In Memoriam

Also important but may be a bit trickier. But there are definitely rescue red flags! This will probably piss people off because for some reason people want to give rescues a pass for everything. If one of these makes you made, replace "rescue" with "breeder" and if you're still mad, let's have a civil conversation about it :) cuz I have worked with dozens of rescues over the years and while all of them meant well, some of them had welfare issues that were overlooked because they slapped the word "rescue" or "sanctuary" on their business card. And that is not ok.

--Refusing to euthanize any animal for any reason (hello chronic suffering)

--Lying about/downplaying an animal's behavioral issues

--Any kind of clause that would allow the rescue to show up at your home unannounced or take the animal back at any time for any reason (yes some rescues actually put that in their contracts)

--Taking on so many animals that the health/welfare of other animals suffers i.e. having to keep dogs in small crates long term because they can't say no but don't have room for more

--Similarly, taking on an animal despite knowing the resources aren't available for it (i.e. "i rescued him! haha of course I can't afford to treat his heartworm disease that I knew he had")

--Purchasing animals in any sense of the word. That is NOT rescuing, that is putting money into the pockets of the people they claim they are against

--Farm animals with prosthetic limbs

--Not letting people return animals that aren't a good fit

--Forcing carnivorous or omnivorous animals to eat a vegetarian/vegan diet based on their own morals

--Making up sad stories about animals to encourage donations

--Dangerous or inappropriate handling of animals (i.e. free contact with big cats, taking an alligator to a pet store, cuddling "orphaned" wildlife, etc)

--And while we're at it, anyone claiming to be a wildlife rehabber that is raising orphaned wildlife like a pet and/or not taking precautions to avoid habituation to humans

--Bad husbandry

--Not disclosing a bite history

--Adoption standards that are so strict that the majority of people with jobs, families, etc couldn't possibly meet them (see also: refusing to adopt to people without a fenced in yard is actually kind of low-key kind of classist when you think about it). Yes, being careful is good, but being so insanely picky that virtually no animals get adopted? Not great.

--Lying about a dog's breed to adopt it out to someone that lives in a BSL area (not the same thing as genuinely not knowing what the breed is but come on...you know when it's gonna get labeled as a pit bull and lying about it only hurts the dog and the owner)

--Both "pit bulls are evil, vicious, killing machines that can lock their jaws and eat babies for lunch" or "pit bulls are perfect angel dogs that make perfect pets for literally every person on the planet haha no I don't know what a terrier is"

--A dirty or downright gross facility, or poor biosecurity

--Breeding animals (this is not appropriate in a rescue/sanctuary setting)

--And of course not addressing the health or behavioral issues of an animal

This is Penelope! She was part of a group of rabbits someone released. Her owner recaptured her and had her sitting on concrete in a bare cage without food or water when my mother asked the owner to surrender her.

Considering her circumstances, we were pleasantly surprised that Penny has a very easy going and friendly personality! She's sweeter than my family's neutered bucks!

As you can see, she's very pregnant in these photos!

Penny had 14!! Babies! Unfortunately only 12 made it, but that's still impressive!

Even though they're super adorable, finding suitable homes for so many rabbits has been difficult. Our area isn't too big on rabbits.

Currently their eyes are all open and they're starting to explore the world! They've been handled daily, and are located in North East South Dakota (but transportation might be able to be arranged within reason, or if you plan on helping out!). Indoor homes are strongly preferred.

Feel free to message me here or Eastern Dakotas Companion Rabbits on Facebook for more info (and more baby pictures!) And please spread the word!

PSA: This is getting humans and animals sick. This only reports the outbreak in the USA but it’s spread through 33 states.

the people farming and eating dogs in Asia are still people, just people raised in a different culture. they aren’t barbaric inhuman monsters to gawk at. they aren’t to be pointed at to be like “hey those terrible Asians eat dogs! Doesn’t that disgust you?”

They( as in american citizens, not the citizens of china where it takes place)are litterally calling a small meat festival " barbaric" and " devilish". They are calling poor people barbaric.

