitches and dishonest advertising, when someone asks, “What’s for dinner?” the mental image often conjured up is that of the prepared pot roast or chicken drumstick, not of what came before it. No one thinks, “A pig!” and starts imagining what it must have been like for that animal at the moment when he watched his fellows being killed by the machine or the knife just ahead of him in that strange, frightening place. We are used to a world in which we accept the Oscar Mayer jingle and the sight of children gathered around the “Wienermobile” singing gaily about how they would like to be a hot dog—a world in which parents scream bloody murder, not at the butcher and at the company exploiting their children but at the spoilsport idealist climbing atop the giant hot dog on wheels with a sign saying, “PIGS ARE FRIENDS, NOT FOOD.” It is all quite mad.

This very odd dichotomy came home to me when I was a humane officer in Maryland. I had been called out to an abandoned farm and found the place in a mess. A dog had been left on his chain and had somehow survived, thanks to a bucket of dirty water. The horses and pigs had not. The barn was littered with broken bottles, left by the departing occupants of the farmhouse in the wake of a drunken party. In some stalls, the animals had cut their legs to ribbons on the shards before dying.

Just as I was leaving the dark barn, I saw a movement back in a corner. Stepping carefully over to the straw, I found a little pig, too frail to stand. He couldn’t have weighed more than a few bags of flour. I took him in my arms and carried him out into the fresh air and, laying him down under a tree, went to the pump to get some water.

He was too weak to raise his head, but he sipped the drops of water from my fingers, making little grunting noises of what could only be gratitude and relief. I sat with him, rocking him back and forth and talking to him until the van came to take him and the dog to the veterinary clinic. I had to stay behind to look for anything pointing to the whereabouts of the people who had done this to him and his fellows so I could charge them with cruelty.

That evening, driving home, I began to think of what I could cook for dinner. Ah, I thought, I have pork chops in the freezer.
Then it hit me. How could I pay someone to hurt a pig when here I was trying to prosecute people for doing the same sort of thing? I didn’t know then that pigs are routinely castrated without anesthetic and that they often have their tails cut off to prevent injuries from their fellow inmates who have become enraged by confinement. I hadn’t yet visited a slaughterhouse, but like anyone with a functional brain, I knew full well that they must be appalling places if you happen to have been born an animal labeled “food.”

Some animals (but, paradoxically, not as a rule those humans kill in order to eat their corpses) kill and eat other animals. So far as we can tell, they have no choice. Humans have choice and are very proud of it. Instead of killing animals on the grounds that they are intellectually superior to the animals, they should stop killing animals and thereby demonstrate that they have more freedom of choice than other animals.

Ingrid E. Newkirk is the founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the author of 12 books on animal protection, including PETA’s Practical Guide to Animal Rights, from which this essay was adapted. She can be reached c/o PETA at 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

No ‘crocodile tears’ for tanking skins trade

By Paula Moore

According to a recent USA Today article, the global economic downturn has taken a bite out of America’s alligator industry. With the sharp slump in sales of so-called “luxury” goods such as alligator bags and belts, fashion houses worldwide are placing fewer orders for exotic skins—and some American alligator farms are in danger of going belly-up as a result.

Let me be the first to say, “Good riddance.”

Alligators are bludgeoned with hammers and steel bars so that their skins can be turned into overpriced accessories. Snakes and lizards are skinned alive and left to die in agony. The routine cruelty in the exotic skins trade should make any caring consumer’s skin crawl, and the sooner this industry dies off, the better.

When PETA went undercover at an alligator farm in Florida, our investigator documented workers smashing alligators over the head with aluminum bats in a crude attempt to kill them. Many animals continued to writhe and move after they had supposedly been killed.

On other farms, according to Dr. Clifford Warwick, a specialist in reptile biology and welfare, alligators are shot or axed to death—or have a chisel smashed through their spinal cord with a hammer.

Many alligator and crocodile farms are “supplemented” with “animals who have been taken from the wild and put into conditions that are very unhygienic, very cramped, very crowded,” says Warwick. “It’s quite a sad, stressful life.”

Other reptiles fare no better. Lizards are decapitated and skinned. But because of their slow metabolism, they can stay alive for up to an hour after their heads are cut off—meaning that they are skinned alive.

