OMG!!! Condoned Animal Abuse!

Everyone usually agrees that animals deserve humane treatment and usually agree on the basics of food, water and shelter if you decide to keep an animal on your premises.  What else should that include and who decides what the minimums are for a shelter?

Most “down to earth” people will provide their animals with nutrition and shelter but will not go so far as to clean every nook and cranny to eliminate spider webs and dust.  There is nothing that proves a situation such as this will induce disease or unhealthy pets.  In fact, at any given time, if we were to inspect the majority of homes with young children across the United States, you would find dust and cobwebs galore.  Not everyone is a Felix Ungar with the obsession to clean the corners of the closet.  If this cannot be expected of the regular citizen, how can it be expected of someone that has a hobby that includes animals, specifically cats and dogs?  A hobby that usually brings in no income and operates at a loss the majority of the time.

Home dog/cat breeders, which includes anyone that does not qualify as a business per IRS guidelines, are those that have been fighting for your right to own a dog even those accidental ooops breedings that weren’t really meant to happen but they did.  Puppies were usually easy to come by but are they aren’t now.  Checking the local paper, you’ll find very few mixed breed puppies available in the newspaper and even fewer purebred dogs.  I wonder why that is.

A few years ago, before the Humane Society of the United States and Bob Barker, there were accidental breedings galore.  And now?  You’d be lucky to find an intact dog even if you paid $500.00 for it.  Believe it or not, dogs do not automatically keep their reproductive organs when sold.  You must have permission first.  That sounds like stealing to me since all breed clubs will tell you that “it’s the whole dog, not just one aspect of it.”  The medical side of early spay/neuter is just as mind boggling.  Almost every veterinarian textbook will tell you that early spay/neuter is not in the best interest, or welfare, of the animal but yet every animal shelter in the country will require spay/neuter regardless of the age of the dog.  And if you don’t hold up to your end of the bargain, they will come to take your newly loved pet away from you.  If you can’t find an intact dog, where in the world are you going to get your next puppy?

The animal sheltering system is, at best, poorly monitored.  A quick stroll through your local Humane Society will leave you gagging for fresh air.  Weaving your way through the legal channels is difficult when it comes to reporting a Humane Society.  Contacting the police department gets you redirected to the very same animal control people that own the non-profit Humane Society to begin with.  It’s frustrating to say the least when you see one of those sad eyed puppies sitting in a pile of feces in a cage that will give you the notion to open the cage door and let it take its chances on the street.  At least then it might have a chance of being in a “clean” environment.

An “authority” on the subject was thought to be the Humane Society of the United States(HSUS).  Mary Beth Sweetland was kind enough to reply to someone reporting a local Humane Society, with video,  for what they thought was animal abuse.  The dogs were sitting in cages with their food strewn across the floor and piles of feces mixed in.  Even with a shelter worker being shown the conditions, they did nothing to clean the area.  Ms. Mary Beth Sweetland replied to an email sent from this individual saying  “The kennels were clean with the exception of a few piles of feces which is normal in any shelter.” Ms Mary Beth Sweetland is the Senior Director for Research and Investigations at the HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES AND FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF PETA WHO IS INSULIN DEPENDENT AND COMPLETELY AGAINST ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION OF WHICH INSULIN WAS A RESULT.  Ms. Mary Beth Sweetland sends undercover “volunteers” to video animal rescues and agricultural facilities.  She should know a thing or two about animal abuse.  But yet, in an email she states “I wish I could answer your question about minimal standards for shelters but I can’t.”  Now wait just one minute!  The Director of Research and Investitgations for THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES that sends in undercover volunteers to video animal abuse can’t describe minimal standards for shelters??

Not giving up there, she was kind enough to send a link to the “go to” guide, as she called it,  for sheltering facilities.  The Document was 65 pages long and would be very complicated to an everyday reader.  After all, it was written by “highly qualified” doctors.  Big names like the University of California Davis, Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Rescue League of Boston, Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Director of Veterinary Outreach ASPCA, are flaunted across the third page of the document.  And the references, they are enough to make your head spin like THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES WAS USED SIX TIMES TO PROVE THEIR POINT.  It seems like Ms. Mary Beth Sweetland of The Humane Society of the United States would know when animal abuse is taking place.

Within the document located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website, a government agency, was “….whoever, having the charge or custody of an animal, either as owner or otherwise, inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon it, or unnecessarily fails to provide it with proper food, drink, shelter, sanitary environment, or protection from the weather….knowingly and willfully authorizes or permits it to be subjected to unnecessary torture suffering or cruelty of any kind commits the crime of CRUELTY TO ANIMALS”. (EMPHASIS ADDED)

What is “sanitary environment?”  According to the document, “The primary enclosure should be readily cleaned and disinfected.”  Now why wouldn’t Ms. Mary Beth Sweetland recognize that the cages in the video had feces and the report, located directly under the You Tube video,  showed that a “volunteer” was shown the conditions and the conditions were not brought up to standard according to the “go-to” guide “Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters”.

WHY is the question of the day.  Maybe it had something to do with the shelter that was being reported.  The specific shelter was The KOKOMO HUMANE SOCIETY OF KOKOMO INDIANA.  THE KOKOMO HUMANE SOCIETY, who is paid by the city of Kokomo,  received a grant from THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES IN 2010.  Why would the HSUS give a donation to a shelter that OBVIOUSLY commits animal abuse???????  And then, WHY would Ms. Mary Beth Sweetland, Director of Research and Investigations  of THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES not do anything about it after she knew there was a problem? And why wouldn’t the police department, after a report was made, not do a darn thing about it?  What’s an everyday citizen to do about government animal abuse?  Contact the USDA/APHIS?  Did that.  Not their Problem.