Keep in mind this is a poverty stricken province where living conditions arent great and their main concern is the dogs and cats involved? Not the people? I love cats as much as the next person but they have to use " barbaric" tools aka not guns to kill the animals for meat to celebrate the summer solstice. They prepare meat like any other hunter prepares a deer. This is the issue with applying western ideologies to eastern cultures. Over there, dogs and horses are commonly consumed but here they are pets.

think about it. do we eat every chicken, hog, cow, etc. we have here in the west? no, because some are meat breeds, some are milk/egg breeds, and some are purely ornamental. an ornamental chicken breed is not going to taste good. 

dog meat is exactly the same. the nureongi, a medium-size yellow spitz-type dog that’s bred for meat, is the most frequently eaten dog in korea & china. they aren’t eating desirable dogs like purebred beagles, poodles, goldens, and designer mixes. and yet, what are 99% of these alleged “meat dogs” being imported? 

you guessed it, desirable dogs. never any nureongi - only purebred & designer mix ”meat dogs” that rescues buy en-masse from chinese & korean puppy mills to sell back in the US. both the rescues & the east asian puppy mills make a huge profit off of the ignorance of US “animal lovers”. 

also, hot take: even actual meat dogs don’t need “rescuing”. people have every right to eat whatever animal they please. do you ever see people flying in from india to come “rescue” our cattle? no? so why is this acceptable? after all, we - the west - are the reason these people are so poor that they have to eat carnivores like dogs and cats. and they’ve been that poor for SO LONG that they’ve had the time to develop meat breeds. 

rescue has become less about being practical, and more about virtue signaling & saving dogs with the most marketable sob stories rather than the ones that are actually adoptable. unlearn animal rights propaganda and realize that rescues are perfectly capable of lying and being greedy. 

https://www.facebook.com/RescueAbuse/ 

IF the conditions are what is in those pictures, the markets should be urged to change how they treat the animals. We have laws that dictate how beef cattle can and can not be treated. If they are abused, the farms and processors can be shut down and their animals taken away because, despite being raised for consumption, its the moral thing to do.

Open Standard Q #1! (again lol) Chandra finished the weekend with our best one statistically, ¾ Qs to finish her Novice Standard title and Novice JWW #2.

Not to jinx it but I’m really happy with Chandra’s 2on2off dogwalk! She’s been perfect on it for the past few trials, including both runs this weekend which started jump-dogwalk. Having the dogwalk as #2 has been one of Chandra’s biggest challenges. “I just got started, why would I stop again??”

Outdoor cats have a lifespan of 2-5 years. Indoor cats regularly live 15+, even getting up to 20+ sometimes. Unsupervised indoor-outdoor cats often don’t make it past 5 and the ones that do are a very lucky exception. Why?

They get hit by cars. They get attacked by other animals (predators or other pets like dogs) including other cats. They eat things that are toxic to them. They get killed by other humans. They contract diseases like FIV and FelV.

Even if your cat DOES live longer than 5 years, cats that go outside are responsible for the deaths of billions of birds and other small fauna per year. There have been studies done on this. It’s not people pulling stuff out of their asses, it’s something scientists literally studied and reported results on. Don’t believe me? Google “do cats kill wildlife” and have a read. They’re on the IUCN’s list of worst invasive species and have contributed to the extinction of 60+ species, and they continue to cause a problem for other threatened species of small animals.

If you think it’s okay to expose your cat to these hazards and potentially cut its lifespan by more than half, if you think it’s okay to allow your cat to kill native fauna to indulge it’s “natural instincts” instead of, I don’t fucking know, playing with it with toys literally designed to allow it to safely indulge those instincts, then you have no business following me.

I’m not here to indulge your whimsy about how cats “need” to be outside unsupervised to be stimulated and lead a happy life- I can assure you, they don’t. There are p l e n t y of enrichment devices and structures people can buy or make to ensure that their cats lead happy, full lives indoors to the ripe old age they are supposed to lived to.

You also have the option of lead training your cat if you really believe they need to go out. This is something that proponents of “let cats go outside” ignore almost completely. They somehow believe that it’s all or nothing- either the cat lives 100% indoors without ever seeing sunlight OR it’s let outside without supervision where it can be injured, killed, or cause harm to the environment. Those aren’t the only choices. Cats adapt to leads very easily. They don’t like it the first couple of times, usually, but also usually when they figure out lead=outside, they get over it and the best of both worlds gets to happen- your cat remains safely under your supervision where it cannot come to or deliver harm, and it gets to go outside.

Here’s one not attached to the house:

Here’s some from the outside view:

There are smaller versions too!

If our cat slips out when we open the door, and we can’t catch her, what should we do? We live in a place with a LOT of wildlife. She normally comes back in within an hour (she gets mad at us for “letting her outside”) but obviously we don’t want that to some day not be the case, and we want her to stop bringing us presents. Because gross and also not good for the environment/ecosystem.