Pythons are stunned—but not killed—with a blow to the head. Then hoses are inserted into their mouths and they are pumped full of water, which causes the snakes to swell up like balloons. This loosens the skin.

Workers then impale each snake’s head on a meat hook, rip the skin off and toss the animals’ peeled bodies onto a pile of other skinned snakes. After hours—or days—of unimaginable suffering, the snakes die from dehydration or shock.

“Snakes are never killed in a good way,” Dr. Warwick says.

More than a fifth of the world’s reptiles are now at risk for extinction—and the exotic skins trade is not helping. Most snakes are caught in the wild because it takes so long for farmed snakes to grow large enough for their skin to be usable. Dr. Mark Auliya, a scientific officer for TRAFFIC, an organization that helps monitor the international trade in wild animals, says that in Southeast Asia, some “large [snake] specimens are getting rarer and rarer.” The animals, he says, simply “cannot cope in the long term with the high out-take by the commercial skin trade.”

What’s more, for every reptile who goes through the system legally, it is estimated that another one will be smuggled. According to Dr. Warwick, virtually every store that sells exotic skins has some hand in this illicit trade, whether they are aware of it or not.

With so many choices available to us today, there’s no reason for designers to continue using real skins—and there’s no reason for consumers to buy them. Alligators, snakes and other animals should not have to suffer and die just for our coldblooded vanity.

Paula Moore is a research specialist for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org

Tormenting turkeys: Not in the holiday spirit

 

 By Dan Paden

On Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will gather around dead turkeys to give thanks for the blessings in their lives. Turkeys, of course, have nothing to be thankful for.

 

Before they’re slaughtered, these smart, social birds, who enjoy having their feathers stroked and gobbling along to music, spend five to six months packed together so tightly in dark sheds that flapping a wing or stretching a leg is nearly impossible.

To keep the frustrated, cramped birds from pecking and clawing at one another, factory workers cut off parts of the birds’ toes and a portion of their upper beaks. These procedures are known to cause chronic and acute pain. The males’ snoods, the fleshy appendage under their chin, are also chopped off—without any pain relievers.

 

Miserable and suffering, the birds must stand mired in their own waste, breathing strong ammonia fumes which burn their eyes and lungs. Some birds develop congestive heart disease, enlarged livers and other illnesses. Millions of turkeys succumb to “starve-out,” a stress-induced condition that causes young birds to stop eating.

To keep more birds alive under the dismal, disease-ridden conditions—and to stimulate their growth—farmers dose them with antibiotics. Because the birds are drugged and bred to grow so large in such a short period of time, their bones can’t support their weight, and many suffer from broken legs. Some birds attempt to drag themselves by their wings to reach food and water.

Turkeys are vulnerable to all kinds of gratuitous cruelty. Last fall, a PETA investigator went undercover at Aviagen Turkeys in West Virginia and caught workers stomping on turkeys, punching them, beating them with pipes and boards and twisting the birds’ necks repeatedly. One worker even bragged about shoving a broomstick down a turkey’s throat because the bird had pecked at him. When the investigator told a supervisor about the cruelty he witnessed, the supervisor responded, “Every once in awhile, everybody gets agitated and has to kill a bird.” Following the investigation, a grand jury indicted three workers on animal abuse charges, several of which were felony offenses.

 

The hideous abuse witnessed at Aviagen Turkeys—the self-proclaimed “world’s leading poultry breeding company”—is typical in factory farms and slaughterhouses. Workers at a Butterball slaughterhouse in Ozark, Arkansas, for example, were documented punching and stomping on turkeys, and slamming them against walls, and the manager of a turkey factory farm in Minnesota was seen wringing turkeys’ necks and bludgeoning turkeys to death.

 

But even when turkeys raised for food aren’t gratuitously abused, they still suffer greatly.

In slaughterhouses, the terrified birds are hung upside-down and their heads are dragged through an electrified “stunning tank,” which immobilises the birds but does not kill them. Many turkeys dodge the tank and are still conscious when their throats are cut. If the knife or the back-up killer expected to be on duty fails to cut the birds’ throats properly, the animals are scalded to death in the tanks of boiling water used for feather removal.

