Temporary Home for the Animals

For Pet Owners Left Homeless by Hurricane, a Temporary Home for the Animals
LIZ ROBBINS
November 18, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/nyregion/temporary-shelter-opens-for-pets-of-owners-displaced-by-hurricane-sandy.html

Brendan Scott flicked his fingers though the cage to reassure Raven, his 7-year-old black cat. With his parents standing behind him, Brendan, 15, was trying not to cry.

Two puppies that were displaced from the Rockaways play in their cage.

“He’s like a little brother,” he said, softly, of Raven. The cat and his orange companion in the next cage, Haley, had been bouncing from home to home — as their owners had — since Hurricane Sandy ravaged the family’s house in Broad Channel, Queens.

On Sunday, Brendan and his parents, Ray and Michelle Scott, were among dozens of people who left their pets behind at another temporary home, a 20,000-square-foot emergency boarding center that opened over the weekend in a vacant warehouse in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn.

Run with affectionate precision by a team of disaster specialists from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the shelter housed 137 animals by Sunday evening and was expected to house a few hundred, if not more, before the week was out. The center can accommodate up to 700 animals, which are permitted to stay for 30 days free of charge, with full veterinary care, until their owners can reclaim them.

“At least I know they’re safe, that’s what matters,” Ray Scott said at the entrance. Brendan added: “I’m going to come every weekend to visit.”

As the weeks of anxious uncertainty drag on for the tens of thousands of New Yorkers left homeless by the storm, pet owners have been making heart-wrenching decisions about what to do with their animals.

Jim Buonamano, 73, spent several bitter nights sleeping in his flooded, powerless home in Belle Harbor, Queens, while taking care of April, a 6-year-old white German shepherd, and Bella, a 2-year-old pit bull. He contacted the city’s pet hot line after the storm, and two weeks later help arrived.

On Sunday, a man and a woman from Manhattan, who simply showed up in the Rockaways with a station wagon and a desire to volunteer, had been directed to deliver April and Mr. Buonamano to the Brooklyn shelter. Then they all went back for Bella.

“I’d rather she be someplace warm, even if I don’t see her for a month,” said Mr. Buonamano, who is now staying with a brother. “She could use a bath, since she was in flood water, too.”

April’s arrival highlighted the effort, involving nonprofit organizations, private shelter operators, celebrity donors, veterinarians and unaffiliated volunteers, to mitigate the suffering of both humans and animals.

“The silver lining of a disaster is that some of these animals have never seen a veterinarian, or it had been a while,” said Matt Bershadker, the senior vice president of the A.S.P.C.A.’s anti-cruelty group, which oversees field investigations.

Veterinarians from New York and others from around the country examined every animal brought in. They were aided by animal behaviorists. Taped to the cage of a Rottweiler mix was a warning for handlers: “Very Scared.”

Tim Rickey, the A.S.P.C.A.’s senior director of the shelter, said: “They go through much worse than humans because they don’t understand it.”

After nearly two weeks of negotiations, the warehouse’s landlord agreed on a rent of $20,000 a month, A.S.P.C.A. officials said, adding that a $500,000 donation from the celebrity chef Rachael Ray, who also has contributed supplies from her line of pet food, helped defray some costs.

Forty-four cats and dogs were delivered from a Sean Casey Animal Rescue emergency shelter in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, on Sunday, with their transport overseen by the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, an animal welfare charity that is not affiliated with the city.

There were also 48 animals whose owners had yet to be found, brought in from shelters run by Animal Care and Control from around the city. The facilities of that organization, which has a contract with the city to pick up strays, are already overcrowded. The organization has come under criticism in the past because it euthanizes some unwanted animals. No animals affected by Hurricane Sandy were on that list, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the organization.

The animals who arrived without owners were to be kept in a quarantined section of the warehouse, because they could have been exposed to disease, Mr. Bershadker said.

The Mayor’s Alliance, through its Wheels of Hope program, has spent several days pleading with owners to put their pets in the new A.S.P.C.A. center as they leave evacuation centers.

When the Queens College evacuation center closed over the weekend, an older man staying there with his fuzzy Pomeranian, Buddy, pleaded for his pet not to be sent to the A.S.P.C.A. “He said, ‘I lost everything in this hurricane,’ ” Debbie Fierro of the Mayor’s Alliance recalled. “’The only thing I have is my dog.”

Sharon Hunter, 51, was even more adamant that she stay with her 2-year-old ferret, Trouble.

Ms. Hunter had ridden out the storm with Trouble and her 10-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, on the seventh floor of a New York City Housing Authority building in the Rockaways. With no heat and electricity, she agreed to leave a week later only because she could take the ferret to the Queens College emergency shelter.

After nearly two weeks, Ms. Hunter said, shelter officials enticed her away with a free hotel room in Manhattan, but only on the condition that the ferret went to the shelter in Brooklyn. Ms. Hunter said she resisted, but exhaustion and the need for privacy won out Saturday night. She ended up at the Carlton Hotel, on Madison Avenue.