Do we lead-train her and let her go outside and then she won’t get very far? Part of the reason she goes outside is to eat grass, so should we just buy some cat grasses and have them inside? We’ve thought about that but the grass isn’t always the only reason she’s outside, so we’re worried that she’ll keep getting out anyway and then that defeats the purpose of buying cat grasses.

As for the “gifts” you may want to look into some additional toys for her that can satisfy her desire for that particular behavior. Stick and string toys and laser pointers are good for this, but a lot of people don’t reward their cats for a solid catch, which is fine, but if your cat is looking to chase and catch a thing she can eat, it may help to give her a treat at the end of playtime. This encourages play behaviors with you over going outside to do it.

As for the cat grasses, you can actually make her a little grass mat!

All it takes is a large litterbox (or if you want to do bigger, go to a hardware store and look for the cement mixing section, and they sell rectangular black tubs there- that’s what the first two tubs are at least), some clean dirt, and some grass seed without fertilizer in it (or if you can’t find that, you can plant cat grass from a pet store in the middle, it will spread but not as fast).

Again, any one of these on their own likely won’t completely solve the issue, but between the three, you may see a decrease in escapist behaviors.

As long as we’re here, @crabcakedraws asked what I say to people in apartments whose cats scream and destroy things demanding to be let out, and first you should go have a talk with @pangur-and-grim about Grim’s behavior around go-outside time. My own advice is to take the time and effort to train your cat to go outside on a lead with you. If you think that’s too much trouble and you’d rather just expose your cat to the risk of illnesses, injuries, or potential death by opening the door and just letting them out, I definitely can’t stop you. But that doesn’t make it right or good.

Stray/Feral cats that do not belong to anyone are not what we’re discussing here. If you are managing strays or ferals that don’t belong to you but that in your location, that’s a different situation than someone who buys/adopts a cat and then releases it outside either permanently or off and on. The best course of action for managing ferals is to get them fixed (low cost spay/neuter places are GREAT for this! We got some feral cats at my college fixed for like $30/per) and make sure you give them what protection you can from diseases (for example, offering them wet food with a liquid wormer in it a couple of times a year). You can also affix reflective cat collars to them with bells- this will make them more visible to cars, and the bell can reduce their kill success by up to 30% (which, if you or others are feeding them is a good thing for local small fauna). If you aren’t sure a cat is a stray or an indoor/outdoor cat, buy a reflective collar and a tag with your # on it (costs like $10 total for both in a lot of places)- I can almost guarantee that you’ll get a call soon if the cat has an owner.

I’ve also talked some about enrichment, but we’re gonna talk some more, since it seems like people aren’t sure what counts for indoor cats. SO, let’s start with toys.

Wand toys (stick and string) are great for interactive play with your cat. They look like this:

They stimulate your cat’s drive to chase moving, fluttering objects and allow you to provide that live “kick” response when they pounce on it, because you can pull the string. They’re widely available but easy to make yourself- Here is a tutorial on making them yourself for cheap!

Laser pointers provide the same entertainment with a different sort of allure. Laser pointers are better for if you have a cat that likes to run a lot- you can easily send the dot far from you! They’re like $3.

You can purchase any number of chase toys that you can throw for your cat, in all sorts of shapes and sizes from mice to birds to random shapes. Many of them come with catnip in them. Some of them have noise makers so they shriek like the wildlife your cat is not killing outside. Some of them rattle. Some of them crinkle (in fact, you can get neat foil balls to throw that are shiny and crinkle). Some of them are spongy. There are so many options and cats LOVE them!

Kick toys are another great thing! Kick toys are usually bigger than throw toys and somewhat oblong, like a fish. In fact, many of the toys are shaped like fish! But there are also other kinds- I’ve seen rainbows and cigars and just big thin rectangles and bananas and a lot of others). These toys help satisfy your cat’s fighting/gutting instinct. If they were to indeed catch a big fish, they would be able to grasp it in their front paws and kick with their back legs to disembowel it. The same goes for other animals your cat might find itself in a fight with, including other cats. If your cat likes to tussle, this might just be the toy for them!

Circular ball toys are good fun for containing the small fast object your cat wants to chase (so they don’t lose it under the couch or something.

If you want to spend a little more for an active cat, you can look into getting them an exercise wheel! Many cats, when they figure out what it does, will thoroughly enjoy running on these things (and the videos on youtube are GREAT, if you want a good time go type in “Cat exercise wheel”). The first photo is the original wheel, but there are others out there now too.

If you want to take your cat outside but don’t want to lead train them or build a whole catio, there are other options like cat tents!