 

Anyone who eats turkey contributes to this horrific cruelty, often in the name of celebration. Of the more than 300 million turkeys killed for food every year in the U.S., more than 72 million are slaughtered to be eaten for holiday meals.

 

Causing pain and suffering hardly seems like the holiday spirit. Let’s all give birds a break by choosing tasty vegan alternatives to turkey at the holidays and all year round.

 

Dan Paden is a senior research associate in PETA’s Cruelty Investigations Department, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510. For information about PETA, visit www.PETA.org.

 

4-H: Cruel to animals and kids

By Jennifer O’Connor

Like most little girls, my stepdaughter loves animals. She joined a local 4-H club when she was 9, solely because “cows are cool.” Now that the fall 4-H animal auctions are upon us, I can’t help but remember Bonnie’s first “assignment”—a beautiful cow named Dana with long lashes and ears as soft as velvet. We all grew to love Dana, but none more so than Bonnie, who spent hours grooming her and walking her on a lead. 

I had misgivings about Bonnie’s decision to join 4-H: Unlike an unsuspecting 9-year-old, I knew the ultimate fate of the cows and other animals used in this program.

My fears were realized a couple years into the program when Bonnie learned that Meredith, another one of “her” cows, who was sick and unable to reproduce, had been sold to slaughter for a mere $75. To see such a deep bond so ruthlessly broken was a painful and eye-opening lesson for Bonnie. Her club leader was genuinely puzzled—and irked—by Bonnie’s tears, dismissing her as “sentimental.”

Dana, Meredith, Kath, Elise, Lola. They all had names, personalities and quirks. None was like the others except in one critical way. Like all cows used to provide milk for human consumption, these cows were treated as breeding machines and were artificially impregnated again and again.

Their babies—bellowing and terrified—were removed from them within hours of their births. The mothers were inconsolable, and the babies wide-eyed and quaking. The calves were desperate to latch onto visitors’ fingers—anything to suckle. But instead of being nourished by their mothers’ milk—which went to supermarket dairy cases—the calves were fed a vile powdered nutritional supplement. In a barn full of cows, the frantic calls of mothers and babies became a symphony of suffering.

What does it say about society’s mindset when children are encouraged to participate in a program that ultimately means the death of an animal they’ve befriended and whose trust they actively courted—or when we dismiss a child’s heartbreak at losing a beloved animal friend as weakness? The animals in 4-H programs are destined for one of two fates: They are either sold at auction for slaughter or are used as breeders for future “projects.”

Unfortunately, 4-H provides a mere snapshot of how we systematically desensitize ourselves to the origins of the chops, steaks and wings that we put in our mouths. If most kind people actually stopped to think about it, they’d balk at eating the body parts of an animal who has lived and died in misery. But we take great pains to hide what happens in feedlots and on factory farms. We close our eyes and refuse to hear about the cows, pigs and chickens who are jammed into stalls and cages barely bigger than their bodies and who will never breathe fresh air or see the light of day. Bonnie was admonished for taking her PETA water bottle to fairs and was told to stop.

Bonnie went vegetarian after making the connection that all cows like Dana and Meredith end up on a plate. She hasn’t eaten meat since. She knows that she can’t save all the cows who are used as milk machines on dairy factory farms, but she continues in 4-H because she wants to make life comfortable for at least one cow every year. But that’s little consolation for the billions of other animals raised for food who will never know a kind word or a gentle touch.

Jennifer O’Connor is a writer for the Animals in Entertainment Campaign for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

Leading Alzheimer’s researcher: Animal experiments will not help humans

By Lawrence A. Hansen, M.D.

The Society for Neuroscience just held its annual conference in Chicago. I attended—not as a member, though neuroscience is my field, but to protest the organization’s stated goal of broadening support for animal research. The society, like animal experimenters everywhere, perceives “growing threats” to animal research and seeks to recruit additional allies with a “vested interest” in promoting animal experimentation.

 

Every vested interest is entitled to its own propaganda, but such an effort warrants a response from neuroscience researchers who instead advocate kindness to animals.