Trouble was enjoying the semi-privacy of a wood-paneled office on Sunday, keeping company with a parakeet and a rabbit, each in its cage.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 19, 2012, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: For Pet Owners Left Homeless by Hurricane, a Temporary Home for the Animals.

Why Does The Michael Vick Case Hurt Hip-Hop?

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1567399/20070817/id_0.jhtml

Aug 20 2007
Why Does The Michael Vick Case Hurt Hip-Hop?
Genre's glamorization of dogfights and pit bulls has led critics to associate it with blood sport.
By Michelle Rabinowitz, with additional reporting by Nick Neofitidis and Jayson Rodriguez

The Michael Vick dogfighting case has created many victims. First, you have the alleged victims: the dogs. There are also the Atlanta Falcons, who are out a quarterback. And there's hip-hop. Yes, hip-hop.

Vick's indictment on federal charges related to a dogfighting ring allegedly run on his Virginia property — to which he agreed to plead guilty on Monday (August 20) — has brought the brutal blood sport into the public consciousness. And hip-hop is one of the only outlets in America where you'll find references to it. Dogfighting's presence in videos and lyrics led to critical newspaper editorials and columns, along with on-air berating from Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly.

All of them addressed the same explicit examples: The scene in Jay-Z's "99 Problems" video where everyone is getting ready for a big dogfight just as Jigga goes down, DMX's album Grand Champ (which is the title given to a dog that wins five matches without a loss), and DVDs of dogfights sold alongside mixtapes in some parts of the country.

There was also a lot of grumbling about the less blatant examples: Pit bulls seem to be the breed of choice among rappers, appearing on many album covers and in numerous videos — without direct references to fighting, but nearly always looking threatening. Rappers and video directors seem to love playing up the same features that make the breed so popular with dogfighters.

"That pit bull, it's a statement dog — it's that beast dog that you have to have," said Bow Wow, whose first video, "Bounce With Me," featured the then-12-year-old morphing from a running pit bull. "Those are the go-get-'em dogs that are really going to protect you and get down. When they bite you and lock their jaws, there is no escaping that."

Despite the glamorization of pits in videos and magazines, most of the imagery doesn't actually show them fighting — and it's worth noting that voices inside hip-hop have been critical of Vick. Russell Simmons was one of the first public figures to call on Nike to pull Vick sneakers. Producer Just Blaze posted a scathing criticism of the quarterback on his blog, citing his love for his own dog as justification for his suggestion of throwing Vick "in a pool and [letting him] play catch with a few hair dryers."

The sport has a long history in this country. Dogfighting has been documented in the U.S. as far back as the 1750s, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or ASPCA. It grew in popularity after the Civil War, leading to many states banning professional matches and passing anti-cruelty laws. For many years, dogfighting remained most popular in parts of the rural South, especially North Carolina and Louisiana. In recent decades, however, it's moved into urban and suburban areas all over the country.

Dogfighters, also known as "dogmen," often breed their own animals and favor traits like aggression and a strong jaw. Dogs are raised to be fighters from the time they are puppies. They are conditioned like athletes: There are dog treadmills, swimming workouts and strength-building regimens that often include hanging dogs by the neck. They are often trained to fight by sparring with "bait animals" — which can be other dogs, cats or smalls animals — to test their fighting prowess. If a dog has potential as a fighter, its ears and tail are often cut off.

"[One reason] they do that is so the dogs don't get grabbed by the other dog and cause harm and injury," said ASPCA Senior Vice President Gail Buchwald. "But really, they are doing it to mask certain forms of body signals that dogs will use to signal one another to say, 'Here is my white flag of peace — I submit, the fight is over.' "

The fights themselves are high-stakes gambling operations with purses sometimes totaling upward of $100,000. In some communities, the high-rolling fight attendees resemble crowds at a prize fight.

"One of the reasons it has been difficult to investigate and eradicate the dogfighting rings is that they are so well-attended by citizens of influence," Buchwald said. "So we do have attorneys and doctors and judges and lawyers attending dogfights."

The fights can last for hours and are often fought "to the death." Even dogs that don't die in the ring are often victims of the sport: Animals that don't live up to owners' expectations are sometimes killed by other methods, including electrocution, drowning and shooting.

While she acknowledges the glamorization factor, Buchwald said hip-hop doesn't bear much responsibility for the popularity of dogfighting.

"We don't feel as though it is actually adding fuel to the fire and proliferating the dogfighting itself," she said. The real problem, she said, is that the glamorization of pit bulls has led to there being too many of them.

"We are finding that too many people are attracted to the machismo — this image of this macho breed that is strong and dominant," she said. "People acquire these dogs, and these dogs are not easily trained or managed. They are very high-energy and typically they end up in streets and in shelters because they are acquired for the purpose of an image."

While the ASPCA estimates around 10,000 dogs are involved in dogfighting every year, many more pit bulls end up on the street and in shelters — or worse.

Pits are the number-one breed of dog euthanized — put to death — every year in the U.S.