Indoors, cat tunnels are totally a thing and cats love them, especially soft ones.

You can also buy window perches that just suction cup to windows and don’t cause any damage to walls (good for apartments!) and they come in a variety of styles!

You can get your cat an autogroomer device, they come in several different styles:

This allows the cat to receive grooming from a source outside of themselves when you aren’t around.

You can purchase a see-through window feeder for birds, and place it somewhere that your cat will be able to see, so they will have something to watch while you’re not playing.

In addition to toys and activity devices like the above, you can give your cat enrichment during feeding and watering times as well. Waterers that have moving water are preferred by many, many cats:

And puzzle feeders can both provide enrichment and slow down cats so they don’t gobble all their food quickly (which often results in an upset tummy… I have heard a lot of stories of folks whose cats eat a bunch and then immediately puke it up whole… puzzle feeders help alleviate that! And they can be DIY for extremely cheap!)

(this one has toys in it, but you can put food in it too)

You are falling prey to the shifting baseline problem, which essentially means that your idea of a “normal” amount of wildlife for your area is going to be very different from what was normal 100 years ago, 200 years ago, etc. And the more we move the baseline of what’s normal, the more we lose sight of what an ecosystem was like before we went in and damaged it. We shouldn’t be looking at wildlife populations as they are now and considering them the standard to strive for, because these are populations that are struggling a lot more than you think. 

What you consider “a lot of birds” is almost certainly lower than what “a lot of birds” was in the same place a century ago. Sure, maybe your LOCAL ecosystem hasn’t seen what you see as a significant drop in wildlife population. However, just because a species hasn’t been marked as endangered or threatened by a government entity (which, by the way, tend to be woefully behind the reality of things because bureaucracy and lobbyists) doesn’t mean it isn’t in decline. In fact, a large portion of bird species worldwide are in decline, even ones considered common. 

This is due to a combination of a whole bunch of factors ranging from drastic habitat loss to pollution to, yes, predation by invasive species like cats. You can’t single out any one of these as THE reason; it’s the fact that they’re acting like a one-two (three-four-five-six-etc) combo punch that’s making it so damned hard for wildlife to adapt to the many ways in which humans have fucked things up so badly. It’s like when you get your rent raised by 40% and your car dies and you lose a third of your hours at work and your significant other loses their job entirely and ends up with a chronic medical diagnosis that’s going to need expensive medication for the long term, and all this happens in one week and guess what? Next week’s going to just be worse! 

Your local birds are parts of more widespread species whose genetic diversity is shrinking due to individual populations going locally extinct. And yes, that’s very important, because the rate of species extinction and endangerment has risen in the past 100 years and it’s only going faster. Which means that MORE species are going to edge toward endangerment, including ones you think are okay, ESPECIALLY as climate change hits us harder and makes it exponentially more difficult for all species to adapt to rapid changes in their environment.

So we NEED to treat our local wildlife as though they are precious, irreplaceable reservoirs of biodiversity and genetic resources, because that is exactly what they are. And the more people are “fuck, I don’t care” about the effects on their local population of a given species, the more likely it is that that species is going to experience greater fragmentation as more and more pockets of individuals go locally extinct and the remaining animals are more isolated from each other. Maybe it’s not obvious now, but it will be, and we have the power to do something about it BEFORE it becomes a problem. 

“This is due to a combination of a whole bunch of factors ranging from drastic habitat loss to pollution to, yes, predation by invasive species like cats. You can’t single out any one of these as THE reason; it’s the fact that they’re acting like a one-two (three-four-five-six-etc) combo punch that’s making it so damned hard for wildlife to adapt to the many ways in which humans have fucked things up so badly.”

Why Not Cesar’s Way? 

BEYOND CESAR MILLAN

Cesar Millan, Dominance Theory and Modern Dog Training

THE DOG WHISPERER CONTROVERSY

The Dog Whisperer: Frequently Asked Questions

Modern Dog Training vs. Cesar Millan

The Dominance Controversy and Cesar Millan

From Andrew Luescher, DVM, Veterinary Behaviorist

Veterinary Behaviorists Take a Stand Against Cesar Millan

dog training gone bad - Debra F. Horwitz, DVM, DACVB

Reputable Behaviorists and Dog Trainers Speak Out, “Cesar Millan’s philosophy is not ours.”

Behind the Behavior - AVMA Conference: The Controversy

‘Dog Whisperer’ Training Approach More Harmful Than Helpful

Critics Challenge ‘Dog Whisperer’ Methods

Quotes From Experts