 

Neuroscientists with established research credentials and a PETA membership are rare. They are often viewed by faculty colleagues as untrustworthy or even treasonous agents provocateurs as they are inclined to raise both scientific and ethical objections to the most egregious abuses of animals within our own universities. Yet medical school faculty members who are also animal activists are uniquely well-qualified to expose basic scientists’ disingenuous, misleading or overreaching claims that their animal research is scientifically and ethically justified because the results may someday, somehow, possibly benefit humans.

 

Contrived connections between cruelty-intensive basic neuroscience research and future human welfare is a tacit admission by neuroscientists that the general public, which ultimately funds most research, would recoil in horror from their more grotesque monkey, dog or cat experiments and overwhelmingly condemn them if they knew that they were not going to help humans.

 

One particularly egregious example is a decades-long series of highly invasive monkey experiments performed at universities across the country to study neural control of visual tracking. Luckless monkeys have coils implanted in both eyes, multiple craniotomies for electrode placements in their brains and head immobilization surgeries in which screws, bolts and plates are directly attached to their skulls. This is followed by water deprivation to produce a “work ethic” so that they will visually track moving objects.

 

First impressions are usually correct in questions of cruelty to animals, and most of us cannot even bear to look at pictures of these monkeys with their electrode-implanted brains and bolted heads being put through their paces in a desperate attempt to get a life-sustaining sip of water.

 

Such cruelty is justified in the corresponding grant application by invoking the possibility that the resulting data may allow us to find the cause and cure for diseases such as Alzheimer’s. But we who have spent decades in Alzheimer’s disease research recognize that such a blank-check justification is an ethical bait-and-switch since this neural pathway is not even involved in Alzheimer’s disease and these experiments have never been referenced in real Alzheimer’s disease research.

 

Because such monkey torture will not lead to improved human health, you don’t need to be an animal rights advocate to wonder if an ethical cost-benefit analysis might conclude that the ends just don’t justify the means, especially since rapid advances in sophisticated high-resolution neuroimaging on humans will very soon obviate the need for such invasive techniques.

 

Because grant money comes with animal research, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees mandated by the Animal Welfare Act to prevent excessive cruelty have been rendered largely ineffectual, as their membership is stacked predominantly with animal researchers.

 

Most animal experiments on monkeys, dogs, cats and other animals are not related to human benefit, and describing such research as “humane” requires an Orwellian-newspeak definition of the word. “Humane” means to treat with kindness, consideration or mercy, and as long as words have meanings that cannot be twisted Humpty Dumpty–like into whatever we want them to mean, animal experimentation is not and can never be humane.

 

Lawrence A. Hansen, M.D., is a board-certified pathologist and neuropathologist and a professor of neuroscience and pathology at the University of California–San Diego, where he also leads the neuropathology core of the Alzheimer Disease Research Center. In March 2009, he was recognized by the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease as one of the top 100 Alzheimer’s disease investigators in the world. Dr. Hansen may be reached c/o People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

 

 

The land of the free?

By Ingrid E. Newkirk

 

President Obama recently made a historic pledge on gay rights that moved our country closer to that original promise of “liberty and justice for all.”

 

In my Washington, D.C., neighborhood, gays are not only “out” but out and about: Same-sex couples hold hands on the street and laugh and chat at tables in restaurants. Only a mean soul could begrudge them the joy of being “de-closeted” on a fine autumn evening. And only a dead soul could wish to deny them the basic rights that most of us take for granted.

 

Washington is where those who feel discriminated against and exploited come to make their case on the streets and in the halls of Congress. You can pop down to Lafayette Park and march with Iranian families protesting their government or visit the National Mall and talk to veterans demanding better care for soldiers. The Capitol has witnessed Martin Luther King Jr.’s masses and Vietnam War protesters.

 

Twenty years ago, deaf students at Gallaudet University went on strike, demanding a deaf president. When they won, a student wrote, “When slaves rose up against their masters, whites weren’t ready, but the slaves were; when women demanded the vote, men weren’t ready, but women were; and hearing people may not be ready for us to get a deaf president, but we’re ready.”

 

Those words, and President Obama’s, illuminate the struggle that precedes bestowing respect upon those once regarded as unworthy of consideration. They exemplify the erosion of prejudice.

 

A few winters ago, I spoke at an international conference on nonviolence. Everyone’s account of oppression seemed to end with the words, “We demand respect―we are human beings.” I spoke of those who feel pain every bit as acutely, love their young every bit as deeply and long for freedom from shackles and the whip every bit as intensely as any human being, but who are not human.

 

Dinner was lamb. The mouths of people who spoke of ending violence were full of the bodies of animals whose throats had been slit with a knife. But haven’t we always had to be pushed to open our hearts and minds when the suffering is not our own? When will we be able to say, not, “Respect them, for they are human beings,” but rather, “Respect them, for they are sentient beings”?

 

The animals cannot rise up to claim consideration. They have no power to bring about a revolution. They can only bleat and squeal when they are attacked. Those of us who want to end their suffering must promote their interest in not being eaten, worn, experimented upon or beaten in the circus.

 

Human beings may not be ready, but animals are ready. They have been ready ever since the day our race declared war on them and made them our slaves. One day, a president may appear at an animal rights convention to say just that. Until then, it’s up to us to relate to those on the plate.

 

Ingrid E. Newkirk is the founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the author of 12 books on animal protection, including Making Kind Choices, One Can Make a Difference and PETA’s Practical Guide to Animal Rights. She can be reached c/o PETA at 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

 

Fetch a dog from a shelter this October

Walk into almost any animal shelter, and you’ll see row after row of homeless dogs with wagging tails and pleading eyes, their wet noses jammed between the cage bars as if to say, “Pick me, pick me!” All of them—purebreds and mutts alike—are desperate for attention, for love and for someone to take them home.

 

October is “Adopt a Shelter Dog” Month, and for people who have the time, patience, money, energy and love needed to care for an animal, there has never been a better time to take home a grateful dog awaiting adoption at the local animal shelter.

 

While not every dog may be perfect for everyone, every homeless dog is perfect for someone, if only that someone would come along. That’s why, as a shelter volunteer, it’s baffling to me that some people still turn to pet stores, classified ads or breeders—all of which contribute to the animal overpopulation crisis—when animal shelters across the U.S. are overflowing with lovable, friendly, healthy dogs who would make wonderful companions.

 

Most dogs in shelters are victims of circumstances beyond their control, such as divorce or an allergic guardian. The recession and the foreclosure crisis have flooded shelters with dogs who were given up by people who could no longer afford to care for them or who moved into living situations where dogs aren’t welcome.

 

Others were surrendered because their guardians acquired them on a whim and lost interest in caring for them once they discovered that veterinarian visits cost money, that dogs need exercise and something interesting to do and that cute little puppies chew and soil things and quickly grow up to be big, rambunctious dogs. Many have ended up homeless simply because someone didn’t spay or neuter his or her dog and an unwanted litter was born.

 

Adopting pre-loved dogs has many advantages. They are likely to be housetrained, pros at basic skills such as walking on a leash and familiar with good behavior and proper canine etiquette. And while most animal shelters have plenty of adorable puppies who need homes, with adult dogs, “what you see is what you get” in terms of the dog’s size, grooming needs, energy level and personality.

 

For those of you whose hearts are set on a pedigreed pup, you should know that about 25 percent of shelter dogs are purebreds, and Web sites such as PetFinder.com make it possible for adopters to find the breed of their choice and still rescue a dog. Of course, mixed-breed dogs make equally great companions, and they don’t suffer from many of the genetic health problems that plague purebreds.

 

Another reason to visit your local shelter: Dogs in animal shelters are usually screened for health and temperament issues, and for a nominal adoption fee, most shelter dogs go home spayed or neutered, microchipped, dewormed and vaccinated.

 

Trained adoption counselors at animal shelters help match potential adopters with the dog who will be the best fit for their personality and lifestyle. Many shelters also offer free training classes and follow-up support to help make the dog’s transition to a new home successful.

 

Many people who have adopted shelter dogs—myself included—say that their canine companions are exceptionally devoted to them and that they seem to be especially grateful for a warm home, a soft bed, nutritious food and a human who adores them. So if you’re considering adding a canine companion to your family, why wait any longer? October is the perfect time to “fetch” a dog from your local animal shelter. Not only will you save a life, you’ll also make a best friend for life.

 

Lindsay Pollard-Post is a research specialist for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.HelpingAnimals.com.